Arthie shook her head when Laith sank to his knees in front of her. She had ached from restraint, from holding herself back, ever since that last glass of coconut water.
“I’m dangerous,” she said, but she felt herself giving in. She had nothing left to lose.
“As am I,” he murmured, and her fangs elongated for the first time in years at the smooth cut of his voice.
This wasn’t nearly the same. Once she started, she might not stop. She might not stop until she’d ripped him apart. Laith closed the distance between them, and Arthie was moving before she could stop herself, something carnal replacing reason, something starved coming to light.
She dropped her head to his shoulder with anguish. His warmth made her quiver. His breathing quickened, striking the crook of her own shoulder.
“You need to leave,” she whispered. “Before … before—”
“No,” he whispered back. “Destroy me.”
He pulled his head to the side, baring his throat. Why? she wanted to ask. What did he want from her in return? Arthie’s nostrils flared at the scent of his blood, dark and enchanting. She tilted her face, the heat of him pulsing against her skin, beckoning. Calling. He pulled away, drawing his shirt over his head in one quick move and discarding it to the side. She unclenched her fists and lifted her hands to his exposed chest.
Laith’s breathing broke, stopped, started afresh. She thought he said her name. She thought she had forgotten what it was like to feel warm. His skin scorched her hands, muscles coiling as he watched her exploration. She wanted to speak. To tell him she’d never touched a boy like this before.
His whispered laugh wound through her. “When I first set eyes on you with your mauve hair and knife-sharp smiles, I swore you would be a means to an end. When we met for the first time in your office, I realized it would be harder to keep that oath.”
“And then?” she asked.
He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, something like torture in his eyes. She wished she knew the reason for it. She wished she knew what was holding him back. She wished she could think straight.
“And then you would use your mouth to cut me down in the most wicked of ways, and I realized I’d met countless men and women but never my mirror.”
Was that what she was? They were different in every way, but also very much the same.
She took a step forward. “And now?”
He trailed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “And now I’ve found a kindred spirit whose heart beats for the same pain. I don’t know what I want anymore.”
Kindred spirit.
She slid her nose up the plane of his skin, curling her fingers into his hair. His pulse was a rabid thrum against her. She parted her lips and pressed her mouth to the curve of his neck.
“Arthie.” He sounded as starved as she was.
She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. To claim him. To devour the mystery of this boy from some faraway land.
Her mind showed her the maid in the tub. The girl in the kitchens. The refugees in the boat.
“I’m—” Feral. Wild. Beastly.
“Hungry,” he whispered to her.
She sank her fangs into his neck, twin blades breaking skin. The heat of his blood flooded her tongue, metallic and sweet, a melody in her mouth, coursing down her throat and filling that eternal cold.
She was different now. She was in command of herself. Not a starved, confused little girl.
Laith bucked against her with a rasp, one hand disappearing into her hair, the other slipping down the curves of her body until he gripped her thigh. She gasped at the heat of him, pushing closer to please that dull ache.
“Don’t,” he begged. “Don’t stop.”
She didn’t stop. They staggered to their feet, locked in a drunken dance. The rumble of his groan shot through her as she retracted her fangs and welcomed this new rush. This ache she’d never experienced before. She kissed the curve of his neck and laved her tongue down the bloody nicks.
She hadn’t realized how deeply her strength had depleted until it returned. Fire pumped through her veins, filling her to near bursting, giving way to a different need pulsing through her, a different kind of hunger.
Laith’s hands slipped down her body, gripped her ribs, her waist, higher, lower, everywhere.
There.
Her pistol.
Arthie wasn’t hungry anymore. Her mind was not clouded by starvation, and suddenly, everything wrenched to a startling halt as the pieces fell into place. The way Calibore’s intricate filigree reminded her of Laith. Those accidental brushes of her pistol. His keen interest in how it worked. The story of the hilya his sister was sent to retrieve.
It was Calibore. Her pistol was the hilya.
He had never intended on taking down the Ram. He hadn’t cared about the Ram or the ledger. He had simply played his part, feeding her lies and sidling closer and closer to the pistol. Touching her, goading her, coaxing her to drink from him when she’d sworn never to do so ever again.
She stared at the twin punctures at his neck, her broken oath.
This would end now.
His chest heaved, still bare and begging for her touch, his lips swollen and inviting. He must have noticed the change in her, because he hesitated. “Arthie, w—”
Arthie threw him against the wall, knocking the breath out of him. She had forgotten how much stronger a vampire could be when freshly fed. She had forgotten how sharp her claws could become.
She pressed the five of them against the delicate flesh of his throat.
“I should kill you,” she whispered. “Rip you to shreds. Tear you apart for even thinking you could take Calibore from me.”
Understanding dawned in his dazed eyes. He had known it was inevitable.
“Would you not have done the same?” he asked, his voice strained.
And that was precisely why she couldn’t kill him.
She had used him as much as he’d used her. Neither of them had expected the raw desire that would bloom between them, angry vines drawing them close. Neither of them had expected to find their match in the other. Mirror, indeed.
“Leave,” she said softly, “while your blood is only on my teeth and not splattered on these walls. If I see you again, I won’t be so kind.”