Page 57 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

Vaara slowly turned. “I’d rather stay.”

Anger twisted through Crow. Had that not been a clear enough order? “Come. Now.”

She saw the hate blooming anew in his gaze. A muscle in his jaw pulsed. There was a long, long pause—longer than she’d expected him to be able to resist the pull of the binding.

But then he got up and followed her away from the table.

Aruna had recovered from her influence and was staring at them, unnerved. He and the swordswoman watched them leave, but made no move to stop them.

Crow gave the half-Varai at the door a curt nod, and Vaara followed her out and up the stairs to the street.

Chapter 15

She kept walking, heading nowhere in particular, as she tried to sort through the fear and anger she’d had in that room. It was miraculous that she’d escaped alive. No one seemed to be following them, either. Vaara followed silently behind her as she turned corner after corner.

“What was that?” she asked him finally, stopping in an empty alley. It was only then that she noticed he hadn’t bothered to hide his face again.He looked at her, despondent. She hadn’t sensed this sort of melancholy in him since they’d been at the prison.

“My brother is dead,” he said.

Crow’s eyebrows rose. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say.

“What happened?” she asked.

He snorted, shaking his head. “What do you care?” There was something dangerous in his voice. He stepped toward her until he stood very close and she had to tilt her head up to keep eye contact with him.

“You know I care,” she said. It was more of an annoyed venting of emotion than an attempt to comfort him. She waved an arm helplessly. “I always care, even when I don’t want to. You must know that by now.”

Rage sparked on his face again. Crow gasped as he grabbed her wrists and shoved her back against the building behind her, pinning her hands to the wall.

She stared at him. What he’d just done was dangerously close to hurting her—which the binding should have prevented. “What are you doing?” she hissed.

“I’ve got nothing left now,” he said. “Even if I went back to Kuda Varai, there would be nothing there for me. I have no one. I suppose I may as well stay here withyou,” he said, spitting the word with disbelief and disgust, conveying every inch of disdain he had for her, “since I haven’t got anywhere else to go anymore. Everything has been taken from me. Everything.”

Crow waited a beat, then took a long breath. “Let go of me,” she said quietly.

He just glared at her. Crow waited.

And waited.

Suddenly she remembered the girl in the tavern holding his wrist. The wrist that Crow had put the binding bracelet on. She remembered the entranced movement of her lips.

A mage. The girl was a mage.

She swallowed. Her heart pounded and her palms began to itch with panic. “Vaara. Let go of me,” she tried again, her voice quiet and clear.

He tilted his head at her. His hands clenched a little tighter on her wrists, squeezing bones that suddenly felt very breakable.

He didn’t let go.

Her insides melted. She froze against the wall. Her eyes darted toward her hand. Vaara’s skin was bare, but hers wasn’t. She’d put her gloves back on. She had no way of touching him.

She became keenly aware of the sword at his hip, and the knife on her own belt, suddenly weighing against her waist as heavily as lead. She’d made it so easy for him. He would slit her throat with it. There was nothing she could do about it.

For an infinitely long moment, as Crow waited for him to make good on his promise to end her, there was nothing between them but quiet breaths.

He leaned closer, stretching her arms out to her sides. She flinched, but didn’t look away. He studied her, his gaze flicking over the features of her face one by one. He wore no particular expression, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Aren’t you going to put up a fight?” he asked.

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