Page 78 of Cursed Dreams
He took one more step, close enough that she could feel the heat of him. “So no, I wasn’t cold. I was holding myself back, or you. And if you think I’m not always thinking about you, aching for you... then you’ve never been paying attention.”
He paused, gaze fixed on hers. “But go ahead. Pretend I’m imagining things. Pretend you haven’t been thinking about me too.”
“I haven’t!” she snapped, her voice shaking.
It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Since Caelum, she’d barely spared a thought for Vaelith. The emotions Vaelith stirred in her felt different now, more confusing, clouded, nothing compared to how she felt when Caelum looked at her.
But even still, something in her chest twisted at the way Vaelith looked at her now, like she’d wounded him. Like he hadn’t expected her to say it.
“So just, go,” she added, breathless. “Leave me alone.”
The silence that followed was thick, heavy with the heat of all the things they weren’t saying, the weight of truths neither of them could bring themselves to speak, yet, neither of them turned away.
Vaelith’s jaw flexed, his silver eyes burning. He took one slow step toward her, then another, and another, closing the distance between them until she could feel the heat radiating off him.
“If only I could,” he murmured, voice low and edged with something rougher than anger.
Before she could blink, his hand wrapped around her arm, not painfully, but firmly, like he needed to anchor himself.
“I wish I could just walk away from this,” he growled, “from you.”
Thalia's breath hitched in her throat. “Then do it,” she snapped, trying to pull her arm free. “Go. Walk away!”
His grip didn’t budge.
“You have no idea what you're doing,” he said sharply. “No idea what you’re tangled in, Thalia. There are things about my life, about me, that you will never understand.”
She frowned, heart pounding. “Then tell me! Stop talking in riddles like some dark, brooding puzzle box and explain it!”
Vaelith’s face twisted, pain, frustration, desire all flickering across his usually unreadable expression.
“If I were a lesser man,” he said, his voice lowering to a growl, “I’d throw you over my shoulder right now and march you away from this godforsaken world before it breaks you.”
Thalia froze. Her heart thudded violently in her chest, torn between a hundred emotions at once, confusion, fury, and something dangerously close to wanting.
“What does that even mean?” she asked, blinking up at him, breathless. “Why are you like this?”
“You’re no shrinking flower,” he said through clenched teeth. “So, stop acting like one. You have power, Thalia. A mind sharper than most I’ve met in centuries. Wake up and use it. Figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” she snapped. “You keep throwing cryptic warnings and then acting like I should magically know what’s going on, like I’m supposed to piece together the mystery of you, when all I get are broody stares and threats of being carted off like a sack of potatoes!”
She threw her hands up in frustration, her voice rising with every word. “You’re an arrogant, self-important, intolerable, cryptic bastard!”
His gaze dropped to her lips.
Dangerously.
Hungrily.
“Careful,” he said, voice suddenly low, warning, laced with heat. “You keep spouting filthy little insults like that, and you’ll find yourself in a position you’ll either regret…”
His eyes lifted to meet hers again, silver igniting with something feral and star-hot.
“Or never stop thinking about.”
Thalia’s lips parted, whether to argue, swear again, or gasp, she wasn’t sure.
