The question is: Doessheimagine it?
I watch her now as she dusts herself off, scowling.
“That’s not the first time you’ve avoided going for the throat when you had a clear shot,” I say.
She shrugs, wiping her face with the back of her hand, but she doesn’t meet my eye. I want badly to slip into her head, see if I can catch any errant thoughts she forgets to guard from me, but invading her mind without warning or permission has become more and more repellant to me as the weeks have gone on. The idea of doing it now, just to steal a glimpse at what she’s thinking, makes me physically sick.
“I couldn’t see the opening,” she says eventually. “I guess I just don’t think fast enough.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not incompetence, it’s reluctance.” I narrow my eyes at her guilty expression. “Why are you trying to make yourself seem less of a threat than you are?”
Her eyes go wide. “I’m not!”
“You pull back from making the killing blow every time. Eventually, that will getyoukilled.”
Her mouth pulls into a tight line. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” she says.
“Good,” I reply firmly. “Only monsterswantto kill someone. But this life often doesn’t give you a choice.”
“Life,” she repeats, putting her hand on her hips. “Or demon lords.You’rethe one who forced my hand with the sorcerers. It didn’t have to go that way.”
My frustration builds, compounded by the fact that maybe I do wish I’d handled that a little differently.
“They were going to sacrificeyou,” I point out. “And I highly doubt you were their first victim. If things had gone their way, you probably wouldn’t have been their last. Would you really rather I’d left those wretches alive, free to murder more poor innocents?”
“Except you didn’t kill all of them,” she snaps. “Some of them got away, so for all you know they already have.”
“Now you’re complaining I wasn’tthoroughenough?” I ask in disbelief.
She doesn’t have an answer for that, so instead she crosses her arms and looks away. Before she does, I catch the strange emotion in her eyes, and once again I wish I could read her. I know she doesn’t have a rosy view of the world. I know she’s seen death and violence aplenty—sheprofitedoff of it, for darkness’s sake. So where does this resistance come from? This hard line she’s drawn against killing, even if it could cost her everything?
“I know you don’t have a death wish. You’re a survivor, Leah. And if someone is threatening that survival, you have to fight back with everything you have. Refusing to strike a fatal blow is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back—it sets you up to lose.”
She shakes her head, though I don’t know exactly what she’s objecting to.
“Are we done here?” she asks, still not looking at me.
“No, we’re not,” I say, my voice hard. If she doesn’t take the need to defend herself seriously, she’s going to get herself killed. And that’s not acceptable.
“We’ll go to Strata tomorrow to see if anything’s changed at the warehouse and to question the gang those thugs obviously belonged to,” I say. “Things will probably get ugly, and you may have to use deadly force. If you refuse,I’lluse it for you, so I suggest you spend the rest of the day getting used to that idea.”
Anger burns brightly in her eyes. If I was in her mind right now, I’m sure I’d be hit with an onslaught of furious thoughts. But none of them make it to her lips—she’s too good at reining in her rage in to allow that to happen.
“Nowwe’re done,” I say, and with a sharp nod, she turns and strides away.
When she’s gone, I drag my hand over my face, trying to breathe through my frustration.
I know she must be as mystified by my behavior as I am by hers. I’ll spend days avoiding Leah, trying to keep my distance in case she is what I fear she may be. Then, inevitably, she’ll draw me back in with her spiky mind and stubborn determination and unbridled enthusiasm for the strangest things. I’ll go from keeping half a castle between us to offering to buy her a whole store of plants in the hopes of seeing her smile.
If she realizes just what I’d do for that smile, I’d be finished. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to resist its pull. Not when it’s offering me something I haven’t come close to in centuries.
I touch my hand to the pin on my collar as I head to my office. Viz is already waiting for me there when I arrive.
“What have you found out about her?” I ask. There’s no need to specify who I’m talking about.
