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The sound of her careful steps sinks into my skin, and like a pop of kindling in the open air, my body heats with kinetic energy, and a twisted smile hooks the corner of my mouth.
I take off after her.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of her white streak as she rounds a gnarled tree and dips into the thick underbrush. She’s fast. So damn fast. The thrill to catch her heats my blood to molten as I gain on her. The faint sound of her sharp breaths touches my ears like the moving notes of a classical piece. Decadent, affecting. Erotic.
The deeper we verge into the wooded landscape, the denser the canopy above, the darker the terrain below. The storm hovers on the brink of the field, as if waiting for Halen to break before releasing the torrential.
I’m already soaked in her desire.
The charged current cracks the air between us and electrifies my body, shrinking the distance between us as I’m drawn to her like a moth to its fiery goddess of flame.
“Why are you even running, Halen? Do you know?” My boots punch down on the soppy ground. “Are you running from me, or how turned-on you were when I snapped his neck?”
The captured still I have of her in that moment flares hot and tantalizing, the silver flecks of her eyes ablaze, her sultry mouth parted, the exquisitely pained expression creasing her features—the same way she looks right before she peaks in pleasure.
My groin throbs in painful demand to deliver her that release.
A clearing breaks up ahead, and I stop before the array of thin willows. Controlling my breathing, I wait to see if she’s brave enough to try to outrun me in the open.
“Your heightened emotions are telling, little Halen. I canfeelyou.”
The eerie stillness thickens around us. Then, like the defiant muse she is, she breaks the silence. “You knew it was Devyn,” she calls out. “Right from the start, you knew who the suspect was. When I asked if you knew it was her, you lied to me.”
I could tell little Halen the truth, that the only lie I’ve told her has nothing to do with the priestess or this case. I could pour my proverbial heart out and beg for forgiveness—but I’ve been telling her the truth since our eyes connected across that quad.
“It’s not what you think,” I say instead as I sweep my hand over the top of the reeds. “As cliché as that sounds, it’s not as if I went to diabolical lengths to keep my petty manipulations a secret.”
“Secret,” she echos, her tone low and mocking as her voice carries through the marsh. She’s itching to fight. “At the hunting grounds, you told me a detail like the chalk used on the victim’s face would only be known to the officials working the case. You knew it was her and you were fucking with me.”
“Oh, sweetness. I love fucking with you. But your logic has you all twisted up.” I settle my shoulder against a tree and pull the necktie from around my unfastened collar. Leisurely, I loop the tie around my hand.
The movement of the reeds snags my attention, and I imagine little Halen crawling along the muddy earth, using the high grass to shield her. She’s so clever.
I rub my thumb over the cashmere tie, aching to feel her soft skin. “I could have sat in that institution, day after excruciating day, waiting, hoping you’d come to me on your own. But I’m not very patient.”
“So you used her—adyingwoman—for some twisted game with me. I trusted you. More than anyone…even before my memories resurfaced, I trusted you.” The tender undercurrent of her heartbreak wraps around me. “That’s the worst betrayal.”
I wait for her to continue. While I’m not so patient, I do understand Halen. I know what she needs, and how she has to logically digest her reality. I can take her lashings for a while.
But then it’s my turn.
I continue to spool the tie around my hand, tighter and tighter. “It’s only betrayal when you don’t have all the pieces.”
Her laugh is sharp and derisive. “I’ll never have all the pieces with you, Kallum.”
Her responses are becoming shorter, her voice coming from farther away. My runner is trying to creep around the clearing.
“Somehow, from the very first moment, I knew you had a hand in it. God, Devyn even quoted Chaucer to me. I mean, she misquoted it…but now I think she did so on purpose not to appear obvious.” There’s anger, but there’s also raw hurt and vulnerability leaking through. “Then the eyes. Of course you orchestrated the scene. You took your own father’s eyes. The scene has you all over it.”
I breathe through the constriction in my chest as I flex my hand, tightening the ligature. “Devyn was already on her course. She didn’t need much of a push from me.”
“Bullshit. For five years, she harmed no one. Then she interacts with you, and in less than four months, there are blood rites and organs and?—”
“Her situation was already taking place,” I shout, unable to curb the increasingly impatient edge in my tone. “The outcome was unavoidable. I know how you just love to revel in your guilt, Halen. But Devyn is better because of us, because ofyou. Where would she be right now otherwise? Strung up in that room by chains? Locked in that cage?”
The silence prickles my nerves, and I clench my jaw. “Will a confession satisfy my fuming little muse? Then yes, the eyes were me. Because I knew the scene had to be something unique. It had to draw you there. But even then, I didn’t think it would be enough. So I made sure your director gave you the case.”
And for good measure, I charged a sigil using a thumbtack, of all lame things. My desire to have Halen on the case got every piece of metal removed from my room. A small sacrifice.
