Page 8 of Under a Wicked Moon
The fact they’d done things to her and stolen her memories meant she had to find Nova and get out of here before she lost more than just time.
With a swallow, she realized he still stared at her.
“What mark?” she choked out way too late to be believable. One more meaningful glance at the camera above the door. Maybe if she played off as unaware, he’d buy it. She rotated her arm to look and traced the raised stylized triangle. “Do you know what it is? Did they brand this onto me one of the times I was drugged?”
Come on. Buy me playing stupid.
His lips compressed. He wasn’t going to go with it. “That’s a mark of elemental—”
“Stop talking,” she said in Gaelic to him as she rose to a sit. She risked him not understanding. She chinned toward a ceiling camera. The humans didn’t understand it. She’d tested them multiple times. “They watch.”
He glanced up.
Did he understand?
In Gaelic he asked, “Can you use magic?”
He understood and could converse. Advanced linguistic skills. Call her impressed. Few knew the old language. It confirmed her suspicion he was much older than he seemed.
The magic? She’d only begun entry-level magic before her parents’ deaths. Prior to that, she’d done hiccups of instinctual things, even if she was nothing like her sister. She’d struggled with basics like starting a candle with a finger snap or heating water for tea with a wave of her hand. Those were easy things toan elemental who could control fire.
With a headshake, she moved to make sure the mark was facing away from him. She’d vowed never to use magic again for anything, not since her mistake led to her parents’ deaths and she and her sister had been captured by these freaks. All her fault and the freaking magic’s.
He crossed his arms and said low in Gaelic, “It’s important we get out of here. I don’t care about society rules. If this drug wears off, I’ll prove it. If you can”—he glanced meaningfully at the door—“it’d make things easier.”
“No shit it’s important we get out of here.” Helping him get out of this cell would get her out of theTemptation-Islandhell that’d been thrust on her.
They lapsed into silence. Periodically, she squirmed to get comfortable. A brief glance at him found him rigid and gripping the sides of the bench with both hands as if holding himself in place.
Then his stomach let out a loud growl.
He glanced down at it. “They give us any food in here?”
She giggled. Freaking giggled like a teenager. “Sure, there’s a mini-bar next to the toilet,” she said sarcastically. “Take what you want and put it on my tab.”
He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “I could go for a whisky.”
The long column of his throat fascinated her, right up to the edge of his jaw, where bristles of new hair growth started. Its color was light, probably blond like his longish hair, which fell past his ears but above his shoulders.
She said, “This night is going to get a lot worse. I can’t control it. You have to try to take your allure down a few pegs. I’m…” She swallowed hard. “If it gets too much, knock me out.”
His eyes flew open, and he rocked forward—she thought there was some gray mixed with his green and blue in those irises, butshe needed better light to see. The intensity of his regard stole her breath. He might’ve reached his breaking point.
Unflinchingly, he said, “No.”
Chapter Four
Was this what it felt like to reachherbreaking point? Her heart pounded with longing for him to touch her. Her will to stay on her side of the room waned.
She stared at his lips. Such a contrast to the stubble along his cheek, which was a tribute to the truth of his being new to this place. No way they’d let any of them close to a razor for a shave once incarcerated. A vision of him with a beard didn’t take away from his allure. His hair had turned into light-colored waves and curled at the ends.
A boom of thunder broke the spell and drew her attention to the storm still raging on the other side of the skylight. The moon was on its ascent. Moon madness’s push to get naked was strong. Hoarsely, she said, “You have to get out of here.”
“You’re right.” He rose and stretched his wide shoulders. In Gaelic, he said, “My head’s clear enough to try.”
“No, don’t!” she yelled out a moment too late.
He put one hand on the door and his neck collar detonated. With a strangled grunt, he tore at the collar and stumbled backward. Then the electrical voltage dropped him. His head whacked against the concrete bench on the way down.
