Page 45 of Path of the Dark
He snorted, although she could see the glimmer of irritation in his eyes. Just like her, Elias didn’t like to lose. “Go on then,” he replied ungraciously. “What is it this time?”
Ryana pondered for a moment. “Do you like being a soldier?” she asked finally, deliberately turning his earlier question back on him.
Elias tensed, and Ryana bit back another smile. Bull’s eye. The man was even more private than she was. He was at ease with banter, but didn’t like to go beneath that. Ryana, however, was determined to rip off his mask. Now that she was getting the upper hand, she was starting to enjoy this game.
“A soldier shouldn’t have regrets,” he replied after a lengthy pause. “It makes him maudlin.”
Ryana shook her head. “Sorry, that’s not a proper answer. I didn’t ask if you had regrets, but if you liked killing people for a living.”
Elias pulled a face and shifted in his seat. “It’s the only life I’ve known, although I sometimes wish I’d grown up in a time of peace. I fought in my first campaign at thirteen … and I’ve never stopped fighting since. I’ve been away from home, leading campaigns on the border, for so long I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.”
Ryana digested this information, empathy rising within her. She understood that better than most. “But you’re working toward peace now?”
His gaze shadowed. “Aye … but it’ll never give me back all those lost years.”
Ryana watched him. She’d asked for honesty, yet his candor surprised her nonetheless. It was disarming—and attractive.
Her pulse, which had finally slowed, picked up its pace once more. Her breathing grew shallow.
Silence drew out between them, and then Elias glanced up, snaring her gaze with his. “It’s getting late,” he said softly. “Shall we finish up?”
Ryana managed a strained smile. “One more game?”
Around them,The Black Boarhad started to empty out. There were a few dicing games going on at other tables, and the lyrist was packing up for the evening. Ryana realized that she’d barely noticed the music; she’d been too focused on Elias to pay attention.
They played their last game slowly. After Elias’s admission the mood had shifted between them. Tension settled over the table. Elias had started the evening with a brash self-confidence, but now there was a reflectiveness to him, a brooding edge that made Ryana’s earlier nervousness resurface.
She became acutely aware of him, of the fact that their knees were almost touching under the table. His gaze had a magnetic quality. Every time he turned it upon her, she felt herself drawn toward him. She even caught herself leaning across the table toward him as they played.
Elias led the way for most of the game, and it looked like he would win. But then, when he’d reached ninety points, he cast three ‘ones’ and lost all the points he’d accumulated. On her next turn, Ryana won.
Stretching back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head, Elias favored Ryana with a rueful smile. “Your luck has certainly improved.”
Ryana leaned her elbow on the table and rested her chin upon her knuckles. “That’s why you never want to dice with an enchanter.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You haven’t cheated have you?”
“You wouldn’t know if I had.”
Elias inhaled slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. “Go on … what truth will it be to end the night?”
Ryana studied Elias’s face, noting the way the light of the cresset on the wall beside them highlighted the chiseled lines of his face. She hated to admit it, but she’d enjoyed dicing with him. She’d never had an evening like this one; she was even a little disappointed it was coming to an end. Time had stood still for a short while. She’d been utterly absorbed by him.
“What do you want, Elias?” she asked softly. “What’s the thing you desire most?”
As soon as Ryana asked the question, she wished she hadn’t. It brought her back to that tavern room eleven years earlier where she’d asked Gael virtually the same thing.
His answer still haunted her sometimes.Everything.
Elias stared back at her, and the look on his face made Ryana’s breathing still. The rawness in his eyes made her regret the question even more. It was too much, too intimate. She’d overstepped.
“I—” she began, intending to ask something else.
However, Elias interrupted her. “I wish to lie with you,” he replied.
Ryana jolted upright in her chair, heat flooding through her. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve bewitched me,” he continued, a nerve flickering in his cheek, “for days now, you’re all I can think about. Every waking moment you plague me, woman. I can’t concentrate, I can’t sleep. This ache for you is slowly driving me mad.”
