Not a hand—the watery version of one.
It yanked me back like a collared chain, slamming my skull against the wall. Shouting filled the tiny room, Pheolix shoving Deimos to climb over the bed toward me, but Deimos grabbed him by the back of his shirt, yanking him back.
The watery vice lifted me, dragging me up. I kicked as I rose—until my toes barely stood over the mattress.
Pheolix turned, striking Deimos. The crack of his punch made me flinch even as I hung there, and my gaze flickered to the figure in the doorway.
Thaan’s eyes glowed with cold thunder. He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.
“Let her go,” Pheolix growled. He stepped toward me, one single step toward the bed. A breath escaped my mouth, fogged with cold. The chill ran along my skin, raising the fine hair along my arms.
His body blasted to the opposite wall with a watery clap.
In an instant, the cold collapsed.
“You think you might eclipse me?” Thaan’s voice asked in the dark. Our candle had died sometime in the night. Thaan turned to the single oil sconce on the wall, soft light flooding the room.
Pheolix pushed himself up to kneel beside the bed, hands clasped behind his back, tied with an invisible rope. He didn’t move. He held himself strangely, his muscles hardened to stone. His eyes widened, and every vein along the surface of his skin bulged.
“How very odd,” Thaan said as though testing a theory. He glanced at Deimos. “I believe I said to find this room and wait for me. I never told him to mate with her.”
“We didn’t,” I forced out. My fingers wrapped around his water-hold. Thaan studied me, examining the truth in my words. “Whatever you’re doing to him, stop.”
“I find it hard to believe that you did not,” Thaan answered blandly.
“Give me a knife,” I ground out. “Give me a blade. I’ll swear it on my blood.”
Pheolix gave a strangled, involuntary gasp.
As though suffocating.
Drowning.
“GIVE ME A KNIFE.”
Thaan tilted his head, watching Pheolix with the care a philosopher might have afforded to a newly presented dilemma. Curious yet heavily resigned. “I think the safer choice might be to end him either way.”
“Stop!”
Thaan clicked his tongue, crossing his broad arms. “Let's try this.”
He released Pheolix. The drone’s body crumpled to the floor, gasping and coughing. He looked up at me as he pushed himself back to his knees, hands still bound behind his back.
Thaan’s frown deepened. “It’s very simple, Pheolix. What would you be willing to sacrifice for Selena?”
My eyes darted to the Naiad kneeling in the center of the room. Another of Thaan’s games, a puzzle I didn’t have time to work out. Which answer was he searching for? The one a personal guard would give? Or the answer belonging to something deeper?
Say you’d sacrifice nothing,I silently ordered. I’m not sure why that one felt less dangerous. But instinct cautioned at risking the alternative.
Pheolix lifted his head, gazing at me straight on. His breaths staggered in and out of him, though he worked to calm it, chest heaving a little less with each gulp for air. He swallowed hard.
My eyebrows threaded as I pleaded with him.Say nothing, say nothing, say nothing.
He shook his head, his voice rapt with apology. “There’s nothing,” he breathed, “I wouldn’t give.”
Thaan sighed. “Nothing?”
“I’m sorry, heiress,” Pheolix said. “I’d burn every bone in my body to keep you warm. I’d sacrifice every drop of my blood to keep you safe.”
