“McKenzie. Please.”
He sounds worried. That’s strange. He hardly ever worries. Always so in control. More in control than I want him to be. But that’s okay. It’s comfortable here. Quiet. Peaceful and . . .
I’M dropped into a vat of scalding water. I lurch up, trying to evade the blistering heat, but my shoulders are held submerged beneath the surface.
“Easy, McKenzie. You need this.”
The room spins and blurs as I awaken. Focus, I order. I need to focus.
Chaos lusters slither from a fae’s hands into my skin. “Kyol?”
After an eternal pause, the voice says, “Aren.”
“Aren?” I repeat, confused. I squeeze my eyes shut once, twice. Ah, yes. Aren, the Butcher of Brykeld, my captor. Of course it’s him. Kyol would never hurt me like this.
I struggle to get out of the vat—no, the tub—again. “It’s too hot.”
“It’s fine, McKenzie. You’re too cold. Stay still.”
His hands don’t unlock from my shoulders. My bare shoulders. His edarratae flow unhindered into me. I glance down as a bolt flashes from his fingers to my skin. It zigzags below the water’s surface, disappears briefly beneath my bra, then reappears before it skirts along my hip.
My attention snaps back to Aren. “I’m naked.”
“Not completely,” he says, and some of the tension leaves his face. His grip loosens. I try to sit up, to get out of as much of the water as I can, but he won’t let me. When the room spins again, I stop struggling. It feels like I’m waking up from a bad hangover. I swear to God, I’m never letting Aren take me through another gate.
I open my eyes and take a quick inventory of my surroundings. I’m sitting just high enough in a Jacuzzi to see the rest of the bathroom. There’s a separate, glass-encased shower on the other side of twin sinks. The white countertop is bare except for a magically lit mason jar. There are no bath mats, no towels that I can see. There’s a vent for central air and heating, though, which makes me hope we might be somewhere in the U.S. Maybe this is some kind of rebel safe house? I want to part the blinds of the window over my left shoulder and peek outside, but turning doesn’t seem like a good idea just yet. My equilibrium is still off.
“What happened?” I ask.
Aren’s focus drops to the water rippling above my bare stomach. “I . . . You took more of the drain than I intended. I couldn’t wake you.”
I hug my knees to my chest, partly to hide my body and partly because I’m suddenly numb. Cold, but sweating. I clench my hands into fists, trying to squeeze away the prickling sensation in my fingertips.
“The In-Between’s made you sick,” he says. He reaches down to his side of the tub, then brings up a bottle filled with some deep red liquid. “Drink this.”
“What is it?”
“It will make you feel better.” He raises the bottle to my lips.
As soon as I take the first sip, I try to spit it out. He grasps my chin and tilts my head back. “Swallow.”
His fingers dig into my jaw. The bitter drink floods my mouth and I can either choke or do as he says. The first gulp burns down my throat, sinks and sizzles in my belly. I grab his wrist, try to force him and the bottle away, but he doesn’t budge, not until he’s satisfied I’ve choked down enough of the liquid. When he finally lets me breathe again, I sit up in the tub, coughing and spluttering. I scoop a handful of water to my mouth and try to rinse the taste away.
“Are you finally trying to poison me?”
The faintest smile appears on Aren’s lips. My stomach burns with something hotter than the flames of the concoction he forced down my throat. Damn him for being so attractive. Damn him for keeping me with him, and damn him for gazing at me with that stupid, sardonic grin.
“We’ve already discussed this,” he says, setting the bottle aside. “Poisoning you would be inefficient, my nalkin-shom.”
“You shouldn’t have taken me through the gate.”
He shrugs. The motion draws my attention to his chest, to the scar beneath his collarbone. That’s where the bullet hole was. The stitches are gone now. There’s not even a scab anymore. The wound looks like it’s been healed for weeks.
Holy crap. “How long was I out?”
“Only a half hour or so,” he assures me. “Lena healed me.”
“Lena.” Her name puts a bad taste—one worse than that horrible drink—in my mouth. “She’s a healer, too?”
Aren nods. “She’s a stronger one than I am.”
And she locked me in a room with a broken arm when she could have fixed it. Bitch.
“So the rebellion has at least two healers,” I say. “I guess those endangered magics aren’t so endangered, are they?”
“Ah, you’ve bought the Court’s propaganda.” He rests his forearms on the edge of the tub. “Atroth wants the Realm to believe anything human-made is destroying our magic. He likes to pretend it spreads like a disease, following carts of human goods through the Realm. If fae are afraid, they don’t mind their king regulating the gates. They even think it’s necessary for their welfare, but it’s not.”
“How do you explain the increase in tor’um, then?”
He hesitates just long enough to be noticeable and then he goes for a not-so-subtle subject change. “Here.” He retrieves the bottle of poison and holds it in front of me. “Another sip.”
I bat it away. “No.” No way in hell. “Tell me about the tor’um.”
“Just one, McKenzie.” He grabs the back of my neck and an edarratae tickles down my spine. That pleasant heat explodes inside of me again. It’s ripe and stirring and so completely wrong.
My frustration with him, with me, with us, boils over. Before he forces the horrible concoction down my throat, I grab it from his hand and chuck it against the far wall. It shatters in a satisfying spray of glass and crimson. “I said no, Aren.”
He stares at the stained wall, then back at me. I swear he looks amused. “Your color’s returning. And your spark.” His hand grazes my calf when he reaches into the water to unstop the drain.
“Sorry,” he says with a grin.
He’s not sorry. He’s deliberately messing with me, teasing me even.
“A towel would be nice,” I snap.
He dips his head in a shallow bow. “Of course, nalkin-shom .”
He steps over my dirty clothes. They’re stained with his blood. I hope I don’t have to wear them again. I hope Kelia’s stolen something new. I hope—
My heart stutters when my eyes lock on my jeans. The vigilante’s cell phone. Could it still be in my pocket? I can’t tell by the way the jeans have been thrown to the floor, but wouldn’t Aren have said something if he found it?
He returns before the last of the water gurgles out of the tub. I make every effort not to look at my discarded clothes as he hands me a towel, which I wrap around myself as I stand.
“Where are we?” I ask innocently.
Aren crosses his arms, watching me. “Somewhere safe. You’ll have to wear your old clothes until we get you new ones.”
“Okay,” I say, still not looking at the jeans. I’ll have to find out where we are another way. It shouldn’t be too difficult. I just need Aren to get out of here. My skin feels the touch of his gaze. Self-conscious, I pull my towel tighter around me.
Aren’s hand at my elbow keeps me balanced when I sway. “You should have drunk more of the cabus.”
“I’m fine,” I force myself to lie. “Can you give me a few minutes to get dressed? Please?”
The “please” is almost too much. His eyes narrow.
He glances at the window behind me. “We’re on the second floor,” he says. “Can I trust you not to jump out?”
“This towel won’t reach all the way to the ground.”
My quip dispels his suspicion. He laughs. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, my nalkin-shom.”