Page 69 of Light Locked
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“No,” she said breathily, and he laughed.
“Good,” he responded, his smile surprisingly warm, “but right now you should. In fact, there is never a time, and may never be another time where you should trust me more than right now.”
She searched his eyes, and he let her, patiently.
He’d already given her the medallion, and willingly. If he really wanted to hurt her, what was to stop him now? And that kiss. After that dizzying kiss, she was hardly sure what to feel or think.
She swallowed nervously and laid back with one hand hovering over the dagger nestled in her corset. She wondered if she had the strength to draw that dagger.
Ryson had claimed that there was no cost too great for him to maintain his freedom. He refused to be controlled.
What did it mean that she was lying on a literal altar, with a knife in her hand, and not the resolve to wield it?
She reminded herself of everything she’d suffered to get the medallion this far. Her hand tensed over the blade, but wielding it against him felt like wielding it against herself and she couldn’t shake free of that feeling.
She watched him as his hand moved to her collarbone, a chillrunning through her as his fingertips touched the dark lines that crawled around the base of her neck.
His expression changed, all savagery and playfulness gone and replaced with the engrossed fascination of a skilled artist, examining another’s work. She tried to piece together his intentions as the burning silver of his gaze cut over her skin in precise examination. She quickly lost the mind for speculation as his fingers followed all the darkness engraved into her chest, tracing it like lines in a book. She flushed and forced herself to look away from him, eyes focusing in on the opposite wall.
No one had ever touched the marks before. Even her mother had refused. Everyone had been afraid, so deeply afraid. Veilin often took great pride in the resilience of their skin. Its glow was considered sacred, and hers had become little more than a symbol of living decay, hidden even from the revered sight of the sun.
His touch roused an overwhelming tide of emotion, and she tried to stifle it with a comment, fighting back a glaze of tears as they surfaced. The only thing more humiliating right now would be to cry.
“You have me on an altar,” she pointed out, trying to sound offended and hoping it might further suss out his intentions. Was he trying to determine the origin of her illness? Understand it? And why?
“I said the only purpose of purity was sacrifice,” he replied back with an amused lilt in his voice.
No answers. Just a jest, a jest in which she found her own ill-humored joke.
“You say that as you trace all of the evidence of impurity,” she said without inflection, remarking the disease he so closely examined and abruptly holding her breath as his finger trailed along the line of the corset and stopped.
“Art,” he breathed, almost to himself. She looked over at him in surprise as he scanned her over thoughtfully.
“I need to see the worst of it,” he said, eyes flickering to hers and she sat up on her elbows and swallowed.
Shaking her head slowly, she said, “I can’t.”
“Do you want to know what this is?” he asked. There was a curious intensity in his eyes, but she didn’t sense any intentions beyond the one he so frankly offered. He clearly wanted to know what it was. Ryson had always been very knowledgeable. She’d never connected the pieces that his vast knowledge had been the result of a passionately curious intellect.
She paused and they continued to watch each other.
“I can’t,” she said again, but this time she referenced the clothes themselves, her hand tugging at the edge of the corset she’d tried to cut loose.
His eyebrow rose as he noticed the cut she tried to make in the clothing. She watched him reach over, pull his fingers through the tear she’d made and then rip the corset open with a jolt. She gasped as she caught herself against his shoulder with the force, sucking in a full breath as the corset freed her lungs and cast a wave of beads clattering over the stone floor.
Even as she laid back again, she couldn’t let go of his arm, terrified as the bare skin of her stomach already felt exposed under the silk shirt. Her free hand still covered her stomach, Clea looking away from him as she swallowed again.
He didn’t touch her. When she looked up at him, he was still watching her patiently.
She looked away again and removed her hand, jolting as she felt his fingers along her abdomen. Alliances no longer mattered, she clutched onto his arm as if her life depended on it, shutting her eyes tightly. She felt him grab her free hand, turning his own beneath it.
“Take it,” he said, and she settled her hand over his as he explored the dark lines that stretched along her stomach. Keeping her hand trained over his soothed her, as if she were the one guiding his fingers along the paths of her skin. Her grip loosened on his other arm, her breath steadying until she was no longer sure that she wasn’t the one in complete control, urging his fingers along dark patterns that had once felt untouchable. Lines of warmth soon traced his touch until she knew the shape of her illness not by the heat of her embarrassment, but by an incomplete sensation that sought his fingers again. By the time he flattened his palm over her abdomen, she was convinced that she’d willed it, welcoming the fullness of his touch under her own. She didn’t realize she was holding it there until he leaned back, the movement causing him to adjust his placement under her hand. As if sensing how she now held him close, he smiled.
“Radiant skin, marbled by darkness,” he said, now theadmiration and awe was clear. Under his breath and with pure appreciation, he whispered the word, “beautiful” to her.
The word washed over her, and it didn’t matter if he was light or dark, if he admired her in the same way he might admire a battlefield, or suffering. An emptiness inside her stirred. The wave of emotion was too strong now, and even with her eyes closed, they bloomed with grief and she turned her face away and kept them closed, hiding the embarrassment of her tears.
