“Maybe I’ll get another arrow and finish you off,” she said defiantly, instead. “Or a dagger to cut your throat now that you’re incapacitated.”
“Whatever you’re going to do, then stop dithering like an idiot and do it. Finish me off, if you’re so determined to.”
She wasn’t at all determined, not anymore. The sight of her arrow in his shoulder had her feeling stricken, and guilty—and also consumed with the urge to help him. But that was the trick, the lure. Reinforcing her determination, she strode to the table to get another arrow. He was right—killing him from a distance would be much easier than having to look in his face as she cut his throat. She reached for the arrow—this would be over soon—and her hand hit an invisible wall.
“What?” she gasped in surprise.
“I lied,” Jadren said in a strained and weary tone. “I’ve got the weapons warded now. You won’t be able to touch them.” When she snapped her head around to glare at him, he smiled weakly. “I told you: wizards aren’t so easy to kill.”
“Then I’ll just sit here and wait for you to bleed out.” She plopped herself in a chair, crossing her arms, then uncrossing them when Jadren’s pain-bright gaze lingered on the way her already pushed-up breasts bulged as a result.
“You could spread your legs a little,” he suggested. “Give a dying man a last view of paradise.”
The suggestion flustered her far more than it should. “Why are you being flirtatious all of a sudden, especially when you’re in pain?”
He considered the question thoughtfully, canting his head and looking her up and down. “I have experience dealing with pain—distraction works nicely—also, you’re the one prancing around wearing nothing but lingerie deliberately designed to be sexy.”
“Except you don’t find me attractive.”
Casting his eyes up, he seemed to be searching his memory. “I’m certain I never said that.”
“You said I’m scrawny.”
“You are. You need to eat more.” A frown crossed his face, quickly replaced by a salacious smile. “Since you plan to ensure I don’t see the dawn, you could take the rest off and let me make the final judgment call. I’m betting I’m going to fall out on the side of thinking you exceptionally attractive.”
She nearly spluttered at his audacity. “That will not happen.”
“It’s the perfect scenario,” he pointed out. “I’m pinned to this headboard and can’t ravish you. Unless you want to come over here and see what I can accomplish with one hand.” He gestured to his lap with his uninjured hand. “And a prehensile penis.”
“There is no such thing!” she retorted, hoping the dim light hid her furious blush—at the image and at her embarrassment that he’d gotten her to respond to something so ridiculous. “Do you take nothing seriously?”
He grinned crookedly. “No. I’m rather shocked you’re just figuring that out.”
Studying him intently, she detected the shadow behind the insouciant attitude. “You’re lying,” she decided. “You take many things seriously, possibly everything.”
His grin dimmed at the edges, the pain showing in the brackets around his mouth as his gaze left her to drift aimlessly about the room. “Maybe it’s a circular spectrum, with taking everything seriously at one end and nothing seriously at the other—and somewhere between is the fine line where they meet. That’s the line you’ll find me dancing along, a place of shadows and nothingness.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“It’s a bit of a complex metaphor,” he allowed, grimacing.
“I understand the metaphor,” she bit out. “I just don’t understand how you can be…” She gestured in a circle to encompass all of him. “How you are.”
“No worries there. You’re far from alone in that. Half the time I don’t understand myself. If you’re not going to pull out this arrow you so carelessly lodged in me, would you at least bring me some brandy? There’s good stuff on the credenza over there.”
“No. I’m not coming near you until I’m sure you’re dead.”
“Ah. That. Hmm.”
“What? Are you finally realizing the severity of your situation?”
He breathed a laugh. “Seliah, darling, I admire your dedication to the goal, however misguided, but take note of the bleeding. I don’t think waiting for me to bleed out is going to end the way you intend.”
“If you’re suggesting I’ll regret killing you, I’ll do my soul-searching after you’re dead.” She did focus on the arrow in his shoulder, however, and the wound that had indeed stopped bleeding. “You’re saying I didn’t wound you enough for you to bleed out.”
He shook his head, then nodded, then sighed. “It’s a bit complicated. It’s also a secret. I could tell you, but… well, you know.”
She wrestled the disconcerting relief at knowing he wouldn’t die. It made no sense, as she’d been determined to punish him for his betrayal, and she hated him still, with consuming passion.
