Page 40 of Daughter of the Dark

His eyes bored into her, the black in the center almost wide enough to swallow the gray. “No,” he said firmly. “I swear.”

Solana let go of his hair and ran her hand down his cheek, the stubble scratching her palm, then to his neck, where she felt his pulse raging wildly against his skin, until her hand was like a collar. A threat. “Why am I here?”

“I was saving your life. The muki, it punctured—”

“No, Reyes.” They were so close, and his body was pressed against her, and whatever had been coursing through her veins during the fight and then the healing was fading away, replaced with a yawning loneliness that craved connection. Touch. All she would have to do was press upward, meet him where he was. Surrender. The thought gave her chills. “Why am I here, in the castle, on your team, under the king’s watchful eye?”

Reyes froze for one heartbeat, two, his skin vibrating under whatever he was fighting, and then he pushed up and rolled away in one swift movement. He settled on the bed next to her, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the smooth gray ceiling.

Solana took in the details of her surroundings while her pulse slowed and the strange craving for him abated. Reyes’s bed was more comfortable than hers, firm enough that she didn’t sink in but worlds plusher than the floor she slept on every night. A fire in the hearth crackled softly, and everywhere she looked were books. Splayed open on tables, stacked in corners, underneath the pillow, if her guess was right. She reached up and slipped her hand beneath her head. Sure enough, a small notebook emerged.

Reyes snatched it out of her hand before she could open it and rolled off the bed. His steps were quiet as he padded to the desk and haphazardly shoved the notebook into a drawer. Solana tried to sit up, failed embarrassingly, and settled for rolling onto her side. Reyes perched on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest, eyes darting over her face, her shoulders, the curves of her body. Checking his handiwork, she told herself.

“It’s your blood.”

Solana glanced down and saw the dark spot on his green sheets underneath her middle. “I’ll buy you new ones,” she said. “Actually, you can probably afford them more than I can—”

“I don’t care about the sheets, Solana,” he said, a small smile caressing his lips. “That’s why you’re here. It’s why King Killian has been looking for you all this time.”

“My blood,” she repeated, unsure if she should be concerned or flattered, but relieved that it wasn’t because he recognized her, or worse—wanted to make her pay for her father’s sins. “Because I’m immune to demon poison?”

Reyes’s head bobbed from side to side. “Well, no. We didn’t technically know about that until the day we brought you in, but that certainly gave us more incentive, because an antidote really would change everything and—”

“Godsdamnit, Reyes, spit it out,” Solana said, but there was no venom behind her words. Her eyes were heavy, and she simply wanted to sleep.

“He wants to reverse the curse, and he thinks you can do it. Your gift, more specifically. If we can imbue himaya with your blood and create some sort of device, you could command the curse to leave their bodies.”

Solana snorted. She couldn’t help it. “And why does he think that?”

“I told him about how you can feel when a demon dies, the way that—”

“Of course you did. What a good dog,” she said softly, the hurt taking her by surprise. Solana’s eyes were closed, but she imagined she could hear his jaw clenching. “And what else did you tell him? That I can’t ride a horse? That I question your every command?” She pulled her legs closer to her chest. “That I screamed and begged when you cut into me?”

“I only tell him what he needs to know.”

“So rebellious of you.” Solana smiled to herself, and then said, “It’s the dagger. My gift, how I can command and kill them. It’s all the dagger.” She thought of how Hakun’s sword had no such effect on the muki even when her hand was wielding it. How any time she’d had any power, it was with that weapon in her hand. “However it was made, it must have bonded to me somehow, but it has nothing to do with me.”

“I think you’re wrong, but there’s only one way to find out.” There was a rustle of fabric, the scuff of a boot, and then the pressure of proximity. A heat she had come to associate only with Reyes. When she opened her eyes, he was crouched before her, elbows perched on his knees, staring intensely at her. Into her soul. “Work with me.”

Solana blinked at him. “What do you mean, work with you?”

“Let’s try to figure this out together. As true partners. Equals.”

The sincerity in his eyes was hard to ignore, but still Solana felt a sliver of trepidation.

“A truce,” Reyes added. “You can help me prove or disprove this theory, and I can help you leave Supay with a clean conscience.”

If she hadn’t recently nearly died, Solana might have spent energy arguing that her conscience was clean, thank you very much. But it turned out that continuing to lie to herself was not in her best interest, and out of pure selfishness, she considered his offer and what it might mean if he was right.

It couldn’t hurt to know exactly what she was capable of, and perhaps accepting could be beneficial for more than just her.

“Fine,” she finally said. “But I have terms.”

“Of course you do.” Reyes rose and strode to a plush chair against the wall opposite from her. The room was small, which was surprising. Reyes was not a small person, physically or temperament-wise. She thought he would have demanded more space, more luxury, but everything seemed minimal, from the basic décor to the size of the room. Except for the books, which also surprised her. Mostly, she was just realizing she knew little to nothing about him.

Solana swallowed and looked away. “The royal infirmary will begin seeing patients from the outer cities at no cost to them.”

“Done,” Reyes said solemnly. “I’ll see them myself.” He crossed one leg over the other and leaned his head back so that she could clearly see the column of his throat, the wings that extended up both sides, and the edges of other designs just below the collar of his tunic. “Anything else?”