Page 115 of Taken By Shadows

“Don’t,” he said, pushing off me.

“Don’t what? Help you? Just leave you there?” I pulled out from under him. He didn’t fall, but I fought the tic in my muscles to stand under his weight again.

A breath of cold air sat between us like a gulf.

“You don’t need to help me. You shouldn’t—You shouldn’t have tonight.” His breath was uneven.

“Why?” My face clouded with confusion. “I couldn’t just leave you there. I saw what they were doing to you. What they would keep doing to you if I hadn’t gotten Eryk.”

A muscle feathered in his jaw at the mention of Eryk.

“What did you give him? What did you promise him?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Nothing.” I tried to scoff, but it got lodged in my throat. “What does that matter? I got you out. Again,” I said with heavy intonation.

“It matters,” he ground out.

Of course I had given Eryk something. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

I planted my feet to affirm my statement. I got him out. With Eryk’s help. Yes. But what other option did we have?

Kaed noted my stance, took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling. “It matters because Eryk never does anything without a price.”

Kaed regarded me then, his eyes searching mine.

When he set his jaw like that and looked at me, I found a heat blooming deep inside me. There was command in his stare alone.

“What did you promise him?” he said, forcing the words to fall a little softer.

“Nothing. I told you.” I glanced at Kaed. “Fine. I said I was in his debt.”

If the room was quiet in the dark before, now it felt like every sound in the world had been sucked from the air.

Kaed’s face was harder than granite as he shuddered a breath before the room grew impossibly darker.

“Stop it, Kaed!” Shadows were coming from his fingers now and pooling on the floor, devouring the snowy marble beneath.

But he didn’t stop. The shadows kept going until they reached my feet and rippled over them.

Shadows latched across my feet. The shimmering smoke of their fabric wrapped around my ankles until I was riveted to the floor.

“I said, stop it. Eryk did it for me!” There was panic in my voice. “What else was I going to do?”

“Leave me!” he shouted. “You should have left me. You should never do anything like that for me!” The same moment he shouted over me, his shadows retreated, and my feet came free again.

His eyes closed and opened to clear his vision, but even that magic had taken something from his very depleted well.

“Tonight was worse?” I asked, taking a step toward him.

Kaed looked down at me.

“Let me,” I urged, leaning against him.

Kaed resisted as I lifted his wrist, and I thought maybe I’d touched the burns.

“Why would you help me after today?”

I shrugged. Not willing to tell him what I’d discovered about my motivations. I cared. But I didn’t know what that meant, so I kept it to myself.