Page 86

But somehow I am instantly compliant beneath him, pouring into the space he holds for me.

“You smell like him,” he says.

I inhale. “Are you jealous?”

I can’t see the future like the West, but I knew every choice I made before now would lead me here.

“Yes,” he admits, because denying it would make him look weak when we both know the answer.

And something tells me the Wizard holds his confidence in extremely high regard.

“He’ll never give you what you want.”

I wiggle beneath him, but he holds me firmly in his grip and an excited little breath stutters down my throat.

“And what is it I want?”

His leans into me, not a quarter’s width of air between us, and when his mouth finds the soft shell of my ear, my body betrays me, shivering beneath him. “To love and be loved in equal measure.”

I expected him to say something snarky, something about pleasure or power or victory.

Instead, he has sliced me open and scooped out my insides.

Tears quickly well in my eyes, the truth so visceral, I’m nearly trembling from it.

“But maybe that’s why you’ve found yourself with him. Because a heartless man can never give you what you want, so there is no risk in being denied it.”

“Or maybe I just sought pleasure. Maybe I took from both of you exactly what I needed.”

He chuckles, his body vibrating against mine.

“Maybe so and yet, here you are, with me.”

“Not by choice.”

“The slippers say otherwise.”

Still holding on to me, he flips me around so that we face one another. This close to him, his green eyes are piercing and a little unnerving. I never bothered to ask Tin what Rook’s powers are. Can he see into the future? Can he penetrate the mind and see to the core of someone?

It’s terrifying, the vastness of his capabilities and the insufficiencies of mine.

I feel like all those rabbits Toto hunted, scruff caught in his maw, feet scrabbling for purchase on ground that never gave.

The rabbits were always desperate to go somewhere and went nowhere faster.

And Tin’s words keep running through my mind.

Take a step in a direction, any direction, and do something.…

I shift my weight to my left foot and press back against the wall, bracing myself. If Rook notices, he doesn’t react.

Pity for him.

I swing up with my right knee, catching him between the legs.

A gasp of air huffs out of him and he staggers back, eyes watering.

I take the opening and rush him, knife out. There is no thought of consequence or regret when I sink the blade into his gut.