Page 47 of Akur

She smiled. “That’s probably for the best, then. We should throw these away. Who knows what that Tasqal put in them.” She tapped her fingers on the table before gathering the vials. There were three.

“No!” He’d eased off the wall now, golden eyes wide. “Give them to me.”

She finally looked at him. “You want them? I thought you were fine.”

He bared his teeth at her, and her lips twisted into a smile. “I need them.”

She set the vials down one by one on the table, watching the contents swirl in the light. “Okay.” She shrugged. “Come get them then.”

Her gaze pierced his, watching as he hesitated. He looked like he was in so much pain he couldn’t move, but she doubted it was as simple as that. Doubted that was the reason he’d planted himself across the room and hadn’t moved since he’d pressed her into the floor and kissed her in a way she wished she could forget. In a way no man had ever kissed her before.

“Throw them to me.”

She blinked at him, feigning incompetence. “Me? No way. I have horrible aim. If you really want them, just come and get them rather than risk me throwing them into the wall.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he huffed out a breath.

Yes, she was right. That red tinge was even under the skin at his shoulders.

“I can bring them to you.” She began easing off the stool.

“No!”

Ah, so there it was. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get them. His problem wasn’t his wounds. His problem washer.

He didn’t want to be close to her.

Why.

She eased back on the stool, studying him. His injuries were healing. She could see that like some slow motion playback. Every time she looked at him, he looked better.

And yet he winced with each little movement he made.

His eyes locked onto the vials again, and she could see the internal struggle playing across his features. The way his digits flexed against the stone, how his chest rose and fell with carefully measured breaths.

“You’re afraid,” she breathed. “Not of me, but of yourself.” When he didn’t respond, only stared into her soul, she pressed on. “Whatever is happening to you, these help control it, don’t they?”

A low growl rumbled from his chest. “You are trying to therapy me, human. Stop. You understand nothing.”

“Then help me understand.” She rolled one vial between her fingers, watching his gaze track the movement. “Because right now, you’re acting like I’m some kind of threat, when we both know that makes no sense. You’ve saved my life multiple times now. Saved my life in those tunnels. We fought off those creatures together. But suddenly you can’t even come within ten feet of me?”

“The Tasqal,” he ground out, “is playing games. Trying to—” He cut himself off with another growl, pressing back harder against the wall.

She set the vial down carefully. “Maybe he is. But right now, you’re suffering. And these?” She gestured to the vials. “These could help you. Couldn’t they.”

His growl cut her off, deeper this time, more primal. “You do not understand what those vials truly mean. What accepting them would mean.”

She studied him, noting how his claws scraped against the stone wall, how his breathing had grown more labored. How he refused to look at her directly.

“Then explain it to me,” she whispered. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re in pain. And I have something that could help. Isn’t that simple?”

“Nothing about this is simple.” His voice was strained. “I cannot accept—”

She leaned forward on the stool. “You cannot accept it because you’re suspicious it might be poison…or because you’d be accepting something from the enemy.”

His golden eyes flashed. “Stop trying to understand. Stop trying to help. You cannot help.”

“Why not?” She stood slowly, and he pressed himself harder against the wall. “Because you don’t trust me? After everything we’ve been through?” It almost hurt, his rejection. No. Itdidhurt, and she didn’t understand why. “Because I’mhuman?”

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