Ouch. Sarcasm. “Right. Because from where I’m standing, you’ve been manipulating me from the start. Using me to get what you want.”
“Yes.” He admitted it without hesitation. “As you have been using me. My power. My knowledge. My protection.” He took another step closer, now near enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body. “You take what you need from me, just as I take what I need from you. This is the nature of all relationships, little butterfly. A dance of give and take.”
“Except what you’re taking is my humanity, and you’re planning on using it forgenocide. And then what? Once you’ve hollowed me out, taken all that I am, what will you do, when I’m no longer human? Prop me up in the corner like so much furniture? Or a blow-up doll?”
Something flickered across his face—too quick to interpret. Regret? Hunger? Both? “What makes you human, Ava?” Heraised a hand, letting it hover near her face without touching. “This flesh? These thoughts? These feelings? What if I told you that all of these could remain, even as you transcend what you are now?”
“I’d say you’re lying.” She’d seen as much. The Web, the images in the mirrors, they’d been clear enough warnings. “You’re just trying to give me a good sales pitch.”
“Perhaps.” His hand finally made contact, fingers brushing against her cheek with unexpected gentleness. “Or perhaps the Web showed you only what it feared—its own existence given emotions it cannot understand.”
Ava should have pulled away. Should have stepped back. Should have rejected this touch, this closeness.
Instead, her treacherous body leaned into it, seeking more contact.
“What are you doing to me?” she whispered. This was wrong. Absolutely wrong. He was a monster. He was going to chew her up and spit her out.
Shereallyshouldn’t want that as much as she did.
Serrik’s golden eyes darkened slightly. “I could ask the same of you.”
The air between them felt charged, electric. The tattoos on her arm were so warm they almost burned. Looking down, she watched as the linesshifted.Moving, realigning as if answering his nearness.
“You want to destroy your entire race.” She was trying to remind herself of what he was. Of what he intended. “You’re going to make me your mindless, hollowed-out machine of mass-murder to do it.”
“Yes.” Turning her face up to his, his thumb traced the line of her jaw, sending shivers down her spine. “And no. What I want has grown…complicated.”
“Oh yeah? Enlighten me.”
His gaze traveled over her face, studying her with an intensity that made her feel exposed.
“The fae are a plague. Parasites. Butperhapssome…” He paused, something almost vulnerable flashing in his eyes. “Some could be saved. Those who, like that small beetle, have done no harm. Perhaps there is another way.”
Oh,nowhe wanted to compromise? “And who decides? You?”
“We would decide.” The wordwehung between them, heavy with implication. “Together.”
Ava swallowed the lump in her throat. “There is no ‘we,’ Serrik.”
Even if shealmostwanted there to be.
“Isn’t there?” His hand slid to the back of her neck, fingers somehow cool against her flushed skin. She should recoil. She should twist out of his grasp. But god, she didn’t. “Can you truly say you feel nothing? That there is no connection between us?”
She couldn’t. That was the problem. With each dream, the pull toward him grew stronger. A magnetic attraction that defied logic. “You made that happen with that spider you fed me.”
“I have bound myself to many a mortal in that fashion over the centuries. It has never been like this, Ava…” The rumble in his voice, the duskiness of it, left no doubt in her mind. In that, he was telling the truth.
Her cheeks went warm. “It doesn’t matter. What I feel doesn’t matter.” Her voice was barely audible. “Not if what the Web showed me is true.”
“And if it isn’t?” His face was inches from hers now. “If I offered you power without loss? Transformation without emptiness?”
“I’d say you’re still lying.”
“Then why are you still here, little butterfly?” His lips curved into that rare and dangerous smile. “Why do you come to me night after night?”
Because I can’t help it.Forcing down a shiver, she said through a breathless exhale, “To understand my enemy.”
“Ah. Is that what I am?” His lips brushed against hers, not quite a kiss. “Shame.”
