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His grip on my T-shirt loosened, only to be replaced with his hand on my neck. He gripped tight enough to be threatening but not tight enough to hurt.
“You couldn’t abandon me? You betrayed me. Lied to me. I told you what would happen if you betrayed me twice.” His voice was more vibration than sound. I did remember what he said would happen. He said he’d kill me. Was that what he was doing now, preparing to choke me to death?
I decided to call his bluff. My eyes intent on his. “Go ahead then. Do it.”
His fingers dug in, hurting a little. I didn’t struggle because a part of me didn’t believe he would do it. No matter how much he might hate me right then, there was still a piece of him that didn’t. There was a thin, brittle thread that connected us, and with his mark inside me I knew that thread would hold firm.
Or at least, I hoped.
“Are you goading me?”
“I’m trying to get you to see sense. I’m on your side, you idiot.”
“Call me an idiot one more time, my sweet, and see what happens.” I sensed the threat wasn’t an empty one. Still, I couldn’t resist inching my head up a tiny bit, less than a centimetre between our faces as I held his gaze.
“Idiot,” I whispered right before I pushed up with all my might. I didn’t manage to tear his hand from my throat, but I did manage to flip us so that I was straddling him. I couldn’t sit all the way up, otherwise my head would hit the ceiling, so I had to remain annoyingly close. I stiffened with awareness of everywhere our bodies met. My hand was wrapped around his fingers, trying and failing to claw them from my throat. My other hand pushed against his shoulder, a flimsy attempt at creating some distance between us.
“How ironic that you came to bring me back to your realm and imprison me once more but found yourself captured in the process.”
“I came to kill Red Armand and free you,” I argued, stifling the urge to tap on another idiot for good measure. I suspected that wouldn’t end in my favour. His eyes burned bright with mistrust.
“More lies. How many more times will you betray me, Darya? How many more times do you think you’ll get away with it?”
“I’m not betraying you. And as soon as I realised you weren’t behind Belinda’s death in the Prison of Thorns, I was no longer working against you. I escaped with you, Vas. I helped you win your freedom.”
“Yes, right before it was snatched away again.”
“That wasn’t my fault. Now will you please take your hand off my throat? It’s starting to hurt and we both know you’re not going to kill me so quit the pretence.”
At this, he shot me a sharp, closed mouth smile, his grip tightening in a way that really did begin to hurt. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“That’s true, though whatever’s digging into my thigh right now says you want to do something to me and it isn’t strangle me to death.”
The silence that followed was so stark you could hear a pin drop. I couldn’t believe I said that to him. Embarrassment flooded in, threatening to drown me.
Vas brought his mouth to mine, his voice a seductive whisper, “Who’s to say I can’t do both?”
A tendril of fear washed over me. “Vas, I promise I’m here to help you.” I couldn’t keep the wobble of emotion from my voice and his grip loosened the smallest bit.
The wall behind his eyes didn’t come down though. He wasn’t going to trust again so easily.
“How did you get here?”
“Through a portal.”
“Did you come alone?”
I shook my head. “Ren came with me.”
Vas frowned. “Ren from St. Bastian’s? Why?” He paused and cocked his head, a brief flash of jealousy. “Is he in love with you?”
“Contrary to your experience,” I began, unable to hold back the comment. “Not everyone who sees me instantly falls in love with me.”
The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. “How you flatter yourself.”
“Is it not true?” I goaded.
“I wouldn’t exactly say love, but a more…base instinct.”
“You’re a pig.”
His eyebrow arched in challenge. “A pig you came all this way to rescue?”
“Now that you mention it, perhaps that was a rash decision. I thought our time together in the prison meant something. I thought we were allies, friends even.”
At this, he grew quiet. Vas stared at me for a long time, our breaths mingling in the narrow space. “So, you’re saying you really came all this way to save me?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Of course it’s hard to believe. The dangers of this realm are vast, and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get back home. No, my friend, if that’s what you really are, you have something up your sleeve. You wouldn’t leave behind your precious Peter and your beloved family for a low down criminal like me. There’s more to this, but I’ll play along. For now.”
