Evander pushed past me without answering, unbuckling his sword belt as he went. He laid it reverently upon the bed and perched himself at the foot. The man looked like a bad omen, all clad in black, stark against the light hues and harsh morning sun that filled my chamber.
“Close the door, Imogen.”
My breath caught at the soft, emotionless command. I threw the door shut, never taking my eyes from him.
“Lock it and come here.”
“I asked you what you wanted.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Imogen. Lock it. And come here.”He bent to retrieve the gown and fresh chemise that Agatha had dropped. “Let me help you.”
I was a mouse, and this was the cat’s gentle play before it sank its teeth in. “I can dress myself.”
The way he looked at me was so close to the way he had last night. His gaze was heated, but a shadow swam through it now. He’d seen the dark thing within me, and it had changed him. Changed us. “Come here.”
I took a cautious step forward. Then another. When I was near enough, he leaned forward and took my hand. Hard fingers kneaded my hips as he placed me between his open legs. I tensed as his arm slipped around me, holding me still and close. “I still want you.” He looked up into my eyes. “I’ll admit I’m… shocked.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “But… Nemea doesn’t need to know.”
I set my hands to his wide shoulders and pushed. “This is a trick.”
“No,” he said, his hold on me unrelenting. “No trick.” I tried to hide my wince as he set the gentlest kiss to the middle of my chest. “I came to apologize. For hurting you.” He pulled back and swiped at the angry red puncture marks I’d left on his own neck.
“I don’t understand.” My blood screamed in my ears. “You can’t possibly still want me.”
He gave me a solemn nod.
“You kill my kind. You areorderedto do so. Why would you want to marry me now that you know what I am?”
“Besides the fact that I’ve come to… love you—”
I flinched.Lovewas not something I’d ever hoped for. It was not something I’d ever felt. I’d read great love stories; I’d spoken to maids with blood in their cheeks and stars in their eyes over a quiet stable hand or handsome soldier. And always, love struck me as something soft and incessant. It seemed lavish, sometimes foolish,dangerous even, but it was never threaded with terror, like what I felt now. Like Evander had felt last night when I’d drawn his blood.
He drew his thumb across my lower lip, dragging my attention back to him. “You grew up away from your kind,” he said. “You’re nothing like the rest of them. You’re docile. And there are benefits for me. Do you know of the Siren’s blood bond?”
I knew enough. A Siren was tied to the sea and the air. Their power and instinct to drown was made stronger by their proximity to it. The blood bond dulled this instinct. It kept the person the Siren was bonded to safe from the lure of other Sirens. The bonded pair would be compelled to protect one another at all costs. But up in the mountains, I was simply a woman. My instincts and power were all but dead.
“The bond is painful,” I said. “And there’s no need. What happened last night won’t happen again.” I’d keep away from wine. He’d scrub himself clean after being on the sea.
His hand rose to my jaw, fingers curling around it. He spoke slow and clear. “I do not want a wife that can kill me.”
My stomach plummeted. “The blood bond is treasonous.”
“I said Nemea didn’t need to know.” He released me and shook out the gown. Guiding me by the hips, he turned me, so my back faced him. He slipped my bloodstained chemise from my shoulders, letting it fall to a puddle around my feet. The cold air on my naked body raised bumps on my skin. He set his fingertips beside the open wounds at my shoulder blades. “Did you know…” His lips brushed my shoulder. “… that if you were down by the water this would have healed almost instantly?” His knuckle bumped over the bones of my spine. “I could take you down there with me, when we’re blood-bound.”
My mind flooded with thoughts of all the things Evander knew about my kind that I did not. I pictured his hands covered in theirgore, his face sprayed with it. “King Nemea doesn’t allow me to leave the fort.” And I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
His lips touched my ear. “You wouldn’t belong to Nemea anymore, Imogen. You’d belong to me.”
I bent and pulled up my chemise, stained as it was, over my shoulders. I strode to the settee, where my stays had landed the night before, and forced my arms through the straps. “Help me.” A tremor shook my voice. “Nemea will never forgive us if we’re late for the ritual.”
Evander obliged, walking toward me slowly. “Who else knows?” he asked, as he clumsily started on my ties. Each tug was agony.
I stopped myself from looking toward my dressing room door. I’d slice off my own wing before sharing that Agatha had spent years and years with my secret tucked safely behind her lips. “No one.”
“Good.” Another torturous tug, and then my stays were squeezing, squeezing, puckering my ripped skin. “Like this?” he asked, pulling them even tighter.
“Yes.” I shuddered from the pain and stepped into my black gown. Evander fastened the glittering buttons up its back. At the looking glass, I ran my fingers through the knots in my hair and pinched some color into my wan cheeks. My gold-brown eyes looked glassy, empty. “There’s a problem.”
His lips pursed. “What’s that?” Possessiveness thinned his gaze as he traced the lines of my body.
