Page 75 of No One’s Daughter

“Go home, and forget the last ten minutes,” Davien told the man, and just like that he turned away like none of it had happened.

​“A link?” I frowned.

​He nodded once. “Something you don’t want unless you really mean it.”

​We fell into step after that, moving through the city with no real urgency.

​It was as odd as it was nice.

​“Okay,” I said after a minute. “So compulsion—how far does it go? Like could I tell someone to jump off a bridge?”

​“You could,” he said. “Doesn’t mean you should.”

​Hm I pondered over that. “Could I compel you?”

​“No,” He huffed a quiet laugh. “Not yet, anyway.”

That piqued my interest. “Yet?” I confirmed. “That implies someday.”

“It does,” he said. “And when that day comes. I promise I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

There was a weird edge to his voice and I wasn’t entirely sure if I was reading too much into his response. Did he mean for it to come across so… flirty?

I doubted it. Still, I made sure to tell him, “I’ll remember that.”

He smirked at that, then we just continued to walk, now in comfortable silence, like we were just as ordinary as everyone else around us. As if we were just two friends on a walk together.

“Where are you from?” I asked. The question had been niggling at me for weeks.

He didn’t answer immediately and my eyes slid to him, expecting deflection. But instead he looked back at me earnestly.

“Not here,” he said. “Not originally.”

I waited for further explanation, but none came.

“Well, that really narrows it down.”

His mouth twitched, “You ask a lot of questions you know.”

“Only because you rarely answer.”

He let out a chuckle. “Fair.”

But still, he didn’t divulge more information, and I was certain he was keeping important things from me. But what was I supposed to do? I had no way of making him tell me things. I just had to—albeit, reluctantly—trust that he had good reason to be so guarded.

We’d drifted into a park without really meaning to, the kind tucked away in the nicer part of the city—trimmed hedged, aged trees, wrought iron railings, gravel paths that crunched too loudly beneath careless feet. It was quiet in a peaceful way.

I’d actually started to let my guard down and relax a little when Davien suddenly moved.

One second I was walking beside him, the next his hand was at my arm, his body closing in, and my back hit cold bark.

A breath caught in my throat.

His frame caged me in, solid and immovable, one hand braced beside my head while the other came up, finger pressed lightly against my lips.

“Shh.”

The word hardly existed, more breath than sound, his mouth close enough to my ear that I felt it more than heard it.