He leaned back and grinned. “After I kidnapped you. We’re even.”
I smiled, and let go of my worries, let go of everything but his gentle touch, the beckoning of his eyes. When his hand slid to the small of my back, I leaned into him, letting the flutters in my belly build, so much that I had to remind myself to breathe.
He said, “You see me as a threat, but the truth is, you are far more dangerous to me than I ever could be to you.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. My heart is in your hands.”
Barely able to breathe, I said, “And here I am, in yours.”
He smiled and tiny lines formed at the corners of his eyes. He was closer to me now, or maybe I’d moved closer to him.
I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to feel on my lips what he’d so often expressed with his eyes, to understand in his touch what he wouldn’t speak aloud. I suddenly wanted these feelings for him to be real.
Almost automatically, my arm curled around his neck. His fingers returned to my cheek, asking me again to look up.
“If you don’t—” he began.
“I do.” I kissed him, a cautious, timid kiss. I didn’t know what would come next, what should come next. I only knew that I wanted to find out.
I started to pull back, but I caught the expression in his eye, felt the tug of a thousand invisible threads drawing me back to him. He kept his face close, his eyes searching mine for … something. When he found whatever he was seeking, he kissed me again, but this was different. Where I had been wary, he was committed. His mouth pressed against mine in a sudden desperation. I felt his kiss throughout my body, echoes of his touch vibrating down to my toes.
Something deep within me must have remembered him—the softness of his lips, the rough tips of his fingers against my cheek, his faint scent of leather—because this stirring within me, this hunger for more of him, felt like an awakening. Like I was alive again.
When we finally pulled apart, I smiled as his fingers traced lines across my cheeks. With a kiss near my ear, he whispered, “I never thought this would be possible, not after the way we began.”
I sighed with contentment. “How did we begin?”
He leaned back, chuckling. “You’d probably be glad to have forgotten this. Trina and I forced you to enter Woodcourt, to find the Olden Blade.”
Something clicked within me, like a sudden flash inside my head, recalling a memory I did not want. No, not a memory. A command.
At the first pinch on my heart, my eyes immediately filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Simon. I’m so sorry.”
He noticed my tears and wiped them away with his thumb. “For the poisoning? It’s all right, I understand why you did it. And it ended well.”
No, this would not end well, being here with him now. He had unwittingly answered a question I didn’t even know I had, but now that he did, I couldn’t hold back the sharp tone of Lord Endrick’s voice inside my head, commanding me, Find the Corack boy who brought you into Woodcourt and kill him. Fail to do this, and you will die.
The words exploded through me, more than a passing thought or a casual memory. It was an order that had been placed deep within my heart to ignite at the moment of his confession. This was the reason Lord Endrick had let me live, the reason he had taken that piece of my heart. He wanted revenge on Simon for having breached the walls of Woodcourt, and had given me a week to make it happen.
“How many days?” I asked. “How many days since you took me from Woodcourt?”
Simon mumbled words beneath his breath, counting on his fingers as he did, then said, “Seven. Why?”
I stifled a cry and Simon let me bury my head in his shoulder. I dug my fists into his back, feeling the constriction of my heart. Jolts of pain shot through my chest, down my arms and legs. I drew back, but I couldn’t let Simon know how bad it was, or why this was happening. If he knew, he would sacrifice himself to save my life, I knew he would.
“Talk to me,” he said. “What’s important about seven days?”
“You have to leave now. Something terrible is going to happen.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” I grabbed his arm and tried to push him away. “I don’t know, but you must go, please!”
Endrick must have had a sense of what I was doing, because the punishment he shot through my heart forced me to my knees. He knew I was refusing his order.
And for that, there were consequences.