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I keep my eyes open. Watch, as he closes his. His neck jerks. His nostrils flare.

He doesn’t look like he’s in pain. He looks…

I stop abruptly, the magic plummeting.

He opens his eyes. The sight of them makes me flinch.

“You will need to do better than that, Ara. That was a sting compared to what they used to do to me.”

“But, last night…” I say, remembering how he’d cried out.

His fingers twitch, flicking water. “You cannot compare what you can do alone to what our power can do when it is combined.”

I let myself contemplate that.

“Do me,” I find myself saying.

His mouth quirks. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do,” I insist. “I want to get stronger. I…”

I want to know what I’m up against.

“All right,” he murmurs.

His expression hardens. His muscles tighten. They seem even more pronounced.

I wait.

I feel nothing, at first. Then a prickling sensation.

Before, all at once, like a dial was turned – I feel it wholly.

I’m recoiling. Grinding my teeth. My whole body is flat against the tub now. My veins are on fire, my lungs are tight, constricting. It’s like my soul is being split from me.

I last only a few seconds before I can’t take any more.

“Stop,” I rasp.

He doesn’t move. The power holds. Intensifies.

“Drake, stop!”

He seems to shake himself. He blinks. Looks away.

And I’m free. Gasping.

And then I’m wrapping my arms around myself, steadying my breath.

Shame. I feel shame.

“I thought I was stronger than that.”

“You are. You just weren’t tortured the way I was. They gave you the childhood little girls dream about.”

I gape at him. “The childhood little girls dream about? I was injected with your blood, over and over again, for years,” I say, with venom. I’ve uncrossed my arms, and now they’re flailing. “Was made to try to hurt prisoners by our mothers. Was starved when I disappointed them. My childhood was just one endless training schedule of how to be a queen. Your queen!” I actually laugh. Because it's so ridiculous. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a single thought in my head that wasn’t put there by someone else first!”

I’m so utterly miserable I could start crying again.