Page 110 of The Stars are Dying

Yet the more I chanted it in my mind, the more tangible it became. My body betrayed my thoughts to want it.

“That’s not convincing me.”

“What if I promised I would never harm you or your friends?” he said.

“You would bind that in the bargain?”

“Yes.”

Zathrian would be safe, and I would make sure Rose and Davina were too.

“I want answers,” I said.

Nyte’s eyes flexed, debating. “Deal.”

“I want to know how you saved me on the lake.”

“That, I might give youafteryou free me.”

“You haven’t told me how I can do that.”

“We find the key.”

“He’s been searching for it for centuries—we might not find it.”

Nyte inhaled a deep breath and his fingers moved higher. “Don’t worry about that. Just get through your trials.”

I wanted to argue, but all I could think about were two things. His touch, so believable it was frustrating to remember it wasn’t real, and the bargain with the devil I was slowly being seduced into.

“I need to know you’re not going to be a threat.”

“What people see as a threat often speaks more about them.”

He was impossible.

“Turn around.”

Mercifully, he did.

I stood, grabbing a cotton robe to sling around myself.

Nyte kept his back to me, his tone dropping a few sinister notes as he said, “I can slip into your mind. What makes you think I can’t do the same to the king or prince?”

His threat to out me turned the mood sour.

“You would have done so by now,” I said. For the first time I felt like I’d won a challenge against him. “If you could reach their minds, you would have tormented them until they released you. Something is protecting them. You need me, and if I die you lose that.”

This time when he turned I couldn’t read his emotion. Annoyance locked his jaw, but maybe he fought approval on his mouth.

“What makes you think I can’t find some other like you?”

“Another fool to answer to you?”

“Something like that.” He shrugged, but the bastard was enjoying vexing me.

“Then I hope you haven’t been down there too long. It may be some time before you lure another tobargainwith you.”

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