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“I’d rather not,” I say, smiling sweetly at him.
“You’d rather not?”
“Nope.”
He quirks a brow so that it disappears underneath the raven-black hair falling onto his forehead. “Are you always this obstinate, Blaise?”
My jaw jerks at his intentional use of my name, which I’m sure he learned from the queen, who learned it from my stepmother. “I delight in it, actually. You don’t find it charming?”
Something akin to a smile tugs at his lips, but he masters himself well enough and doesn’t allow it to overtake his face.
“At home, I’m known for being quite lazy. Perhaps you would know that if you’d done a bit more research on me,” I say, smugly settling into the cold stone slab and closing my eyes, yawning.
I can feel him bristle in annoyance.
It’s not that I’m opposed to ridding myself of the parasite that’s attached itself to my mind. Gone. Goodbye. But I still don’t know what the queen wants with the magic. Between my jealous alter-ego and the queen’s horrifically uncalibrated moral compass, I can’t imagine anything good coming from their union.
I’m definitely in need of more information before I decide whether to assist Nox.
“I know you’re not actually asleep. I can hear your heart rate, your breathing.”
I flick my eyes open. “How charming. Is that a line you use often on women?”
He winks again. “Only on the ones I have chained up.”
This time Nox stands, and I can’t help but notice how tall he is, how he towers over me. But maybe that’s just the me-being-tied-to-a-table thing.
“You’re sure you don’t want to make this easier on yourself?” he asks.
I spit in his face.
Annoyance washes over his pale features, and his eyes flicker bright, dazzling. Dangerous. He wipes the spittle from his cheek, and the lopsided smirk that pulls at his lips is not at all amused.
“I’m afraid you’re not going to like the trial and error approach.”
He pulls something from his pocket and stuffs it into my face, covering my nose and mouth.
One shocked inhale from me, and everything goes black.
Except for the shining moonlight eyes burned into my vision.
CHAPTER5
NOX
By the time I’m finished with Blaise, beads of sweat trickle down her forehead, mingling with the tears stained against her sallow cheeks.
I put her to sleep this time. It had only taken a whiff of my mandragora-soaked rag for slumber to sweep her and her snide little remarks away.
When she wakes, I suppose she’ll assume I did it to shut her up as a punishment for spitting on me.
That’s what I’ll probably tell myself, too.
Seems like a less dangerous explanation than the truth.
It takes me a bit of rummaging, but eventually I find a clean rag to blot her face with, to dab against her hairline, so at least she won’t have to wake to a face full of sweat.
Her britches are still wet. I know because I can scent them. The queen commanded me to change her, and I considered it. It bothers me she’s been lying in her own filth for days now, but after this morning, after witnessing Blaise’s reaction to even the thought of what might have happened to her body when she was no longer in control of it…
