Page 67 of Demon Touched

“Am I needed again?” she asks, reaching for the glass.

I pull it back. “It’s for our hardworking guard, not you,” I remind her.

“I know that,” she huffs. “All right, let me just powder my nose. Once I’ve woken him up again, I might need to do some more flirting.”

She crosses to her room, and Leah and I are suddenly alone.

I think about the moment at the ball, when her fingers reached for mine. The memory of that touch has kept me going in the days since, that simple brush of skin on skin like a crack in a door that’s been locked for a long time.

“Do you think it will feel strange when the bond is broken?” I ask, surprised myself by admitting to one of the questions that has been running around my head for days.

Her eyes narrow a fraction, wary of a trap.

“Maybe for a little while,” she says. “And then it will feel normal again.”

No. It will feel wrong forever, because it will keep me from you.

“I hope you’re right,” I say, leaning back against the wall, fighting to keep my voice easy and smooth, when all it wants to do is spill my adoration out at her feet.

Again, Leah narrows her gaze.

“Why do you look so suspicious?” I ask.

“You’ve changed your tune,” she says. “A week ago, you wouldn’t have tried to break the bond even if I begged you. I just don’t know if I trust it.”

I manage to snag her gaze at last, trying to put every unspoken word into my look.

“All I want is to keep you alive.”

Her lips part, and she shifts on her feet, unsettled.

“I know,” she admits. “You traveled across the realms and broke all the rules for me. But you won’t give me the one thing I really want.”

She’s talking about the explanation—the reason I tried to curb her power.

I wince, hating the words before I speak them. “Leah, I can’t.” Especially not here, in the den of the enemy she chose to align herself to over me. Not even if there’s a chance that explaining could heal things between us, could see her return to Aradis, could end the need to break the bond at all.

I’ve come close to telling her about it all many times. Maybe if she hadn’t chosen life with the ephilium, I could chance it, but that’s not the reality we live in. I’m already playing fast and loose with my domain—risking what I’ve dedicated centuries to keeping safe—and that would be a step too far.

She huffs and looks away, her hands balling into fists and releasing again.

“Then tell me one real thing,” she says, her voice almost pleading. “Prove to me that maybe you’re right, and there’s more to you keeping the truth from me than you thinking you don’t need to explain yourself. Or needing to be in control. Or believing if I was a good, sensible person, I’d just accept your command without question.”

I swallow, the assessment hitting me squarely in the chest. I want to deny it, but I did think some of that, didn’t I? When I was falling for Leah and I was desperate for a modicum of control.

Maybe it’s time to give up some of that control. Not to win her back, but because she asked me to.

“That day you met with your grandfather,” I begin, inhaling slowly, “you asked me why I left so quickly.”

“…Yes?” she says, curious.

“It’s because it was the first time I’d heard his family name. Your family name. Illidore.”

She says nothing, but she’s not avoiding my gaze anymore, and the sight of those bright green eyes makes me feel steadier—able to tell this part.

“Back when I was human, the ephilium general who led the ambush on me in Fidulis was called Illidore. He was Garion’s father, your great-grandfather. He’s the one I hunted down and killed after I made my deal with Ajax.”

She’s gone very still, absorbing the roughness in my voice as I gesture to the sword she has strapped to her hip.