I feigned a stretch.
“Gods, I’m hungry.”
I set my feet on the cold floor.
“D’you have time for a bit of supper before you leave?”
My knees were trembling as I eased to standing.
It took me just a half beat too long to force my muscles into action, to take that first terrifying step in the suddenly vast distance to the door.
“Rosie.”
Caelan’s voice was flat, yet somehow commanding enough that my steps faltered without my say-so. I glanced over my shoulder, but my smile was too forced – too obvious of an afterthought. When our eyes met there was no denying what we both knew. The very air between us had grown thin, buzzing with the same dull static that filled my ears and overwhelmed my every sense.
“Rosie,” he said again. It was a whisper, a warning, a plea.
I bolted.
I had never moved so fast in my life, but Caelan struck like the Serpent he was and we both slammed into the closed door in the same instant.
“Don’t go out there,” he growled. “Listen to me.”
I had done nothingbutlisten, and now I could only run. I yanked at the door handle and when Caelan pried me away, I twisted my wrist in his grip and clapped my hand around his forearm, calling my Flame to burn my skin beneath his palm – but it resisted even as it burst forth, refusing to do anything more than lick at his wrists.
Help me,I screamed into the roiling inferno within, but Iwas met with a wall of defiance.
“You can’t hurt me, Rosie. You know you can’t, and you know why.”
LikefuckI couldn’t.
I called my Flame again, to my own palms this time, and lunged for the doorhandle once more.
“Rosie, don’t –”
Caelan’s grasp landed over mine again, and I pulled my hand out from beneath his in a flash. He jolted back, yelping as the glowing metal bit into his palm, and in that split second, I wrenched the door open andran.
I dodged around the desk outside my door, then spun on an impulse and thrust a burst of fire from my hand. My Flame might refuse to hurt him directly but he wasn’t fucking fireproof. My fire hit its target, the lantern on the tabletop bursting in angry orange light before I knocked it off the table with one almighty swipe. It smashed at Caelan’s feet just as he emerged from my room, and I willed the fire to flare, catching the ends of his cloak and sending him stumbling back with a string of curses.
I dove across the room for the tavern door, snatching the key from the inside lock as I went. I half-turned as I fell through it to see Caelan still stamping out his burning cloak beneath his boots.
Our eyes met for a split second and I didn’t think his had ever been so violently green, the sharpest I’d ever seen them. I didn’t have time to read that look; I’d never been able to read him anyway, not really. Now I knew why. I slammed the door shut and scrabbled to stab the key through the lock, my breath coming in shallow, trembling pants. The lock slid home barely a moment before the handle gave a violent rattle and I jumped back.
“Rosie!”
I took another step back, still staring at the door like I could see through it to Caelan on the other side.
“Rosie,open the door.”
The whole door shuddered in its frame, and I flinched, chestheaving so hard I wasn’t entirely sure if I was gasping or sobbing.
“Rosie, please listen to me. Please open the door.”
“I can’t.”
Sobbing.
A handle rattled, but this time it wasn’t Caelan’s furious attempts on the inner door. I spun, clapping a hand over my mouth to trap a small scream as the front door shuddered beneath another unseen fist.
