Apparently, Alora’s refusal to admit anything fueled his fury. She could feel the uncontrolled energy encircling them both the longer she kept her lips pressed tight. The Urchin bent forward, his masked mouth unbearably near her own.
“Answer me.”
“Fine,” Alora snapped. “I was there, and the trespasser is now lost, just as Mister Macaw said.”
“Mister Macaw said? He should not be speaking of it to you at all!”
The incredulity she felt over where her dream’s path had brought her was unmatched. She laughed, biting and hysterical. “What is this madness? Opulence Mansion and its exclusivity, harboring some festered secret society full of black-market dealings and muscled goons. I can’t hardly stand it! This is Enver, city of enchantment and dreams. I came here to escape, not be pulled down again to a pit of wolves.”
She should be careful; her laugh was well on its way to becoming a sob. She’d so much hope for the road ahead, only now there was a wall of darkness standing in her way. Quite literally. She wanted to pound against it, scale it, anything but remain here like another helpless victim of Opulence. And she would have. She would have tried anything. But unfortunately for her, her ankle abruptly decided itself unfit to endure what little weight she pressed upon it—and buckled.
The Urchin’s arms were swift to catch her, his grip hard around her waist. How quickly he’d forgotten she’d told him not to touch her.
How slow she was at reminding him.
Alora felt his hood brush her hair as he bent nearer. “Are you injured or unwell?”
“Injured,” she told him, honestly. Because while he’d certainly hurt others, he hadn’t hurt her. Not yet.
At the least, she expected his hands to remain where they were until she regained her footing enough that he could interrogate her further. At most, she thought he might offer a shoulder to assist her in hobbling home. What she did not expect was for the Urchin to sink onto one knee. Alora stared at the top of his covered head in blatant shock, her mouth wide. A memory, albeit a distorted one, niggled at her mind. Of her once wishing for exactly this—and why she wished it. Her cheeks burned.
One gloved hand remained at her waist while the other skimmed her side, down the curve of her hip and thigh, all the way to her pulsing ankle. She gasped at his prodding, and not all of it pain.
“It isn’t broken,” he told her.
“I didn’t think it was.”
“But it’s swollen. You will need to be off your feet for some time unless it’s mended now.” His thumb brushed over her joint like a caress, and Alora felt the uptick in her heartbeat. When she thought it impossible to beat any faster.
She swallowed. “The doctor’s then.”
“Inefficient places,” he scoffed, and rose to his feet.
“Do you have a better suggestion? Are you also a gifted healer as well as capable of casting out light?” She tried to add bite to her words, but his hand remained at her waist, searing her to distraction.
“Cast out light? What do you think I do? Play with the paltry shadows?” He loomed over her then, mask reflecting moonlight, eyes a pool of black. The air pulsed. “I take light and break it, Miss Pennigrim. And there’s no escape from me unless I wish it.”
The darkness threatened to consume her.Hethreatened it.
She’d been subjected to the former before and it terrified her. But a part—a small, incredibly unwise part—twinged with curiosity over the latter.What might it be like?
“Tell me, Miss Pennigrim. When did you forget to fear me?”
I honestly can’t say.
Instead, she glared up at him. And she continued to do so, even when the darkness grew, and the black overtook them both.
Chapter Eighteen
The darkness receded, black to gray, gray to dim lamplight. A room materialized, large and furnished with supple leather sofas and high-backed chairs. Alora blinked slowly against the change, forcing her breaths deep rather than shallow. Both were recommended to her by the Urchin releasing her now.
But she didn’t, couldn’t have, accounted for his hands to move. To slip the strap from her ankle and remove her shoe with a gentleness so at odds with the look of him. She bit at the inside of her cheek as she studied his profile.
“These are the shoes you chose when digging for secrets in the dark?”
Alora scowled at his shadowed hood when it turned toward her. “I wasnotdigging. It was happenstance. I was at the end of a date when I saw that man.”
“A date?”
