OK. The nerves were back. With avengeance. My mouth suddenly dry, I let my tongue dart out to wet my lips. His sight stars tightened, a shuddering twitch.
“Oh. I hadn’t really thought about it.”Lies.I had thought about it. “Whenever works for you, I guess-”
“Now.”
“Right now?”
“Unless that is not agreeable to you.”
I couldn’t think of a reason that it wouldn’t be agreeable. I’d just told him that we could go whenever he wanted to. And this would be another chance at the mission I’d made for myself. My goal of getting to know him, of understanding him.
“That’s fine.”
I sensed a slight hesitation in him, like he’d expected me to reject him, and now had to recalibrate himself due to my answer.
“Very well. This way.”
He led me from the hall, and we turned down a stony path I’d never taken before. We moved deeper, lower through the mountain, until the air took on a damp, cool quality that made me regret leaving my jacket behind in our sleeping caves. Gahn Thaleo walked slightly ahead of me at first, but fell back until we strode side by side. Once again, he was immaculate in his ability not to touch me, even in the narrow spaces. I wasn’t so graceful as him, unfortunately. A couple of missteps sent my bare arm bumping his, gooseflesh expanding over my skin at the contact.
The lanterns were few and far between in this area, as if Gahn Thaleo and his people hadn’t expected much human traffic down here. And soon, they disappeared entirely. I blinked, my eyes very wide as we pressed into the oncoming blackness, the last light of the lantern receding behind us.
Pride kept me going longer than I should have. Once the last lantern was behind us, I truly couldn’t see a goddamn thing. But I didn’t want to ask for help. So I continued walking blindly forward until a strong hand seized me by the arm, a rough whisper of “Careful” echoing. I stopped short, then raised my hands in front of my face. I’d nearly walked into an outcropping of stone.
“I can’t see,” I finally admitted.
“The spinners require darkness,” Gahn Thaleo said after a moment. His hand was still on my arm. “We could not extend the lanterns down here.”
“If they like pitch blackness, maybe there isn’t much point in me going any further,” I said, shoving away an unexpected niggle of disappointment. “I won’t be able to see them.”
“You will,” he disagreed.
“How?”
“You’ll see.”
I pressed my lips together, my teeth biting at them from the inside. Gahn Thaleo was nothing but the velvet whisper of a silhouette before me. I couldn’t even tell where the walls were down here. We could be in a claustrophobic bit of tunnel or a wide-open cave for all I knew. And all he’d said was, “You’ll see.”
He was asking me to trust him.
Rebellion seemed the only reasonable response to his request. How could I possibly trust him, after everything he’d done?
I almost said as much. But the words caught in my throat as his hand began a delectably slow slide down my arm, the calloused pads of his fingers tracing the veins of my wrist. When he reached my hand, he closed his fingers around it.
“I can show you,” he said. A new, husky quality had entered his voice. My breath quickened. I didn’t feel cold anymore.
“OK.”
The reply was out of my mouth before I could call it back. I was really about to let this man lead me alone into absolute darkness. He moved, and so did I.
Just like that evening by the mountain pool, he held my hand so delicately. But this time, my hand wasn’t clenched in a fist inside his. He held my hand somewhat flat and aloft, at the height of my own ribcage, like a male ballet dancer would hold a ballerina’s on stage. I only realized he was holding my left hand with his own left hand when his free right hand settled on my shoulder.
“Careful,” he said again, steering me gently around something unseen.
“Is that what you are?” My voice was a hushed squeak. “Careful?” If I didn’t distract myself with some kind of conversation, I knew I was in danger of combusting under the terribly powerful feeling of Gahn Thaleo holding me in the dark. His hand swallowed my entire shoulder.
“I believe so,” he said. “Would you not describe me thus?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied honestly. “It’s part of the reason I’m here with you now. To learn more about you, I guess.”
