A Girl in Black and White (Alyria 2)

I swallowed, feeling immobile with his full attention.

After a tense moment, he nodded to the bag of stones in my hands. “We’re really playing, then?”

I bit my lip nervously. “What did you think we were going to do?”

“I imagined you devised some plan to rid yourself of me.”

“And you still came? Not at all afraid of me, are you?”

He paused, his intense gaze meeting mine. “I wouldn’t use those exact words.”

My pulse fluttered, a cocoon of butterflies erupting in my stomach.

Collecting myself, I sat on my haunches, a shelf to my back as I dumped out the stones. “Well, I have no devious plans. Can we not call a truce for the night?”

“A truce,” he repeated, sitting next to me instead of across from me. He leaned against the bookshelf and rested his arm on his knee. “You’d trust a Titan’s word?”

“No,” I said automatically. “But I can read your intentions in your eyes easily.”

“You think so?” His lips lifted in a small smile, his stare focusing heavily on me, before saying slowly, “Then no nefarious plans for any princesses tonight. Clothed or not.”

A blush traveled under my skin as his gaze met mine for many moments, and when I was feeling breathless, I cleared my throat and said, “You pass.”

He said nothing, only glanced away from me, something undeterminable flicking in his eyes.

I tried to pretend that I was indifferent to his presence; that his bicep brushing my arm didn’t send a shiver through me, each and every time. And that the door shut, completely closed in a room with him after the day before was insignificant. But I wasn’t unmoved in the slightest. My actions were choppy, my thoughts jumbled, his watchful gaze burning through any control I’d collected along the way.

“What are we playing for?” he asked.

I wrinkled my nose in consideration, finally supplying, “Answers.”

“What kind of answers?”

“Whoever wins gets to ask the other a question, and they have to answer truthfully. If we tie, we can both ask a question.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You do realize I’m not a gentleman, and I won’t ‘play like one,’ don’t you?”

My eyes sparkled. “Maybe you are the one who doesn’t realize what a master I am at Five Stones.”

Amusement pulled on his lips. “I think I shall believe that when I see it.”

“You can go first. The first throw you need to toss one stone, pick one up, and then catch the one you’ve thrown on the back of your hand.”

With a flicker of disbelief that he was doing this, he scooped up his rocks and did as told.

I feigned disappointment when he got it on the first try, and then I smiled proudly when I’d succeeded with my rock sitting on the back of my hand.

I hadn’t been lying about being a master at Five Stones. This was a game Grandmother and I had often played. The thought sent a shard of nostalgia through me.

“Tie,” I responded woefully. “Well, ask away then.”

Without a thought, he turned his gaze to me, asking, “What is the first thing on your list?”

I paused, a smile pulling on my lips at his unexpected question—at the list, he wanted to ‘keep to his imagination.’ But now that I realized I had to answer questions as well, I didn’t know how I felt about this game. I shrugged. “For lying to me about who you were, Mr. Fake Assassin for Hire.”

His eyes narrowed in thought. “Not for kidnapping you in general?”

I shook my head, averting my gaze to the stones on the rug. “It was the first thing I’d come across when I arrived with my mother in the city, realizing who you were . . . the first thing that I was cross enough about to write down.” I lifted a shoulder, clearing my throat. “Where were you taking me all along? Was it the seal? And if so, how do you know where it is?”