My heart fluttered, and I folded my arms across my chest as if that would somehow hide what his smile did to me. “False. It’s three women—the child, the mother, and the elder.”
That smile only grew. “Excellent.”
“My turn.” I leaned forward, resting my chin in my hands. Noc’s raised glass paused in midair, and a spark flared behind his normally distant gaze. “The Kitska Forest is littered with monsters Charmers can’t tame.”
He pursed his lips before taking another sip. “True.”
“Damn it.” Tipping my head to the ceiling, I hid my smile from him.
“Point for me.” His sharp stare contrasted with the lazy dance of his fingers across the rim of his glass, and it ushered my pulse into erratic territory. He was almost catlike in the way he approached our conversations. Aloof and distant, but when the right thing struck his interest, he was suddenly warm, if not a bit mischievous.
Calling him a beast would be too high a compliment, but he was close.
“What was the First King’s name?”
I rolled my lower lip into my mouth. The First King wasn’t exactly a talking point in Charmer society. He was responsible for the only war our people had ever been forced to suffer through and, as such, deserved nothing more than his title. “I can’t say.”
He sucked an ice cube, let it fall back into his glass. “It’s Huxley Farnsled. By the way, I would’ve also accepted ‘King.’ He despised his name, so he forced his subjects to refer to him as such at all times. Even his wife.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? How do you know all this?”
“I like to read.”
My mind raced. I needed practical information, then. Something he couldn’t possibly pull from a book in his library. I drummed my fingers on the table. Stopped. “What beast has the ability to change its constitution depending on its master’s desires?”
He arched a brow. “I already told you my beast knowledge is thin.”
“Giving up so easily?”
His grin sharpened. “If you want to play dirty, sure. I’ll give. But I won’t play fair, either.”
My pulse kicked up a notch as heat bloomed down my neck. “Okay.”
“Which assassin is responsible for the bloodletting of Sloane Saint-Germant?”
So much for dirty. “You got me.”
Leaning forward, he laughed—low and a little rusty, as if he didn’t often get a chance. “I know. Shall we go back to an even playing field?”
Gods, what that look did to me. It was impossible not to dip my face toward his. Everything about him was magnetic. “Yes, please.”
His gaze flitted to my mouth and then back to my eyes. And then he abruptly sat back in his chair, smile strained and voice cool. “Let’s see…”
I cursed at myself for moving in too quickly, but sent silent thanks to the gods that there was still lingering interest in his eyes. Not entirely lost, then. We continued this game of wits through two more drinks. His questions shifted as history bled into personal preferences, and he leaped at every opportunity to turn a seemingly normal answer into a tease. There was something light to him, something genuine that blurred the severity of his role as an assassin. As the leader of Cruor.
He sipped quietly while he rifled for answers to my questions, never once breaking his gaze. And aside from that question about beasts, he never answered incorrectly, no matter how badly I tried to stump him. He was a wealth of knowledge and culture, and as the minutes dripped into hours, my fingers inched closer to his unmoving hand on the table.
He didn’t draw away. Didn’t close the gap, either. But his stare had drifted to that seemingly insurmountable space. Against my better judgment, I wanted him to reach out and claim my hand in his. It didn’t make sense, how much I longed for that simple touch. Just a graze of his fingers. The promise of something more.
Physical. It was purelyphysical. I was only in it to convince him to give me some blood. Nothing else.
Absolutely nothing else.
“True or false—you can never go back to Hireath.”
The space between our fingers became hot as a forge, and I jerked my hand away. So this,this, was what he was up to. Baiting me into a game to unearth the answers I didn’t want to give. He’d sensed my pain and reluctance to talk about Hireath on the train, and yet here he was. Bringing it up again, wielding insight like a knife between my ribs. A minute ago, he had been something more than a cunning assassin. He’d been warm. Human.
Shame burned my insides. I knew better than this. Hadn’t he used his wits against me already? He was an assassin both in words and weapons. For a moment I had forgotten.
