Page 70 of This Monster of Mine

At her silence, he gave her a quizzical look. “I didn’t think this would frighten you.”

It took her a second to find her tongue. “I’m not frightened, just—”

“A little unnerved?” He quoted her response from her first night in his study.

“And of course, you aren’t.” He was stormfall itself. More exhilarating and terrifying than lightning. He probably didn’t have even a passing acquaintance with fear.

“Sarai.” His voice went lower, softer. Her name hung between them, transformed to music. Pulse ricocheting, she raised her head, and it felt like jumping from a cliff.

His gaze singed her. “Are you afraid of me?”

Rain slicked them both, but whereas she probably resembled a drowned rat, he exuded power, control. Safety. Just as he had the night they’d met when she’d believed him to be a mere magus. And she gave him the truth as she had then.

“I should be.” It was a relief to finally admit it. “I keep having to remind myself that I should be terrified.”

“Why?” The question sounded almost stark.

“Because I don’t really know you,” she whispered. “I don’t know whether you treat me as an equal because you want to use me or because you see me as one.” A stray droplet glided down his cheekbone, and she cursed her yearning to trace its path.

“What if I told you that you were safe with me?” His voice was a low rasp. “What if I said no harm would come to you at my hands?”

A shaky laugh left her. “You’re too late, Kadra.”

Glancing up as his features closed, she laid out the worst part of it all in weary capitulation. She had no reason to trust him, and a thousand to fear him. And yet …

“I already believe you,” she said bitterly.

A fierce spark lit his face. When she shivered under the weight of her sodden robes, she found herself tucked closer, under his cloak, which he curled around her. Gritting her teeth, she hated herself and hated him as a host of unwanted emotions swelled. Weariness. Comfort. Safety.

You’re safe.She felt the truth of those words, because he wasn’t just stormfall. He was a tree with roots that extended far below the waterlogged soil. Secure, unshakable. Ur Dinyé’s homicidal son and its fiercest protector.

Tomorrow, she might remind herself to fear him once more, outside the shelter of this tree and his arms. But perhaps it wasn’t so wrong for her to take his safety today.

Her last ounce of resistance vanished. She relaxed against him, watching the sky unleash its fury. And an aching warmth that felt almost like peace filled her when he seemed to do the same.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Situated in the ring of neutral ground around the Academiae’s citadel, the Hall of Records was a walled complex of white limestone. An elaborate statue of Lord Time greeted her past the front gates, a young man with three faces: the youthful sweetness of the past, the hardened resignation of the present, and the grim exhaustion of the future. Commiserating with the latter, Sarai waited for Gaius, mind still on the previous day’s storm.

Insane. The path of her pacing grew longer. A mass murderer—how many kills had she witnessed?—possibly her assailant, the man who’d made her burn Ennius alive at the Robing. And she’drelaxedinto him?I’m going mad. Slumping against a post, she jumped upon finding it occupied.

Sprawled at the base, Magus Telmar waved. “Petitor Sarai. You lookawful.”

The stench ofibezhit her nostrils with brute force and she coughed. “Why are you on the ground?”

“It’s warm.” His breath misted into the windchill when he spoke.

Gods. Trying to figure out how to lug a man twice her size upright, she started when he gripped her ankle.

“I’m well.” He indicated his thick robes with jerky hands. “You, however, are not.”

“I’m fine. Honestly, Telmar, that stuff will kill you. There are better wines.”

“Had more life as a barmaid than you do now,” Telmar noted, before his bloodshot eyes widened. “Kadra suck the life from you? You look used up.”

A few passing magi passing by tittered. Her fragile hold on her temper fractured.

“No one is suckinganythingfrom anyone!” she snapped at her audience, before crouching beside Telmar. “Please don’t feed the rumor mill.”

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