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Ryson assessed her like she was an object that had just come alive. He was a predator that had just spotted a pulse, and they stared at each other face to face.
“Blind,” he repeated the word as if she’d shamed him in the worst way. Looking into the luminance of his eyes, silver eyes that in these woods were symbolic of power, she realized that of the available insults, she might have picked a rather offensive one.
“You were raised away from the poisons of the world, fed with refined doctrine, given only the best, and yet with no real teeth to defend yourself with. You fail to see what you are, but I’ve seen it a thousand times in a thousand ways,” he said.
The intensity with which he spoke assured her that his retaliation would be severe, and so she could only listen with the utmost attention, standing almost on her toes in anticipation of the knife in his words.
“Purity in this world only ever has one function. Don’t you understand it? Your people live short lives, and by every estimation, you have already spent more than half of yours locked inside a room.” His voice slowed and deepened as he added, “They didn’t raise you to survive. You’re a sacrifice.”
Clea held her breath as if he’d reached inside her chest and ripped away a closely guarded bandage, one perhaps, that she’d always sensed was there. Now she knew what Ryson had in some ways suggested through his questions at the campfire.
How could anyone say it? It seemed absurd, but in the deepest parts of herself it felt true. She had been raised with the expectancy of a narrow life. In all likelihood, they’d never intended to give her any more freedom than bearing children would allow.
He started to turn away from her, but she yanked him close,determined to show that despite having nothing to say, she wasn’t done.
This caught his full attention.
Clea then remembered what Ryson had said earlier about sifting, about how a Veilin’s touch could cripple a sifted Venennin. She realized how just moments ago Ryson had grabbed her covered wrists, not her hands, seemingly avoiding her skin. He was more of a Venennin now than ever and the beatings he’d endured in the dungeon had likely undone any past healing.
Measuring his reaction, she lifted her fingers to his face and touched his skin. He did not flinch or back away. Clea wondered if she hadn’t recovered enough of her ansra to have any effect, flattening her palm against his face as her fingertips grazed the outline of his eye. Maybe he wasn’t Venennin enough.
Instead of pulling away, Ryson’s hand traced hers and he leaned into her touch, closing his eyes and inhaling as he relaxed. His demeanor rapidly transitioned from that of savagery to a cat leaning into the delicate nature of her touch. In this, he reminded her of a panther; she feared he might bare his fangs again in the next moment.
“They layer you in vices, and the fact that you could so easily be a poison is the most gratifying lure of them all,” he said on the depth of a whisper against her wrist that sent an alarming rush of sensations through her.
He moved closer to her, still holding her hand as his forehead rested against hers. Clea held her breath at their proximity,wondering how she’d invited such a reaction.
“You claim to heal with your hands,” he whispered, “and you’d use them to wound me with such a tender gesture?”
She felt trapped between two intentions, no longer able to explain herself. “I’m trying to save you,” she replied with a stifled breath. The blade of his other hand traced over her collarbone and then her neck. She sucked in a breath and flattened her back against the column behind her. He’d only mimicked a version of her gesture, but she reacted as if it were his touch that caused pain. A curious, tense feeling followed the path of his hand as one thumb lined the column of her throat almost as if he would choke her before his fingers moved to her face.
“But who’s going to save you?” he asked, his eyes full of a pushing and pulling tide, yanking her forward and shoving her back as he whispered threats but kept his tone gentle.
She closed her eyes, his proximity unbearable. Another sharp flash of the medallion’s presence touched her senses.
Focused, she locked her eyes on his as she reached her left hand across his body and fished the medallion from between two belts across his side. He refused to release her eyes as she gathered the chain in her hand and clutched it against her stomach.
He offered no objection or resistance. She thought for the briefest moment he might take it back, but in exchange, he took something else. The fingers that were cinched through her corset, released her, and wound around her waist. He guidedher into his body by her lower back and kissed her.
His lips pressed against hers and she forgot to breathe, her thoughts scattered by the rush of feelings that coiled and fought one another in the pit of her stomach. Fears she understood and attractions she did not bloomed in competition, entangled in a web of awe at how a kiss could cause it all to feel so urgent and irrelevant at once.
He turned her hand up against the marble column, flattening their palms together and coiling his fingers into hers. Clea knew the power of hands to heal and to break, but now it was as if everywhere their skin connected was some binding and unavoidable truth of things they shared beneath all their stark differences.
He breathed her in, his entire body drawing her close like an expression of his lungs as his hand pushed firmly against hers. As if to exhale, he eased away for a moment. His hand slid down her wrist and arm, his eyes searching her scattered soul as she witnessed the stirrings of hunger in the depths of his gaze. She watched his eyes wander to her neck, his hand lifting to trace the black lines now exposed from paint rubbed clean from her skin.
She expected disgust or revulsion, holding her breath as he followed the lines questioningly with his fingertips. She waited for his eyes to find hers again, to exchange silent messages, confirm his distaste. Instead, he tightened his hold on her and embraced the skin with a hungry kiss. She clutched his shirt as she felt his teeth against her neck, gasping as his fingers curled forcefully into her hair and freed it in his hands. Every gesture broke her open, protest dwindlingto an involuntary, pleading whimper.
Embarrassed by her own weakness, she wanted to disappear, but he found her mouth as if to drink the sound, and kissed her like he savored it. The rest of the golden pins clattered against the stone as her hair cascaded over her shoulders in waves. In his arms she felt pain without suffering, a strange and foreign sensation that sent her mind reeling before he drew away again.
His hand left her hair in a lingering way before tracing her cheek. His thumb rested gently against her bottom lip, privy to every breath she tried to recover. Awash in dizzying feelings, she felt like one more kiss would make her disappear. He tilted his head as if tempted to kiss her again gently, but paused as he searched her eyes. His own gaze burned with an unfamiliar life she’d never seen in him before. Her hand slid down his chest, some part of her warning that she should push him away, create some space between them, but instead it returned back to his face with a question she didn’t know how to ask.
He followed her hand in his own again, smiling into it as if he could see the answer and keep it all to himself as he playfully bit the inside of her wrist and swept her up. The first motion preceded the second so suddenly that she was completely off guard in his arms.
Hitting him seemed like such a strange and abrupt change, that she found herself unable to discern her next move as he sat her back on the altar.
He braced his hands on either side of it, Clea tempted to hop off as he commanded, “lay down.”
She stared at him, perplexed and bewildered, swallowing as she watched him with wide, curious eyes.
