Page 46 of The Rebel and the Rose
Let him wait. ‘If you came down here to speak in riddles, you can piss off. My head aches enough already.’
He frowned, shaking off whatever strangeness had come over him. ‘We’ll talk in the morning. Once you officially offer your services to the King of Valterre and thank him for the opportunity to prove yourself.’
‘I’ll kiss his feet too, shall I?’
He gave her a stark look. ‘Play the game, Seraphine. You’ve always been good at that.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why, so Nadia can strangle me out on the road the first chance she gets?’
‘Leave Nadia to me.’
‘My gallant knight,’ she taunted. ‘I thought you hated me.’
He rested his forehead against the bars until those firelit hazel eyes were all she could see.
‘Not enough to watch you suffer, Seraphine.’ He reachedthrough the bars, his voice gentling as he traced the bruise on her cheek.
She jerked away. Too close. Too dangerous. The familiar scent of him came rushing back, heady notes of woodsmoke and sage surrounding her in a mist. She hadn’t realized how starved for it she’d been. How some vital part of her had been slumbering in his absence.
Her magic was sparking again.
She hinged backwards, afraid he would see the gold fire burning behind her eyes.
He curled his fingers into a fist. Regret flickered in his eyes, and she realized what she must look like to him, bruised and bloodied inside her cell. Perhaps he had wanted to comfort her, or simply remind himself that she was still alive. Still breathing. Still fighting.
His face turned serious. ‘The king is wary of you, Seraphine. He fears what your Order stands for. Fears that it might one day stand against him.’
Just wait until he learns what I really am.
‘The king kills all that he fears.’ Ransom ground his jaw. ‘I should know.’
She gave a mirthless huff. Of course. He was the one who killed them, after all.
‘Don’t give him anything else to be wary of,’ he said, holding her gaze. Letting the silence carry the rest of his words. She heard the warning loud and clear.
Ransom knew, or at least suspected, that there was magic inside her now. He must still remember the hint she had betrayed all those months ago when they had endured astrained goodbye in the Saints’ Quarter, how her palm had sparked against his lips when he kissed her goodbye.
He had seen the handprint burned into Lark’s chest. The golden scorch mark on his best friend’s lifeless corpse. Her doing. Her magic. A thing that thrashed and roiled inside her, longing to be free. But how could she free a thing she could not understand? A beast that seemed not to answer to her?
‘I don’t plan on drawing any more attention to myself,’ she said carefully.
‘Does this mean you’re going to do as you’re told on the road?’
She snorted. Avoiding the king’s sharpened attention while in his dungeon and diverting from his orders while out in the wilds of Valterre were two different things entirely. And what was Ransom expecting? That she’d bend her knee tohim? ‘Or what? This time, you’ll really kill me?’
‘Maybe I will.’
‘I guess some threats never get old.’
They regarded each other in the uneasy silence, everything that had happened over the last four months filling the space between them. The truth was that despite their enmity, Sera had fled the city with his permission. Even after killing his best friend, he had let her go. He had taken over the Order of Daggers just to keep them from chasing her. That had been their agreement. Her freedom, for his own.
She would run and he would stay.
And kill, and kill, and kill.
He looked so drained now. So unhappy.
Perhaps that’s why the words flew from her mouth. ‘I thought you would come to me. I thought you would find me again.’
