Only two pieces of the metal remained on me, one dainty circle around each wrist, not even attached, leaving my hands free.
I sat up on the bed. Dray kept his back to me. Only the rise and fall of his shoulders identified him as alive and not a man sculpted from stone.
Nervousness made me want to twist my fingers together, but I fisted them into the blanket to avoid the habit. I had very few illusions about what this night with the Reaper held for me. I only wondered why he paused.
Dray finally turned back toward me. All that anger only hinted in his eyes downstairs, now burned hot and wild. The stubble around his chin enhanced the air of danger pouring from the stiffness of his body language.
I didn’t want to admit his attractiveness, especially when he handled me so roughly, but it was there nonetheless. Muscled shoulders bit into a hardened waist, leather hugging the toned places. Were he a man in the tavern drunk on too much ale, I’d have been happy to share his bed for the night. But Dray held a warrant for my death.
His gaze left my face and traveled over my body. It almost scratched at my skin while he studied me, as though I’d already shed my clothes and stood naked before him. I tried to swallow – damn this curse that stole so much as a protest – but my mouth felt too dry.
“You must wonder why I have not begun your punishment already.” He spoke slowly, deliberately, each word flushed with rage. Dray lifted his arm to peer at the almost healed wound where I’d stabbed him. More than a metal-mover, he also possessed healing abilities. He turned back to me. “I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t kill you instead.”
Something metallic tried to climb up my throat. Perhaps a quick death would have been better than whatever anger brewed in his mind at this moment.
The room offered little for hiding or escape. A slim bed, a small chest of drawers with a pitcher and glass perched atop it, and a high window barely wide enough for my head to fit through. Nothing able to be used as a weapon. Not even a painting settled on the blank walls.
Dray caught me with his eyes and stalked across the room. Each step carried a twisting mix of anger and temptation. He stopped in front of me, staring down, and layers of heat brushed over my skin.
Instincts inside me screamed to run, but the part that was once prey knew the opportunity for escape past long ago.
He reached down and circled his fingers around my neck. I grabbed at his wrist with both hands, but his arm didn’t so much as shake from my effort. I couldn’t even yelp as he pulled me to my feet, then onto my tip-toes, until our eyes became level.
“I’ve thought of something better than your head on my floor.” He pulled me from the bed and I tried to balance my toes on the floor enough to keep air in my lungs. My struggle ignited a spark of enjoyment in his eyes. “My head, inside you.”
My back hit the wall. I expected him to loosen his grip, but he tightened the hold. The air in my chest froze, unable to seep around his hand. A pounding sound began low in my ears – an audible clock counting down the moments I had left.
The silver filaments on his chest quivered. The metal took a liquid quality and melted across the Reaper’s skin toward me. Icy coolness contradicted the heat of his hand on my throat as the metal licked up my neck and coiled over my arms. The two bracelets on my wrists flared to life, attracted toward one another as water to downstream. My hands snapped together, bound once more.
Dray’s look turned smug. The trailing metal joined the bindings and connected seamlessly, as though having come from the same molten pour. It reached to the wall over my head and dragged my hands along with it.
The silver burrowed into the wall, then stilled. I pulled on my wrists, though darkness claimed my vision as oxygen faded from my brain, but the metal did not slip or quiver. I skirted on my toes and my arms pulled painfully. Attempting to kick the man would jerk them hard, causing immense pain.
The Reaper had me trapped.
“Much better,” he murmured, his breath against my cheek suddenly much more ominous. He loosened the grip around my neck and I sucked in air. Sweet relief cleared the spots from my mind, leaving me a sharpened image of my predicament.
Dray stepped back, and a touch of coolness replaced him. The temperature heightened my nerves. Every brush of the silver on my skin felt like a warning, an expectation, for what would come next.
The rest of the silver puddled onto the floor, rivulets of molten metal waiting for the Reaper’s command – the same way I did. He unbuttoned the leather armor and tossed it onto the bed, revealing a thin white tunic beneath. The trousers followed, a black undergarment hiding his body from me.
Before throwing the trousers down, Dray reached into the pocket. A sliver of hope that he reached for the orb to return it to me filtered into my mind, then slipped away. The Curse Catchers always completed their tasks, and Dray’s was to see me dead.
Eventually.
Instead, he withdrew a silver dagger.
I sucked in a breath. If he planned to torture me, he’d gain little with his quest. Even if I had the information the King desperately wanted, where every curse-bearer in the kingdom hid, I’d be unable to utter a single word.
Still, he neared me. I bit my tongue and wished that a scream would bubble from my locked throat, just this once.
Dray set the blade against my collarbone.
“I will admit, no target has ever drawn my blood.” He flicked the blade, skirting barely over my skin, to slice away the shoulder seam of my dress. It fell, leaving my linen chest band exposed. “There was a fire in your eyes when you stuck the blade into me.” He flicked the other side and my dress caught around my waist. “I liked it.” The dagger dragged down the fabric at my waist and the dress fell to the floor. “I want to see it again.”
My chest tightened. Only the band around my breasts and short breeches hid my body. Fear pounded my heart faster and faster, and that metallic flavor in my mouth grew more defined.
And yet.
