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“Toned down?” he asked. “You made it a point to disagree with everything I said. Unless that was a technique to get information out of me?”
“No, no technique. I just really didn’t like you at the beginning.”
“At the beginning? And now?”
“Now depends on what you plan on doing with me.”
“And the flirting? Was that to get some information out of me?”
She looked down at the ground, feeling mostly shame.
“Only the first time.”
“So the last time when we…”
“That was real,” she said. She wanted to get the weight of the guilt off her chest. “I just really wanted you.”
He smiled for the first time since they started this conversation.
“Why did you want to stop?”
“You said you loved me. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Altair stood up. He approached her, and for an instant, she didn’t know what he was going to do. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a cord.
He reached out and grabbed her hands. She didn’t resist. What would be the point?
He tied her hands together behind her back, then grabbed her elbow and led her to the chair he’d vacated.
“Sit,” he said.
She did, and he tied her bound hands to the chair. Then he dropped down in front of her.
He grabbed her calf. Her legs were bare under her dress. His hand, warm against her skin, caressed down to her foot. She shivered. He tied her ankle to the leg of the chair.
“If I knew how, I would seduce you to tell me the truth,” he said, grabbing her other leg.
“You probably wouldn’t feel great about it when you turned me over to the Mudden military afterward.”
“So you were spying on me?” he asked, standing up and looking down at her.
“Well, I didn’t marry you because I thought you were cute.”
He starred into her eyes for a long moment before turning around and walking toward the door.
“How long are you going to leave me like this?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have to report you.”
“You don’t owe your family anything,” she said, figuring she might as well try to save herself.
He frowned at her, then opened the door and left.
Chapter Twelve
Nova must have been in a state of shock while speaking with Altair. As soon as the door closed behind her, panic hit. She remembered what the Mudden government did to rebels, and she could feel the blood pumping through her veins at the thought of being tortured and hung.
She needed to escape before Altair got to whoever he was planning on telling. If she could get to Elizabeth in time, maybe she could hide Nova, the same way she’d hidden Brent, until they could leave on the ship.
