“Enough,” he said, his eyes closing. A hand brushed across his face in exhaustion.
“No,” argued Maeve calmly. With the slightest shake of her head, she refused to back down. “You dragged my baby boy into this. You will not put his life in danger.”
Mal’s hand dropped. That frown that somehow made him more enticing was directed fully at her. “Our.”
“What?” she snapped softly.
His chest rose.
Up.
“Our son.”
Down.
His Magic withdrew, no longer looming threateningly over her.
“Again,” he said hollowly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
She leaned forward in his chair. A blatant challenge. “Why, the moment you read these,” her fingers danced over the piles of letters, “didn’t you come to me?”
“Because until recently, they were blank. We’ve been under a spell for far too long, Maeve.”
She relaxed at his words, at some tiny shred of honesty at last. And so she offered him some in return.
“I want to break this spell of lies.”
Mal didn’t move towards her. He remained planted on the other side of the massive desk. “I’ve searched the Dread Spellbook. I’ve searched every writing on memory charms, spells that ensnare the mind, and nothing ever comes close to even touching on what this is. The Library here, the library at Vaukore. There is nothing.”
“If I did this,” she said hesitantly, eager not to anger him again, “then why was it you who felt it breaking before me?”
“Those damn potions,” he drawled, as though it was obvious.
Maeve nodded softly, looking back down at the letters.
“Could these be a trick as well?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“You are far too clever to believe that.”
The Dread Ring pulsed on her finger as though it begged her to feel every dark and intimate moment of their past again.
“And how would you know anything of my cleverness?” she fired back softly, brows flicking upward.
His slender fingers traced across the desktop between them absentmindedly. The motion made her stomach tight.
His voice was velvet. “You are in the dead blooms of hydrangea in the gardens. Your scent lingers in my chamber bed. In the Entrance Hall, I taste blood, and I know it is yours. I know little of you, and yet I know that you are mine.”
The words slammed into her like a physical blow.
The room darkened, shadowing everything but him. In a mist of black Magic, he stood beside her, his glistening eyes locked on her. Magic swirled under her chin, pulling her towards him. Only then did she realize there were small flecks of deep brown in them.
“You know that too,” he said lowly. “Don’t you?”
“I don’t have the luxury of believing what I feel.”
Mal’s fingers reached out, gently tapping along her temple. “You are of sound mind, Maeve.”
The magnetic pull between them intensified, pulling her towards him from where she sat.
