Page 40 of Light Locked
He withdrew his hand from his wound.
“It’s fine,” he said curtly, as if attempting to draw her attention away from it.
“How badly does it hurt?” She hoisted herself up and made her way around the fire.
“It’s fine,” Ryson repeated, eyeing her like an animal caught in a trap as she approached.
He leaned away from her as she knelt by him. He seemed so threatened by her proximity that she almost found it comical.
“What do you think I’m going to do? Punch it?” she asked. “I just want to see the wound. It can’t be fine. You’ve been holding it like that since you were hurt. You’ve neglected it.” She leaned closer to him as she eyed the bloodied bandaging. “I can heal it for you. It’s going to get infected. What if we get attacked again?”
“It will heal soon. Leave it be,” he growled.
“You need to clean and bandage it,” she said. “You’re being reckless. You stopped me when I was being reckless. Now you are. I’m stopping you.”
“I’ll bandage it.”
“No, you won’t, and even if you did, it would be sloppy work based on how you bandaged my arm when you first found me. At least let me do that.”
Ryson seemed to withdraw into some mental debate as he stared at her.
“You let me begin to work on it after we escaped. Why not now? It won’t take long. I promise. It’s fine to let someone help you every once in a while. This isn’t the time to be hardheaded.”
He narrowed his eyes on her.
Clea sat back on her legs. “Fine,” she said. “I won’t bandage it, but I’m not moving until you do. I don’t care how fast it heals. It’s against my nature to watch someone suffer when it’s easy to do something about it.”
“Thenavertyour gaze,Princess,” he replied in a snide tone.
“Your entire arm is drenched in blood!”
“Get used to it,” he snapped back.
“No.” She folded her arms. “You should care. I care.” She could almost see him recoil at the sound of her sympathy, and his reaction gave her pause. “You act like you’re offended.”
“There’s no pride in being tended to by a Veilin,” he said. “It’s an insult to suggest it.”
“Pride?” She had never heard the word used in such a way. “And what sense of pride could those living in the darkness have?” She explored the idea with genuine interest. Somehow, she felt that she would soon see a new part of him that she hadn’t understood before. “You should be proud of saving someone.” She meant the words as statements, but as she continued, they sounded more like questions. “Of helping her protect mankind, of guarding a poisonous medallion, and yet”—she came to a sudden realization—“you’re ashamed of it?”
She searched his eyes. He didn’t deny it.
“You’re ashamed of the kind things you’ve done for me? Why? Because your evil peers would not approve? Then what makes you proud, Ryson?” She couldn’t help but feel irritated. “Would you rather kill me and leave me here? Would you smile at my terror and pain? Laugh at my despair? Would all this lift your heartlesspride?”
“And if it did?” he asked.
“Then you would be a monster,” she proclaimed.
“I keep telling you that’s exactly what I am, but you’re a deaf fool.”
She hesitated, realizing that he was pulling her into the same trap she’d fallen into before. “You aren’t a monster,” she argued. “You aren’t a monster at all.”
“Make up your mind,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“I think despite your façade, you feel so deeply that you can’t stand it.” Clea spoke the words with a sense of mischievous accomplishment, as if she were proud of her deductions. “You’re unreasonably passionate in hate and love. You practice both with such an unbridled intensity that to any normal person, the two emotions are unrecognizable.”
Ryson did not object. Instead, he actually looked taken off guard. She continued with more fervor, pleased that she could surprise him when he was so often the one doing the shocking.
“You love as if love is a religion. In its intensity, it becomes an almost self-destructive dedication to whatever it is that you love. It is because of this you know love only as a commitment; you’ve seldom seen or long forgotten its other faces. Acts of cold commitment are love to you. Your hatred is ripe, your love robbed of warmth. You aren’t callous. Youfeel.”
