“You push me away when you think I’m getting too close,” Lucien says. “Do you need me to scrub the floors to make you feel better?”
Kazia touches the collar. “It doesn’t matter what I need.”
The leather exterior has worn softer since he closed it around Lucien’s throat. The whole thing is as warm as Lucien’s skin.
Lucien seems to stop breathing as Kazia unbuckles the clasp. The collar loosens, and Kazia drops it on the rug.
The stupidest fear seizes Kazia as he steps away. He should be terrified of the enemy mage unleashed in his parlor. Instead, all he can think is that now Lucien will leave, and maybe Butterfly and Melloweed will miss him.
Lucien touches his throat. His bright blue eyes fix on Kazia, unreadable. Searching. “Okay, fine. I didn’t fucking expect that.”
“You can get up,” Kazia says, then winces. “Fuck. I mean, you don’t need my permission now.”
Lucien stays on his knees. Nothing’s keeping him from tearing the earring from his ear, but his hands stay on his thighs. “If I’d asked, you’d have let me up, wouldn’t you have?”
If nobody was watching. If Kazia thought Lucien’s knees might hurt. “I’ve tired of your stupid questions. Do what you want. Escape. Incinerate whatever or whoever on your way out.”
Lucien rises. “Here I thought we were getting to know each other.”
Kazia steps back. Fuck, how stupid is he? But he doesn’t regret it. Whatever happens, this was the right thing to do.
“I don’t want to escape, and there’s only one person I want to incinerate.” Lucien frowns. “Maybe two people, with your permission.”
Pain twists Kazia’s heart as forcefully as a summons. But the summons are never so sharp. This isn’t magic—just unbearable longing. “If only I’d met you two years ago. That would have been… useful.”
Fire crackles in the silence. Lucien moves towards the hearth. “I’m going to pour us another glass. Then we’re going to talk about how useful we might be to each other. Okay?”
Kazia blinks. “You’re not leaving?”
Oh. That sounded too much like pleading.
“We can talk about that too, if we need to,” Lucien says. “Go grab a couple of rats, okay?”
“Why?” Kazia demands, his nerves heightening. Lucien likes the rats, right? He can’t want to hurt them.
“So you can hold them while we talk,” Lucien says.
The idea sounds annoyingly comforting right now. Kazia ignores the instruction and sits on the couch. Reconsiders how trapped he feels by the coffee table, and moves to the arm of the chair instead.
Lucien gives him a wide berth. The earring still sits in his ear, and that’s Kazia’s only reassurance. Lucien won’t blast any fireballs until that earring is gone. He can’t take Kazia’s magic.
Lucien sets the zalvin on the table, near Kazia without handing it to him directly. Considerate of him. Kazia might have combusted in panic had Lucien gotten that close.
Absurd disappointment twists into Kazia’s frazzled emotions.
He hadn’t thought this far ahead. Removing Lucien’s collar was one thing. Talking about it is quite another.
Lucien sits on the couch. It puts him lower than Kazia, but his presence still fills the room. He grimaces at the taste of zalvin. “I could get used to this stuff.”
“Fuck the small talk,” Kazia says, because every nice, normal thing Lucien says throws him more off balance. As if Lucien expects him to believe that nothing’s changed since the collar came off. “Why are you still here?”
Lucien grins again, like the charming psychopath he is. “You’re rude. Obnoxious. Petty. You’re a control freak.” The words don’t sound like insults when Lucien says them. “You’re so scared of beingseenthat if I keep talking, you’re going to bolt from the room.”
Kazia can’t answer. The glass trembles in his hand.
“And you took that collar off, even though you were scared.” Lucien turns his glass. “My point is, I don’t mind any of that the way I should. So I’m going to give you one last chance to work with me. Or yeah. I’m going to leave and do what I have to do by myself.”
The change of subject is welcome. Discussing high treason is far safer than discussing Kazia’s fears. “You wanted to turn me against Imrik. But you only wanted my cooperation because you were trapped.”
