Page 54 of Lord of Dance and Desire

He shook his head. “You don’t remind me of him. You are him.” Dartanyon paused. “I would know your soul anywhere. I will keep you with me from now on. Safe.”

We were going to have to quibble over the word safe, because he made it sound like the word dead. I curled my fingers into a claw. He wanted to wake me, but he wanted to kill me. He wanted love, but he wanted vengeance.

“I’m your second chance,” I said. “Don’t destroy me. Let me go. Let me dance. Let me be everything I couldn’t when I was with you. Everything that was cut short.”

I was guessing, but I didn’t imagine my guesses were far off. He’d given me enough information I could drawgeneral conclusions. Andrei and Con had also both spoken of Dartanyon’s past a little.

The only thing I couldn’t guess washowDartanyon’s bonded had died.

Dartanyon pressed his fingers harder against the glass until the tips were bloodless, as if he yearned to reach through the barrier and grasp me.

A single tear rolled down his cheek. “Remember. Remember who you are. And then we’ll go together.”

He turned and began to walk away.

I panicked. “Wait. Dartanyon, wait! Don't leave me here. Don't leave me locked in this cage.”

My worst nightmare, locked in a cage and set aside in a corner with no control over my destiny.

He kept walking, and I sank to the ground.

“Let me out. Let me out so I can be with you. If I’m yours, don’t keep me locked in this cage.” I pressed my hands against the glass in the same spot as his as I tried to sound cajoling rather than desperate.

He’d come back, of course. But not before enough time passed I realized it was a punishment.

I’d decided I’d been here two days based on the waxing and waning of my energy as I slept, and the force of my hunger when Dartanyon finally brought me food and water.

He’d allowed a bathroom break at that time; I’d fallen asleep—probably not natural sleep—then awoke up in a bathroom. After an hour, I’d fallen asleep again, and awoke back in the glass cage.

A cage reminding me more and more of that closed carriage where only days ago, it seemed, I’d been trapped by another Cassanian. Tortured. It was happening all over again, and like then I was just as helpless to prevent it.

Except I wasn’t quite as helpless. I had tools. The main question was; what was I willing to sacrifice to wield them?

The second question was if I was strong enough.

The cage closed in on me, and it took everything to keep my vision bright and focused, to ignore the sweat along my spine and keep my quickening breaths steady.

“I know what they say about me, Lady Hasannah,” Dartanyon said in his low, whimsical, faraway voice. The voice that had always tried to be so gentle, unthreatening. Like the Fae version of “I’m just a nice guy.”

“I don’t,” I said, to keep him talking.

“That I’m mad, that I seek death.” He smiled, lowering his head so his cotton candy and dove hair fell over his shoulders. “They’re right. But they don’t say I’m stupid, do they?”

I wasn’t going to answer that. Andrei didn’t much use the word stupid, but he used other words. None of which would help me get what I wanted.

“How can I harm you?” I asked. “You’re a Lord, and I’m?—”

“Nothing?” His eyes gleamed, a smile on his lips. “But you don’t believe that any more than I do, my swan. If you wish to please me, to earn your release from this dome. . .dance.”

The hunger in his eyes incensed me. “You want to coerce me to give you something you could have had for the price of a ticket. No.”

“I offered you a patronship. You refused me.” He shook his head. “I don’t blame you, you don’t know who you are. But when you danced for me that last time, you felt our bond.”

Nausea curdled my stomach. “You mean when you drew me into a fairy circle? When you drugged me with Ixnie?”

His eyes widened.

I gave him a small smile. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I have nothing else to do. Xavi was yours, wasn’t he? And the flowers, they were yours too. I?—”

---