“What are we doing, Allie?” he asked so calmly, like asking about the constant menacing weather.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m on the verge of cursing your name.”
“Careful.” A grin twisted his lips. “You should know better than anyone how deadly name curses can be.”
I narrowed my eyes up at him, trying my best to disregard the way our chests touched for the briefest moments with each inhale, like our bodies wanted so badly to betray the distance I wanted to keep.
“Of course I know,” I bit out. “How do you?”
Protectorate name curses were feared for a reason, but one hadn’t been cast in our generation.
Ryker’s grin simply widened. His eyes no longer sparked, turning darker the longer he stared at me.
My heart began to gallop as the angles of his face sharpened with each one of my breaths he inhaled.
His fingers twined the ends of my hair, like he had before. But while he’d been patient and soothing on that morning, his energy now came loose at the edges.
He looked at me like he wanted to devour me–and if I didn’t move, I might have let him.
With more effort than it should have taken me, I slipped under his arm, moving a safe enough distance away that I couldn’t do something stupid. Like slide my hands up his chest.
“So, what, I can’t leave now?” I asked, throat parched.
“I told from the first day. You are no prisoner.” He opened one of the doors wide, leaning against it. Daring me. “Run, if you must.”
“I am not running.” I bared my teeth.
“Aren’t you?” He tilted his head to the side, gaze turning possessive as he drank me in. “And you want me to keep coming after you.”
That was the problem with the shadows one kept hidden.
Light always seemed to find them.
The comment slashed through me, pricking the exact impulses I barely acknowledge, let alone voice.
How could I even begin to explain–to myself, to him, to the gods above who surely must have been frowning down at me–that the big, bad Huntress didn’t run away from a battle, but herself? And that yes, I did want him to keep up with me. Because maybe, just maybe, if he cared enough to want to see me, the whole me, I could bear to face myself.
“No?” He chuckled low in his throat. “Very well.”
Eyes locked to mine, he closed the door slowly, sliver by sliver, allowing me every chance to slip away. I didn’t take any.
Instead, I stood there, a dangerous, twisted curiosity pulling at my senses.
No matter how I tried to explain it away, I’d wanted to stay.
Here, alone with him, surrounded by the chaos I’d brought down into the room.
Ryker’s grin didn’t leave his face as he stepped toward me.
I stepped back. All of my previous courage vanished in one gulp that echoed in the stillness of the room.
“Why should things be so complicated?” he drawled, prowling closer. The heat from the fireplace was nothing compared to the spark between us.
“Because you make them so,” I said, voice wavering.
One step.
Another retreat.
