Az frowns. “I’m so sorry it hurts. I couldn’t risk the mere biting into your flesh. Their venom is also a paralytic, and I didn’t know what it would do to you with Blaise’s venom already in your system.”
He allows the gag to fall to the floor, and I spit out the wad of fabric that’s been blocking my mouth.
I don’t expect to, but I let out the quietest of sobs. My jaw is still sore from the gag, and it almost feels wrong to move it. But having the gag gone…
I can’t help the tears that flow freely from my eye, the hiccups that jump from my throat in laborious gasps.
“I’m so sorry I had to do that,” Az says again, still stroking his fingers through my sweat-matted hair. His touch, the touch I once craved, is slimy against my skin, and I want to cower from it.
I can’t do that, I realize.
With my gag finally gone, there are so many things I want to scream, so many insults to hurl. I want to tell him I hate him, and I want to find daggers for words to say it. I want to take the parts of Az I know so well, the weaknesses and insecurities I know from years of idolizing his every move…I want to take them and squeeze, to lance his wounds with a scalpel and bring their rancid infection to light.
But I can’t. Not if I want Az to trust me.
One last time, I reach for my Old Magic, ask him a question.
It’s the faintest of movements in my chest. As if he’s shaking his head No, no, we aren’t close enough to the Rip to use that sort of power.
I continue to let the tears fall.
“That’s okay. Cry as much as you need,” Az whispers, and I can’t help but recall the night I comforted him over my impending death.
I’ll have to be smart about this if I want him to believe me. He’s clearly convinced himself that it’s Kiran’s power over my emotions that makes me hate him. Rather than the fact that he almost caused the death of my sister. That shows he’s willing, eager even, to believe there remains hope for mending our relationship.
Still, Az, deluded as he might be, is not a total idiot. Even if he is a fool, he’s a paranoid one, and if I push too hard to convince him of my love, he might interpret it for what it is—an attempt to trick him.
No, I have to be smarter about this.
So I lean into the tears, welcome the urge to sob, and whisper, “I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t know…I don’t know what’s real…”
He goes to touch me again, to comfort me, and I flinch violently. He draws his hand away with a start, and I peer up at him, widening my eye in confusion.
Az frowns, though there’s a condescension to it. “That’s a good sign. If you’re doubting your feelings. It means the effect Kiran had over you is fading.”
I allow horror to flash across my face, and he frowns again.
I squeeze my eye shut, tucking my knees into my arms, my bound hands serving as their anchor. “I’m so scared, Az. I’m so scared of what will happen to me when…when…”
“When you can finally believe it wasn’t real.”
I nod, hiccuping again. Then I let out something between a strangled sob and a wail.
“I don’t want it not to have been real. I don’t want to have not had a choice…” I shudder, and I let Az’s mind run away with what exactly I was dreading realizing had not been my choice.
When I look up at him, I realize I’ve hit my mark. Jealousy sluices off of him in torrential waves. It’s working.
He reaches for me again, but I cower, quickly biting my lip. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s like I know logically that you’re not going to hurt me. But the feelings swarm up, and…”
Az nods his head. “Feelings are difficult to ignore. We’ll get through this, Asha. His hold over you will fade, but until then, I can be patient.”
It takes all the effort in the world to give him a grateful smile, when I want nothing more than to vomit at the thought.
“Think you could distract me?” I ask.
He arches a brow, and I shrug. “I haven’t talked to you in over a year. I thought maybe we could catch up.” I shake my head, taking in a breath. “Not about me. I don’t want to talk about…Please. Just tell me something, anything, so I don’t have to think about…”
Az doesn’t seem to want me to finish my sentence, because he nods and begins. “When Calias’s plan failed, I made a run for it. Fates, Asha. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d done. I thought Dinah was dead, and that it was all my fault. It had never been my intention for her to actually come in harm’s way. I believed that Calias would spare her if you did as you were told, but I was still naïve then. I’d forgotten to have him specify under a fae oath that he wouldn’t command any harm to come to her if you obeyed. I was sick over it for months.”
Even in the dim lantern light, Az’s expression seems to pale, almost as if he truly believes the lies he weaves.
“Thankfully, I’d made connections while apprenticing with Tijan, and I had my wife’s dowry.”
Ah. Right. I forgot about her.
The fae female Az slept with so her aristocrat parents would agree to let her marry him, ensuring wealth at Az’s disposal.
I allow myself to look sick, an honest emotion given the circumstances, but one I hope Az will interpret as jealousy.
Apparently it works, because Az shakes his head. “I haven’t had contact with her in over a year. Turns out running off with a female’s dowry doesn’t exactly strengthen one’s marriage. But none of that matters. I used the funds to hire a bounty hunter to capture the Red. Blaise told me you were searching for her, too.”
Ugh. Has Blaise been relaying everything back to Az?
There’s a part of me that hopes her plan to get Nox back didn’t work. I instantly feel guilty, as that likely isn’t fair to Nox.
Though maybe he’s found someone nicer than Blaise to settle down with in his other life. Or maybe he’s just as backstabbing as she is and doesn’t deserve happiness.
“Anyway, that plan failed, considering my bounty hunter never returned to me. I assumed he had been bought out by a higher bidder, which I suppose he had. I just wasn’t expecting it to be the Red herself.”
