“Samson, you brute,” she said, her voice muffled by his shoulder.
“Elena, you terror.”
She smelled of ash and blood and sweat. She was dirty and covered in grime that clung to his clothes, his skin. But he did not care. He only held her closer, his face buried in her hair, his arms wrapped around her small back, and felt, for once in his life, a lucky, lucky man. Finally, after some time, he pulled away and she looked up, smiling.
“I should have known it would not be easy getting rid of you,” she teased.
“You’ll have to try harder next time.”
Though she remained smiling, he noticed something change in her eyes. That quick shift. That look he could never catch but ached to know. There was so much he wished he knew about her, so much he wished to rectify. All those arguments, all those fights, seemed petty now. He saw the faded marks on her neck and swallowed his hot tide of guilt.
She touched the rim of her nose and drew away flakes of blood. “Strange,” she muttered.
“What is it? Did the Jantari hurt you? Did they…” He trailed off. He could never forget the muffled screams of women as Jantari officers pulled them from their beds within the mines. The taste of his bitter rage, the acidity of his own helplessness.
Elena caught the look in his eyes. “No,” she said gently. “It— I am just tired, that’s all.”
Out of habit, he reached for her Agni. And recoiled. It was like touching a beam of steel, baked in the sun. But then the feeling passed, the pain subdued with a corded disquiet, and he tasted something spoiled.Wrong.There was a taint in the immaterial shape of her spark, small and nearly translucent. He would have missed it had he not been familiar with her Agni. If Elena felt something amiss, she did not show it. She sighed and rubbed the blood off her fingers, and he thought,It’s because she’s tiredandShe still cannot sense when I probe our connection.
Elena turned back to the desk and reached for the kit.
“C-can I?” he said, pointing to her arm.
She sat on the edge of the desk as he unrolled a fresh strip of bandage. His fingers brushed the tender underside of her arm, and Elena stiffened. But his eyes fell to the sudden rise of her chest, the quick intake of her breath. He slowed. Kept his touch gentle, light.
“Doesn’t look too deep of a cut,” he whispered.
Elena turned, and he felt the intense heat of her gaze graze his jaw, his neck. He tried not to focus on how the soft hairs of her arm were brushed gold in the light, or how the lines of her throat quivered as she swallowed, or how his breath became smaller, shallower.
“Here, would you…?” He raised her arm and set her hand on his shoulder so he could wipe the dried blood on her elbow. Her fingers pressed into his skin, firm, warm.
“Who taught you medical aid?” she asked.
“Yassen, actually.”
“Really?”
“I’m not sure where he learned, but once, when I was stupid and injured, he taught me how to clean my wounds.”
“Stupid and injured. Sounds like the lot of us.”
He chuckled, and he felt the tension slowly seep off her shoulders.
“I once bandaged Yassen’s arm like this,” she said with a wistfulness that sent an ache through him, not in jealousy, but because he could feel the memory of her pain beneath it.
“Yassen was jumpy about injuries. I bet he couldn’t sit still.”
“No,” she laughed. “But to be fair, he required stitches.”
“Oh, I’m sure Yassen had no problem being pierced by you,” he said.
Her eyes lifted, crashing into his. “Would you?”
Somewhere between his chest and his throat, between his destiny and his desire, she caught him. Samson felt too bare, too seen. Heat licked down his neck and spine. But something else threaded beneath his discomfort. A breathless exhilaration, like the first time he had sailed. Or the first time he had commanded Agni and felt power rush through his veins. He felt hers now, still open, still unaware. How could she sit here so calmly and eviscerate him so easily?
As Samson looked into her eyes, he felt his despair surrender, his alarm heighten.
“You terrify me,” he said softly.
