“They didn’t find your friend,” Anjhela said. She crouched beside Trevarr, all languid motion, and placed a hand on his bare chest. Proprietary, assumptive—pushing him, as she had always pushed him. As if she could fake the confidence that had before now come so naturally.
He looked back at her with eyes no longer dim, body newly thrumming with life. His heart beat fast under her touch, but her touch had nothing to do with it. Nor did the news she brought him. No, this was the strong, throbbing heartbeat of physical effort, his skin damp beneath her fingers.
His chafed wrists told the story. He’d been plying his strength against the chains, using them to build the muscle that came so naturally to this body. And he was making no effort to hide it—letting his breath come fast, making no attempt to wipe the gleam of sweat at his brow.
He’d healed so quickly since the night his love had come to him. Since the night that being had brought Anjhela to her knees simply by absorbing more damage than Anjhela could afford to inflict.
Anjhela could have stopped the healing, could have stopped the strengthening. But it no longer mattered. Trevarr was no longer hers to break. Ghehera was done with him.
And if they were not quite yet done with her, they nonetheless knew well of her failure. Just as she knew their unspoken threats to her position, her status, her life. Just as she’d heard the unspoken suggestion that she had best prevail—somehow, some way— before it was at last too late.
All or nothing.
Maybe she still could, at that—and then she’d have him. Just as she’d always wanted him.
No. Not as she’d always wanted. Because she wanted him on his own terms. By his own choice.
Still, this would be good enough.
“They couldn’t find her,” she said again. “They went looking, on that other world of yours. But they’ll hunt again soon. She can’t be on guard every moment of every day.”
She didn’t imagine that flicker of a frown, or the tension in his arm as one fist closed more tightly and the chain trembled, taut for that moment.
She leaned closer, her voice a mere suggestion of sound—confident and low. Promising. “Neither,” she said, “can you.”
But she no longer knew what she believed—not of him. Not of himself.
Definitely not of the one who fought for him.
~~~~~~~~~~