Page 37 of Promise of Darkness
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Ican’t,curse you.”
The prince turns to stare at me. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
I hate having to divulge my worst weaknesses. In Asturia, I shouldn’t even have them, let alone admit to them. Never show your underbelly. Never reveal your throat. And never, ever grant your trust to someone who hasn’t earned it.
“I can’t… ward.” I shrug. “It’s not one of my abilities.”
“Warding is one of the earliest magics we learn,” he says.
“Well, I can’t.”
And if he wants to cursed well push me for more information, then I’ll stay here.
Thiago gives me a sleepy-eyed look. I hate the fact I can’t read it. “Fine.” He steps closer, bringing both hands up to touch my face.
I bat them away, instantly on guard, and he holds them up in surrender.
“I was going to ward you myself.”
My hands hover in the air. He’s up to something and I need to know what it is. Does this have anything to do with that Unseelie spy he met in the woods the other day? Where is he going that’s going to take him away for a night or two?
But I also know that letting him touch me like this is a mistake.
Because his touch is another weakness I don’t like admitting to.
Every night I grant him the kiss I bartered, and every night I have to fight the instinctive response that begs me to lean into his touch.
“Warn me next time.”
It’s consent enough. The second his thumbs brush my cheeks, I feel a warm caress glide over every inch of my skin. It’s intimate and sensual and makes me shiver. His magic feels like silken sheets whispering against my skin, and the cool embrace of moonlight. Mine is a gush of hot, electric summer storms, but Thiago’s magic is a dangerous, smoky lure.
“Done,” he whispers.
I shake his hands off me, trying not to shiver again. “You just wanted to touch me.”
“Perhaps.” With the faintest of smiles, he grabs his horse’s reins again. “But consider, if you will, the fact I wasn’t the one who refused to try.”
“You think I wanted that?”
Incredible. His arrogance knows no bounds.
“I think you like dancing around the truth. You’re awfully defensive for someone who merely doesn’t know how to ward.”
“Maybe I just don’t trust you with the truth.”
For a second, his eyes darken, and he turns to me. “Are we going to spend the next three days stabbing at each other with words? Because I need to keep my wits about me and not focused on you. So here are the rules: If you intend to come, then you’ll need to keep your mouth shut at all times. And if I tell you to do something, then you don’t argue. You do it. Agreed?”
Three days?
“Where in the Underworld are we going?”
“Iskvien,” he growls.
“Agreed.”
