She twirled her leg again. The pot of tea burst against the floor, drops landing into the fire with a sizzle.
“Then you got all dressed up, held me in your arms on the roof, and left formycousin’s wedding.” She stopped in front of me, tall and unflinching. I tilted my chin as far as it could go to keep looking into her furious eyes. “And you didn’t tell me anything. No warning.”
Slowly, with the precision of a predator, she crouched until we were eye level, leaning forward.
She stopped when her mouth was only a breath away from mine.
As if on command, my lips parted.
“Do you remember all of that?” she breathed into me.
“Yes.”
“Good,” was all she said before I felt the tip of the dagger press into my neck.
Chapter 28
Allie
“You have a strange habit of threatening me with sharp things,” he rumbled, the vibrations coursing from his throat, through the dagger, up my hand, and straight into my heart.
After an entire day of fretting, cursing, and trying to ignore that awful pressure building inside of me, just being in the same room as him stole the breath away from me.
Those few sips of wine hadn’t helped, either.
The room felt too hot, he was too infuriating, and I was too enraged.
I’d kept my emotions as fastened as I could, but they were threatening to spill out with every cold word I wanted to roar.
“I do. If only it made a difference.” I sighed dramatically. Anything to disguise the splinter in my chest. “But you keep hiding things from me.”
The dagger’s blade scraped his neck–not hard enough to pierce that precious skin of his, but slow enough to leave an angry red mark behind–reaching the tip of his chin.
There was no fear in his eyes, but his nostrils flared.
“Do you really want to kill me?” he asked, sounding resigned.
“Gods, no.” Despite my anger, even the idea of it made me recoil. I didn’t move the weapon, though. “We still need you to win the war.”
Hurt sparked in his eyes.
I told myself to be glad of it.
“It stings to only be viewed as a pawn, doesn’t it?” I bit out. “To not have control.”
“I have given you all the control I can,” he said, disappointed. So very human.
“I’m not talking about me,” I hissed. Though I didn’t feel in control, I still had enough sanity to recognize Silas was my true enemy. But what good was an ally who kept such secrets? “Evie had no clue what was waiting for her when she agreed to marry your Dragon. I didn’t, either. Because you didn’t sayanything.”
The Dragon had broken Evie’s heart, but Ryker had been the one to break my trust.
He sighed, long and hard.
“Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” he said, half-hopeful, half-dreading.
“Oh, I would have,” I said without a hint of doubt.
I’d wrestled with the thought since I’d closed the palaver. I could smell the political machinations from miles away and I hadn’t detected any lie when Ryker had told me it would protect Evie.
