It’s all I can do not to follow her back to her room and show her exactly what she has done to me.
To make her want me the way I want her. Crave me the way I crave her.
But I can’t.
It is dangerous. It is treasonous.
I need to stay away from the temptress.
SNAPPED
I have been stabbed on countless occasions. I have been sliced with shadows like daggers. I have been skinned and beaten until I’m a whisper from death.
Nothing has been more torturous than having to stay away from her since that night. I have been without her for a full, agonizing month.
She is a drug.
She is an addiction.
She is the bane of my existence.
She is my undoing.
“She’s pretty,” Astria says, after the council meeting.
I scowl at her familiarity. I don’t care who she’s talking about. I don’t deign to respond.
“The girl in your room just now. She’s pretty. Like, kind of infuriatingly pretty, you know?”
I go still.
Infuriatingly pretty. There is only one person who could possibly earn that distinction. Very slowly, I turn toward her.
“I should have knocked. I’ve just—I’ve never seen you bring anyone in there.”
Because I never have. Until her.
I portal to my room in a moment.
She’s not here, but I can taste her lingering emotion.
Worry. Worry for who?
Me?
Of course. I’ve been avoiding her for a month, preoccupied with fending off the dreks, and, if I’m honest with myself, avoiding the certainty of her fate when we find the sword. She must be worried I’ve been working without her, that I’ve cut her out of my plan.
There’s another emotion ...
Jealousy.
Jealous of what?
It almost makes me laugh.
If she could see my mind for even a moment, she would understand that she owns it, wholly and completely.
Now, it’s my turn to be worried. Though it has nothing to do with the sword.
