Page 77 of Destroyer

Fen’s face went from agony to ice in a moment. He closed the distance between them and lifted a hand to her face, touching a thumb gently to her lip. There was something strange in his gaze, something… different. Detached. The glaze of a man too deep in his drink, or of someone waking the night, awake but disoriented.

Ru swallowed and tasted bile.

“You’re not being entirely truthful, Ru.” Fen’s voice was like dark honey, no longer demanding or shaken. This was new. This was… different.

And the artifact was there at all once in her mind, filling her as it had just before she spoke to it, caressing her thoughts, goading her. And though she didn’t mean to, didn’t fully understand it, she felt herself begin to melt, become malleable.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “I asked the artifact a question.”

“Did it answer?”

The words hung heavy between them. Ru was desperate, then, to tell Fen the truth. She wanted to tell him everything. He deserved to know — he had been with her since the start, had saved her life, promised to protect her. But this was too much. The truth could rend them apart, he’d think she was mad, or cursed, and she would not risk opening a fissure between them.

“No,” she breathed.

Fen’s nearness in concert with the artifact’s warm tendrils along her spine, was affecting her, making her light-headed. She was already disoriented, weak from her spell in the dungeon.

“You’re lying,” he said, eyelids hanging heavy over dark eyes.

He dragged his thumb from her lip to the edge of her jaw, a lazy caress. His eyes shone like glass. She felt a strange pull toward him, inevitable as the thread that pulled her to the artifact. As if the artifact itself were pushing her, urging her closer to him.

“I’m not lying,” Ru said, increasingly breathless. She leaned into Fen’s touch, relishing the light brush of his thumb against her ear, his hand in her hair. Her head spun.

“Tell me,” he growled, his body so close to hers she could feel his chest rising and falling as he breathed, “exactly what you did.”

His other hand moved to her waist, feather-soft, fingertips pressing ever so lightly against her jacket. The artifact’s touch blazed like a sudden beacon, nearly engulfing her.

Now, she felt truly drunk, her limbs heavy, Fen’s body so fiercely close. Heat flared in her, deep in her belly. And the artifact stoked the flame.

“I know you,” Fen said, leaning down until his lips just brushed her jaw, right where his thumb had been. His voice was low and gravelly. “I can tell you’re holding back. I’ll get the truth out of you, one way or another.”

She inhaled sharply as his hand made its way to the nape of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair. Were they really doing this? Was she still unconscious, her cheek pressed to the cold stone in the dungeon?

The artifact’s touch coursed through her like molten gold, from her spine to her fingers to every point that Fen touched, flaring where his skin met hers. The floor could have fallen away; the sky could have crashed down around them and she wouldn’t have noticed. There was only Fen. Fen, and the ceaseless, devastating pull of the artifact.

Then, ever so slowly, he pulled her hair. “You spoke to the artifact, didn’t you?”

For a fraction of a moment, Ru froze as fear cut through the haze. She should pull away, keep up the lie. But it was nearly impossible to think, to drag her mind out of whatever fog of Fen and artifact andneedit had sunken into.

“Of course, I spoke to it.” Her voice was practically ragged and sounded as if it came from miles away. “You heard me.”

Fen pulled her toward him until their bodies were pressed together, caught in an inexorable dance, unable to move away from one another. She was certain that somehow he was as caught up as she was, drunk as she was, though it made no sense. The artifact was doing this to her… yet Fen…

The thought skittered away, fading until it was lost.

“No,” Fen said, lips moving against Ru’s neck, the sensation burning in tandem with the artifact’s fire under her skin. “Youspoketo it. It felt you.”

Struggling against what felt like the weight of the earth itself, Ru pulled back, pushing Fen away with both hands. His words had once again cut through the fog, clear and bright.It felt you.

“So what if I did,” Ru said, blinking hard, trying to put her thoughts in order. “What if I did speak to it? What if it did feel me, in some unfathomable, impossible way?”

Fen’s eyes were still glassy, pupils blown wide. His black hair was disheveled, his shirt rumpled and hanging open at the throat.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he gasped, chest heaving. “Did itanswer?”

She gave him the coldest look she could muster, despite her bright-hot face, her own heart beating in time with his. Could he see that she wanted him? Could he feel the magnetic pull between them, of the artifact, just as she did at that moment? But how would such a thing be possible?

She pressed a palm to her eye and breathed deeply. Her skin began to cool, and the haze that shrouded her thoughts and movements seemed to be fading.

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