“I said,” I breathed, “it’s mine.”
He looked down at the blade. Then up at me.
The room went still. Even Ivan didn’t speak. The guards held their breath.
Only the flames crackled.
Vael’s expression didn’t change—but something behind his eyes… shifted.
That familiar flicker. Not anger. Not surprise.
Amusement.
He reached out—not toward me, but to gently press his fingers against the blade’s flat edge. Testing it. Testingme.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured.
“Because having you this close to me makes me want to puke.” I spat at him. “Now back up!”
Vael’s lips twitched.
Not into a snarl.
Into a smile.
“Ah,” he murmured. “There she is.”
He stepped back—but slowly. Deliberately. Like indulging a child mid-tantrum. The knife still hovered between us, but thedanger wasn’t in the blade—it was inhim. In the way he looked at me now.
“You’ll learn to sheath that sharp tongue eventually,” he said softly. “You always did.”
“Touch me again,” I said, voice low, “and I’ll show you how sharp it really is.”
For a breath, I thought he might retaliate. That the guards would seize me. That Ivan would laugh.
I clung to the knife like it was the only real thing in the room. But his hand was already closing around the handle—warm, crackling with restrained energy.
I didn’t let go. Not at first.
But the moment the electric charge sparked against my palm, something in my nerves screameddon’t push him.
So I let it go.
Vael held it for a moment longer than necessary. Turned it in his hand like it amused him.
“Such fire,” he murmured, brushing a thumb along the flat edge before passing it to a guard. “You always did like playing with sharp things.”
My stomach churned.
Ivan rose slowly from his seat, the picture of civility. But his eyes…
Gods, those eyes. They saw too much.
“It’s fine, Vael,” he said smoothly. “Another time.”
But there was something beneath the words. A dark curiosity that made me shiver.
Then he turned to me.
