Page 25 of The Enemy's Daughter

“Oh, yeah?” He turns his head, his eyes staring at the side of my face.

“Immobilizes people. Paralyzes them in the right dose. Far less painful but with the same effect. The medicinal ingredient is in the sap of the stem, but the plant looks a bit like a horse’s tail, only it’s green.”

“I’ll pass that on,” Tristan says. Then his thumb moves, a tiny stroke against my hand.

A cage of butterflies releases in my chest as my nerves ignite at his touch. Guilt quickly follows, slamming into me for reacting that way to him. It’s not right.

But then a devastating thought occurs. Did Tristan just feel my moment of attraction to him? “We should get this over with.”

He pulls himself up with effort. I meet the evergreen forest of his eyes, lined with a fringe of the blackest lashes. “Are you sure?”

I see now that his hair isn’t just light brown. It’s mixed with strands of gold that curl over his forehead and behind his ears. Around his neck. His lips still carry a hint of purple, but even with that and the dark circles remaining under his eyes, he’s the kind ofbeautiful I’ve never seen before. It scares me.

“We have to,” I say. We need to do it right, so I don’t have to do this again.

The thought of taking on more poison is like bracing for a hammer to smash my toe. I don’t want to do it. Every part of me revolts. Because it’s not my toe. It’s my lungs. My kidneys. My vital organs.

“Let’s go,” I say, closing my eyes and bracing myself.

I feel him lower his head, his heat glowing against the skin of my cheek. Then, impossibly soft, his lips brush my neck.

I inhale a shaky breath, and a fever that has nothing to do with poison rolls over me in a wave. Our link intensifies, laying more parts of ourselves bare. Something forbidden stirs in my blood.

Liam.I go still as his face flashes in my mind.

The guilt gives me the courage I need to finally call for more of the poison. It comes hard and fast, curdling my stomach with nausea. My heart stumbles.

Tristan jerks away. “Okay, that’s enough.” Like a gate being shut, the flow of his suffering cuts off.

Oh, thank the burning stars.But even though it’s stopped, the poison is back and coursing through my veins. My breaths once again take work, and my skin burns and stings from being cut and split open. Even my shoulder hurts from where I stabbedhim.

How did Tristan ever take so much from me before?

“Are you okay?” he asks, lying down beside me once again.

“I don’t think either one of us is okay.”

“We should sleep. That will help.”

My eyes close. I’m halfway there. I just hope we both wake up.

9

“Come on. Get up.”

I struggle to open my eyes. It’s painful, like they’re embedded with bits of dirt. A woman Mum’s age, with a wide nose and short brown hair, yanks the blanket off me. An instant chill settles over my damp skin as I go on alert. I’m in enemy territory.

What’s happening?

Why is it so cold in here?

Where’s Tristan?

“It’s been a full twenty-four hours of you lying in your own sweat. Surely you want to fix that.”

I blink. A day has passed? Pain stabs through my shoulders as I try to move, but it’s nothing compared to the dry ache in my throat. I’m so thirsty.

“I’m Caro,” the blanket stealer says before grabbing my bicep and forcefully guiding me into a sitting position. I sway with dizziness when she lets go—whoa!I grip the mattress to catch myself. She points across the room. “And the pretty one there is Annette.”

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