You don’t get to say no, I think.
My head thrums with sudden pain, and I swallow hard against it, concentrating on his lips as he opens his mouth – then closes it again. Then chuckin’ smiles.
The book falls to the floor with a loud thud before his hands cup the sides of my face. Fingers in my hair. Thumbs tracing along my cheek bones. My breath just evaporates in my chest.
Gone.
Just Roarke, and my whole being focused on the soul-yearning sensation of his skin against mine. I could almost call it fire, like burning heat flooding through me, but it feels far too good to be likened to something that would leave the roses in the air charred and ruined.
“Roarke?” My question is a whisper.
“Kitten,” he whispers back. He holds me, looking into my eyes like I’ve hidden something there, and he’s excited to find it.
“Roarke,” I try again. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“This is the kind of bad that leads to more bad, but tell me to do something again.”
I frown at him, wrapping my one good hand around his wrist and trying to get him to let go of my face. He’s stronger than he looks, and he doesn’t budge. Probably helped by the fact that I don’t really want him to let go.
“You have to tell me what’s going on first,” I say.
“Make me.”
“Make you?” I raise an eyebrow.
This is Roarke. ‘Make me’ sounds more like a challenge, and challenges are more like Seth. Or Killian, but Killian wouldn’t be smiling like a crazy person.
Seth definitely smiles like a crazy person. This is such a Seth moment.
“Roarke, stop acting like Seth, or at least do a dance to go with this song of yours.”
His hands sweep around me, and we rush forward in a long-strided ballroom-type movement. The kind Cook would tell stories about, but I’ve never seen done. I struggle, tripping on his feet, and two steps later, we stumble to a stop. His hands are instantly on my cheeks again, eyes lit up with childlike wonder.
“What was that for?” I demand, rubbing my aching forehead.
“That was you,” he says, pulling my hand down, like I was obstructing his view of me.
“I made you do that?” I ask.
“Yes,” he nods, a little ferociously.
The gesture is at odds with the worried crease on his brow. He lets go of me and starts doing his pacing-and-rambling thing.
“I just don’t know how, and that scares me. My power is almost impossible to contain. I don’t need to try to lure people toward me – they just latch on and get drawn in. Sabers pull power from each other. I am always trying to pull from you – taking. But you cannot pull from me. Maybe you should be able to, even just a little with your Silvari heritage, but you can’t. Could be a blockage – but we don’t have time to explore that just now. Can you see the problem there?”
“Roarke, we’ve had this conversation before. I’ve been with you guys for weeks now, and I’m still fine in the soul department. Now tell me how to do that thing just now again. How did I make you dance?”
He shakes his head. “Not what I was saying, Kitten. Without your own Seed, the only possible explanation is that my power is using you.”
“How do you know? Maybe I do have a Seed. The Seed of Awesomeness.”
He chuckles. “There’s no such thing. We’ve got no idea who your father was, but we do know your mother was mortal. Mostly-mortals do not get Seeds.”
“But I could be using you and not the other way around, right?”
He’s still pacing, and it’s really getting annoying.
“Roarke, stop and give me answers.” Or I will kick you in the balls – and it will hurt.
My head pounds, a ringing noise pulsing through my ears, while his smile pulls back into a sharp expression of agony, his knees quivering even though I haven’t touched him.
“Don’t,” he grunts, his voice flat – hollow.
My heart is hammering so hard I can barely draw in a breath.
He’s in front of me in an instant. His hands on my face – again. Drawing my pain away.
“I just did it again, didn’t I?” I ask, excitement overriding everything else.
“Yes.” He tilts my head back, pressing his thumbs under my eyes as he inspects whatever pain-ecstasy expression I’m wearing.
“And you’re hurting yourself. Which means I’m hurting you,” he says.
“This sting is linked to me using Allure?” I ask.
Sting is a bit of an understatement. Sometimes it’s stabbing, other times pounding.
His hands trail to my shoulders, the hurt in his eyes not relaxing away. He opens his mouth but seems to swallow the words back down. Taking a deep breath, he starts again.
“What do you think of me?” he asks. He’s avoiding my question about Allure causing pain – which I translate to yes.
His voice is so open, so raw, that I don’t even hesitate to answer with full honesty.
“You’re my clarity. You make the world feel right. Things make sense when I’m with you, on a soul level.” You feel right. There is no way I’m losing this argument now. “Problem solved. I am awesome.”
He groans. “My brothers have developed an immunity, of sorts, to my Allure. But they can’t ask me to walk over to them and make me do it, and they’ve had a few hundred years to try – so I’m impressed. But your mortal side negates anything awesome you might have inherited from your father. You’re never going to be strong enough to survive the full force of my power, even just to wield it. We need to be very careful. ”
“Why?” I demand, because my insides are cringing at that idea. That I will never be right for them, that this little thread of hope – this part of me that might be Saber – is still not going to be enough.
He grits his teeth. “Because,” he tries to say, stopping to
