“Focus only onme.” His voice wasn’t more than a whisper, but it ensnared her all the same. “My eyes andminealone.”
Something tugged on the inside of her chest like a string of pure fire, and a groan escaped her mouth as his fingers lingered on her throat, no longer squeezing, but a light, almosttender grasp that made her want to follow the direction of the nameless pull.
“What now?”She didn’t dare speak the words aloud, shame about her overreaction staining her cheeks crimson. With a few non-deliberate words, she might have just ruinedeverything.
“Now you get to your feet, Thornling, and show me that you can put the fear of Eroth into your victims.”
Lory didn’t question him when he drew his saber. She merely pulled her dagger and attacked.
Bruises on her elbows,her forearms, and her ribs were the least of her problems when she entered Anees’s secret dressing room three hours later, freshly showered and hair coiling at the ends from the humid heat already stifling the city. Tears of the Gods was still a day away, but the air had changed with the wind sweeping over the city that afternoon, and the promise of rain made her want to rejoice. She’d be able tobreatheagain.
Khayrivven followed her into the room, shutting the door behind him, and headed straight for the dresser to the left. Not a word had passed between them since they’d left the training yard, where Khayrivven had explained to Lory in detail the anatomy of the human heart, the lungs, and the veins transporting the largest volume of blood. Nothingshe hadn’t been made aware of in Medica classes, but instead of understanding how to use that knowledge to help someone survive, she now saw breaking points whenever she glanced at the brooding captain. His neck—exposed. One slice of a knife could cut open his aorta and spill his fire-laced blood on the sandy streets of Dunai. One stab to the gut in the right place—he’d bleed out. A slice through the tissues between the ribs—he’d suffocate on his own blood while his lungs would refuse to expand, no matter how hard he breathed.
Cruel.Cruelto know how to hurt him the easiest, no matter how upset she still was with him.
“You can speak to me, you know?” With more force than necessary, Khayrivven opened a drawer, digging for what Lory at first thought was a silken gown, but turned out to be a set of underthings. A sand-colored, lace-trimmed camisole and loose underpants in the same style that she knew wouldn’t fit under her uniform.
“Are you sure no one iswatching?” The moment his hand had slammed into her throat wouldn’t leave her head for a while—as wouldn’t the slight bruises already forming on her skin where his fingers had dug in. “I’m concerned you’ll throw me into a wall next.”
Much to her dismay, that painted a half-grin on Khayrivven’s lips. “Oh, I have quite some ideas what I could do with you against a wall.”
“Not funny.” Lory put her mental foot down, not trusting her voice as her heart started hammering like his tone had been a summons. Her hand wandered to her throat,covering the imprints of his strength, and the grin vanished from his face, replaced by shame.
Putting down the set of underwear, he took a casual step closer. Then another, his fingers tracing the back of hers where they lay against her skin, and had Lory not already known how much he regretted playing the hardass instructor when they were under scrutiny, she would have been convinced now. “I don’t enjoy hurting you, Lory.” His touch, so light yet so intense it drove a shiver along her spine, he hooked his index finger beneath her palm, pulling her hand off her throat and leaning in to kiss the purpling stripes one by one until Lory’s heart was ready to leap out of her chest, the tug on her heart so solid she might have cried out a little from the sensation, and no matter if he’d used that little word ‘no’before, she couldn’t help wanting him. “If I had a choice, I’d worship every last part of you until all you know is bliss.”
“Don’t say things like this.”Lory dug in her mental heels. He’d told her he didn’t love her. How could he speak words like that? Was she nothing more than a distraction for him? An opportunity to follow his carnal desires? Was any of it real?
“So real I could devour you right here, right now.”
Fuck—and once more her thoughts had run away from her mind and fallen right into his.
His lips followed the side of her neck, fingers tugging the collar of her shirt aside.
She needed to focus. Needed to—“Stop.”
Immediately, Lory bemoaned the absence of his mouth on her skin as he stepped back so fast she hadn’t even finished the word in her head.
“I didn’t mean to…” He fished for words. “For a moment, I got carried away.” The thread in Lory’s chest burned like fire. “We should get ready for the mission.”
Without taking his eyes off her face, searching for Lory didn’t know what, he reached to the side, retrieving the underthings and handing them to her. “Put these on, and the dress that’s hanging behind the screen.”
Mechanically, Lory took the silk from his outstretched hand and stalked around the bronze brocade divan at the side and vanished behind the leather privacy screen, the sensation in her chest easing the slightest bit, as if someone had released their hold on the thread that always seemed to pull taut whenever she walked away from the man who didn’t love her, yet couldn’t seem to keep away from her. Whose words contradicted that one sentence that had shattered the trust Lory had built little by little.
Yes, he was still a rebel hiding in plain sight. Yes, he still saved students meant to be burned beneath the school. And yes, he was still the best-looking fucking bastard she’d ever laid eyes on.
And her heart wouldn’t stop throbbing for him.
Stop acting like a pining girl, she told herself, tossing the silk pieces onto the stool in the corner and stripping out of her clothes. The dress waiting for her was simple but elegant. Wine-red lace wrapped around an inconspicuous bodice the color of the underthings. Flowing skirts of the same red would have invited Lory to want to spin in a dance under different circumstances, but as she put the underthings on first, then the gown over them, she couldfeel the phantom stickiness of blood on her hands. Blood she was about to spill.
“I assume we’re going back to the palace?”
On the other side of the screen, fabrics shifted and silk sighed against skin.
“You assume right.”
She tugged the neckline into place, making the undershirt disappear save for an edge of sandy lace covering the tops of her breasts. The skirts were heavy enough not to billow in the breeze sweeping through the room from the open window, yet light enough to move efficiently. Pockets were sewn into both sides at her hips—notpockets. Openings that allowed her to reach through the skirt to her undergarments.
At her back, the strings of the light corset still hung open, and Lory hated to admit she needed help.
