Page 67 of Flames and Blood

“Not like this.” His voice is rough and even at the same time. “You just told me you can’t tell if it’s you. That took guts, and I’m not going to use it against you. I won’t be something you wake up to tomorrow and have to wonder about.”

“Maybe I want—”

“I want you.” He says it flat. “I’ve wanted you since the door of that truck came open and you looked at me and started giving orders. And that is exactly why I’m standing behind this chair. Because this version of it—the drugged version, the version you can’t check—isn’t the one I’m taking. Not when there might be a real one.”

The room is very quiet.

My skin is still burning. My mouth still tastes cold. And he’s right. I reached for him first, and he’s the one standing behind furniture with his knuckles white on the chair back.

The white knuckles help, a little. Not enough.

“Get out,” I say.

“Kalli.”

“You’ve made your decision; it’s a very honorable decision, and I would like to be furious about it in private. Get out.”

He doesn’t get out.

He takes the chair he’s been holding, carries it to the far wall, sets it down, and sits in it. Out of reach. Facing the door, not me.

“I’m not leaving you alone in a strange house just after you woke up,” he says. “Be furious. I’ll be here.”

I lie down with my back to him.

“For the record,” I say, to the wall, “I’ve killed men for less than what you just did.”

“Turning you down?”

“Being right at me.”

“I’ll add it to the list of things that want to kill me,” he says. “It’s a long list. You’ll be in good company.”

I don’t laugh, though I want to.

The hours drag by. The heat comes and goes in long slow waves. I ride each one out with my teeth shut, and my hands fisted in the blanket. I hate him through every single one. Underneath the hating there’s something else that I am not going to think about tonight.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. Once, when I make a sound into the pillow, I hear the chair creak—his whole body wanting to get up—and then it stops, and he stays where he is.

Nobody has ever stayed in a room with me and wanted nothing from me.

The lamp burns down. The house goes quiet around us; boots somewhere, a door closing, then nothing.

“There’s water on the table beside you,” he says, into the quiet. “When you want it.”

“I know. I saw it.”

“All right.”

That’s the entire conversation for an hour, and it’s somehow the easiest hour of my night.

The waves come further apart. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I can think in whole sentences again. My skin belongs to me, mostly. I’m too tired to be angry and too awake to sleep.

“Why did you come for me?” I ask the ceiling.

The chair creaks. He’s been awake the whole time. Of course he has.

“I made a promise,” he says. “To a friend of yours. Serenity Sangrey. Val-Serein’s consort. I told her I’d find you.”