“I’ve heard enough.” Her words were breathless. “I’ll never sleep tonight.” She shook her head, taking another bite of food. “I don’t know how you can, having faced all that.”
He leaned back in his seat. “You learn to live with it. How to block the horrors from your present thoughts.” He added a touch quietly, “But they still lurk there. In the back of your mind.”
She wished she knew how to do such things: to push all the thoughts that devoured her behind some wall, or into a hole within her, so she could bury them deep.
Cassian asked her, voice still quiet, “The darkness in the library—do you think it reacted to you specifically?” When she said nothing, he pressed, “Because of your powers?”
“I don’t have any powers,” she lied. Training with Amren hadn’t done a lick to help her understand them, anyway.
“Then who left that handprint on the stairs?”
She didn’t bother to look pleasant. “Maybe Lucien. He’s got fire in his veins.”
“He said your fire was different from his. That it burned cold, somehow.”
“Perhaps you should lock me up in that Prison, then.”
He set down his fork. “I’m just asking you a question.”
“Does it matter if I have powers?”
Cassian shook his head in what seemed to be a mixture of admiration and disgust. “You might have been born human, but you’re pure faerie. Answering questions with questions, evading an honest answer.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not.”
“It’s not.” His teeth flashed. “The kind of powers you have aren’t the sort that should sit idly by. They need an outlet, and training—”
“Balancing and stretching?”
His jaw clenched. “What happened with you and Amren?”
“Why so many questions tonight?”
“Because we’re talking like normal people, and I want to know. About all of it.”
Nesta rose from the table, aiming for the door. “What does it matter to you?”
“Let’s not retread old territory, Nes.”
She threw over a shoulder, “I hadn’t realized we’d moved beyond it.”
“Bullshit.”
“Here’s the part where you remind me everyone hates me, and I leave.”
Cassian shot from his seat, blocking her path to the door in three strides. She’d forgotten how fast he was, how graceful despite his size. He glowered down at her. “It never mattered to me whether you took half the Cauldron’s power or a drop. It still doesn’t matter.”
“Why?” Nesta couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Why do you even bother?”
His features turned stark. “Why did you stay at my side when we went up against the King of Hybern during that last battle?”
As if that were an answer. She couldn’t bear it, this talk, the expression on his face. “Because I was a stupid fool.” She shoved past him.
“What is it you’re afraid of?” he asked, following her into the hall.
She drew up short. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Liar.”
Nesta turned slowly. Let him see every bit of anger rippling through her.
Cassian’s eyes gleamed in savage satisfaction.
His Siphons flared, casting red light upon the stones, like watery blood had been spilled. His mouth twisted to the side in a crooked, mocking grin. “Do you know how your eyes glow when your power rises to the surface? Like molten steel. Like silver fire.”
He’d done it on purpose—riled her like this. To get her to show her hand.
Nesta’s fingers curled into claws at her sides. She took a step toward him. Cassian held his ground. So she took another step. Another.
Until they were close enough that a heaving breath would have had her chest brushing his. Until she was baring her teeth at his still-smirking face.
Cassian surveyed her. Gazed into her eyes and breathed, “Beautiful.”
He didn’t halt the hand she laid on his muscled chest. Or when she pushed against that chest, backing him into the wall, his wings splaying on impact. He just stared and stared at her, marveling—hungry.
Nesta didn’t, couldn’t, move as Cassian leaned to whisper in her ear, “The first time I saw that look on your face, you were still human. Still human, and I nearly went to my knees before you.” His breath caressed the shell of her ear and she couldn’t stop her eyes from fluttering shut. His smile brushed against her temple. “Your power is a song, and one I’ve waited a very, very long time to hear, Nesta.” Her back arched slightly at the way he said her name, the way he bit out the second syllable. Like he was imagining clamping his teeth down on other parts of her. But only her hand bridged their bodies. Only her hand, now bunching up his shirt, his thundering heartbeat pulsing beneath it.
Until Cassian lowered his face an inch, and grazed the tip of his nose along her neck. Beneath her hand, his chest heaved upward as he inhaled a great, greedy breath of her scent.
Too far. She shouldn’t have let herself go this far with him, let him this close.
Yet she couldn’t withdraw. Couldn’t do anything but let him brush his nose over her neck again. The urge to press her body into his, to feel his warmth and hardness grinding into her, nearly overrode every rational thought.
Cassian’s hands remained at his sides, though. As if waiting for her to give permission.
Nesta pulled her head back, away—just enough to see his features.
Her knees nearly wobbled at the desire blazing in them. Liquid, unrelenting desire, all fixed upon her.
She couldn’t get a breath down as she drowned in that stare. As low, sensitive parts of her tightened and began throbbing, her breasts becoming heavy and aching. His nostrils flared, scenting that, too.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t do this to him. To herself.
Couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t—
Nesta began to withdraw her hand from his chest, but he slid his own atop it. Rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, and just that graze of callused flesh had her grinding her teeth, unable to think, to breathe—
Cassian whispered in her ear, “Do you know what I’m going to think of tonight?”
A small sound must have come out of her, because he grinned as he stepped to the side. Let go of her hand.
The absence of his warmth, his scent, was like a bucket of ice water.
He smiled, nothing but wickedness and challenge. “I’m going to think of that look on your face.” He took another step down the hall. “I’m always thinking of that look on your face.”
She couldn’t sleep. The sheets chafed, strangled her, smothered her with their heat until sweat ran down her body.
I’m always thinking of that look on your face.
Nesta lay in the darkness, her breathing uneven, her body flushed and aching.
She’d barely been able to focus on reading when she’d returned to her room. And she’d been tossing and turning in bed for what had felt like hours now.
I’m always thinking of that look on your face.
She could see it: Cassian in his own bed, sprawled out like a dark king, gripping himself, pumping hard—