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“Your friend is the reason you took it in the first place. You wanted to show her that you can be normal again. And she accepted it without further suspicion. She didn’t notice when your laugh was off. When you weren’t yourself.”

Mira walked past him. “Shut up.” Ella had seen what she wanted to see. The old Mira. Happy. Her time for healing from her trauma was up. Nobody understood it anymore. Not even herself.

He grabbed her by her arm, and she’d had enough of his games.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said with satisfaction.

She tried to free herself but his grip on her only tightened. “I think I figured it out,” she hissed, meeting his silver eyes. “Whatever pain you’re going through—pain that you’re not even sharing with your friends—it makes you feel better when you see that same pain mirrored in my eyes.”

He remained silent and bit his teeth together with force.

“My friend actually cares about me,” she continued. “She wants me to get better.”

Cold air brushed through her curls but didn’t seem to touch him, as if he commanded the air around them. Perhaps he did.

“No, she wants you to be like you were before. She wants the good little Caster girl back.” He pulled her closer until his breath danced over her skin. “She simply doesn’t understand you anymore. She’s trying to help someone who is drowning by giving them more water. And she doesn’t even notice it. But I do. I see you drowning.”

Emptiness closed its fist around Mira. She was nothing. Worth nothing. The feeling pressed in on her chest again. She had to get away from him. In the turmoil of her emotions, she searched for her Dark Magic, but she found nothing but chaos.

She tried to shove him away, but he pushed her against a shelf. Books tumbled down around her.

“I’m not leaving you alone with this, even if I have to tie you up.”

He placed his left arm above her, caging her in.

She switched tactics; perhaps this would get him to admit defeat. “Were you jealous?”

Surely, the pride of a Dawson would command him to let her go now. His left eye twitched for a second and he held his breath.

His voice was reduced to a whisper when he answered. “Yes.”

She froze and waited for him to make a sarcastic comment, but he didn’t. She pushed by him but didn’t get very far as he whirled her against him, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and bent her neck back. Cold lips crashed on hers with a punishing kiss. His mouth pressed against hers hard, his kiss a hungry storm. It was exactly what she needed. She wanted it to sting. To burn more than the scar on her arm.

Everything around her fell away as she tasted him, as his tongue moved against hers. He pressed her against the bookshelf again, and his hand gripped her waist. She was liquid in his arms.

If he was the fire she was dancing with, she wanted him to burn her so she could feel something other than the emptiness inside her.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” he said against her lips in the dark as he leaned in closer. His thigh pressed between her legs. Every inch that disappeared between them made her breath hitch. “Say it and I stop.”

The rational part of her wanted to push him away, scream at him even. But that part of her stayed silent.

“Tell me you didn’t imagine my hands on your body instead of his.” Dawson’s hand slowly moved across her rib cage. Her heartbeat was in her throat. “Lie,” he insisted. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

Was everything a game to him? A game he presumed himself to be winning? If he thought she was going to back down, he didn’t know her very well.

“Only if you do,” she responded.

For one glorious moment, she rendered him speechless, desire written in his eyes and in each breath he heaved.

She had never been a convincing liar, and she was certain he could read every reaction of her body, no matter how much she tried to hide it, certain her own desire was written across her features just as his was.

Their eyes locked in a silent battle. Whoever gave in first would lose. So neither of them moved in for another kiss.

A sharp grin tugged on his lips. “Are you challenging me? An ill-advised game, but let’s play.”

“Game?” she asked with a swallow. “I don’t even know the rules.”

He huffed out a breath. “Oh, I think you do. You set them.”