Page 164 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“Very. And a lot of other things, but most importantly, as unique to this world as I am. Which might change your perspective in time. You might find that you come to like your enclosure.”

“Sounds more like a foregone conclusion than a possibility.”

“I’ve just seen too much in my long life.”

“Well, if I am a sheep, what are you? The shepherd?”

“In a sense.”

“A shepherd with a penchant for very public displays of vengeance,” I say, a touch too sharply.

I see his eyes change into those hues that tell me his uncharacteristic lenity is running out. I should stop, because I might regret it. But regret is something for my future self, always has been.

“Justice is not merciful,” he retorts coolly.

Something in me snaps. “Those fauns were innocent.”

He catches my throat too fast. “I have come to believe that you are no sheep. That I have, indeed, found a wolf in the midst of lowlycattle. But a wolf with a weakness nonetheless. It’s your ridiculously soft, half-human heart speaking. It’s this very heart you owe that mark to. To your fragile little feelings.”

“You make it sound as if it’s something bad.”

“They make you weak,” he seethes.

“At least I still have feelings—or I think I’d feel dead inside,” I bite out.

He lets go of me, but lifts my arm, holding my newly tattooed wrist up between us, wrenching me close. “Then tell me, does itfeelgood that I can make you do anything I want?”

I still. My fury is gone in an instant. Only my heart still beats, and my skin still feels. “Can’t you anyways?” I ask quietly.

I wonder what this is between us. His gaze once again drops to my lips and down my body, filled with a mixture of disgust and hunger. The same dark thing that made him do what he did to me last night. And it terrifies me. Because I know he has the power to destroy me on more than one level.

But even more terrifying is the thought that I know I would let him. That I would let him doanything, bargain or no.

I know he can sense it. Feel it. Read it in my eyes.

Hells, he knows, by the way the look in his eyes turns ravenous.

But just as I think he will go too far, that he will lose control, he says, “I could adapt my methods of governance in time.”

He lets go abruptly, taking a step back from me. My body, my mind, still reel. The words hang in the air. He looks away, as if he didn’t want to acknowledge what he just said.

Only eventually, he breaks the silence once more. “You already learned that you are the last silver elf and what happened to your kind. You will be hunted. You’re never going to be safe out there.”

“And I would be with you?”

“As safe as you can be,” he retorts, again unfazed by my sarcasm.

I don’t like his answer at all.

He startles me all over when he says, “I wanted to discuss the terms of our bargain.”

“Terms?”

“There is a war coming. I need your gift—to find lost things.”

My blood turns to ice, and I retreat a step. There it is, finally. “I won’t—”

“Not people, not like Lyrian made you do,” he interrupts me, and I know that this is what he saw in my blood. One of the many things. Those terrible things I did. “Objects. Relics. Find three of them for me, and I will free you from that bargain. And if freedom is still what you want by then, we can see about that too.”

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