Strangely enough,she did.
Little Void leaned forward, her cheek kissing my fingers. This time, as I healed her, she didn’t break eye contact. As if she remembered my demand from so long ago.
Yes, Little Void, keep those eyes on me. Don’t ever take them away again.
I was losing my fucking mind.
Tershetta flinched backwards, pinching her eyes closed as if in desperate defiance of me. As if she knew how much I desired her and wanted me to suffer.
Okay, fine, I wanted her. Badly. Perhaps more than I had ever wanted anyone before. I couldn’t help it. I was a moth and she a flame, and I was willingly flying towards my fiery death.
What was I? A fucking poet now?
“Do you have a needle and thread anywhere?” Her voice was thick, her eyes blinking open as she closed her parted lips and flexed her round jaw.
My fingers still danced in the air, as if begging for her to humor me, but looking at her had me desperate to see if I still had those unruly curls. I dared to grip my hair, finding the thick strands once more straight. I touched my nose, my eyebrows, and then my lips. All the while, Tershetta watched.
“I already gave you the antidote. You’re lucky I bothered to brew one. Otherwise, you’d look like me for about two days.”
In my mind, I recalled my reflection in the puddle, how startlingly unlike myself I had looked. For all my life, I had reveled in my pale hair and grey eyes, because that was how every Altair heir had looked. I was a product of careful breeding and vicious planning. Once, I had thought that a gift. Ever since I left that cell I grew more convinced it was a selfish curse.
“I didn’t mind.”
She tried to hide the surprise, but I saw it in the twitch of her brows, the way her mouth opened and closed. I was enjoying shocking her. In fact, I was quite sure I could do it for ages.
“Regardless, you do look like yourself again. I need a needle and thread though. Do you have any?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a needle in my life.” I couldn’t stop the smile that lifted my cheeks as she rolled her eyes.
“Of course you haven’t.” She leaned back as she sighed, her hand landing so close to my thigh that I felt my still hard cock twitch. Thank the stars it wasn’t my chest that was injured. “Let me see if I still have my mother’s kit in my bag. One second.”
Then she was gone, the bed rising in her absence and a hollowness in the air she had once claimed. Father’s voice was loud in my mind as I watched her walk away.
She’s a foul mistake. A crime against nature. We are the servants of the stars, and their boredom is our greatest fear. She is the product of that boredom. She is the real curse.
He often said that every of eadi was a punishment. A warning. We were too complacent, too uninteresting, and so they awarded an eadi magic to remind us of who was truly in charge.
Tershetta was proof that he was wrong, and I only wished I could dig the thoughts out of my head. Could free myself from the torment of Father’s incessant monologue.
She bent low, sifting through her bag. I watched in awe as she stuck her entire arm inside, her shoulder nearly sinking into the fabric as she dug for what she needed. Her eyes momentarily flicked towards me, a barely-there smirk lifting the left half of her mouth before she dipped her head inside the bag. Perhaps my Little Void enjoyed surprising me too.
“Yes!” she cheered, sitting up and raising a small silver box up into the air. Murder twirled around her ankles, arching her tiny back and flicking her long tail. I was—unfortunately—growing fond of the beast. “Once again, you prove to be one of the luckiest men alive.”
“Lucky? I’m resourceful, smart, and determined. That’s not luck, that’s hard work.” A half-lidded gaze with a quirked lip wasall she offered, and that simply wouldn’t do. “I’ll give you one thing, my otherworldly good looks are a bit of good fortune.”
Snorting softly, she shook her head and sat back down on the bed. I tried to catch sight of what her fingers were doing as she pulled out items, but she kept them too low. “You’re so in love with yourself. I can’t believe you ever had the time to so much as look at Otarn and Cap—”
There it was, the one thing that could truly dampen the mood. On the bright side, I definitely wasn’t hard anymore. Tershetta was quiet, as if she knew what she had said was somehow offensive or wrong. Her breathing grew rapid and loud, and I felt my own speed up, keeping time with hers.
Maybe I could tell her the truth. Perhaps she wouldn’t judge me or think I was weak.
Or, possibly, she’d think I was a spineless man just like Father did.
“Talon did it,” she whispered. I tilted my head farther, twisting my back too much and wincing as I stretched the wound. Her eyes were downcast, lips pursed. Sniffing twice, she grabbed a thick leather band off her wrist and wrestled her hair into a knot atop her head. Sighing heavily, she continued, “Talon killed my family. He…well, he said it was the only way to help me reach my potential.”
My heart felt like it might burst out of my chest. I wondered inwardly if I’d known that all along. I’d seen the way Talon had begun to fall apart. It hadn’t even started with Tershetta. Truthfully, it was the summer before Elite Academy. When Priya said he’d been beaten to near death.
“Why did you let everyone believe you did it? Your friends, the elites…me?” A daunting silence overtook the small space between us, my back aching from the way my right hip sunk in where Tershetta sat. “You let me say awful things to you inthat cell. You didn’t even try to defend yourself. It doesn’t make sense.”
