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My intake of breath was the only indicator that I knew what had to happen next. Philip thought he had me, but as it turns out, I had him exactly where I wanted him.
Almost.
Philip had been talking, but I didn’t care. I cut into his words with a curt, “I think we should meet.”
Philip stopped abruptly, and I nearly pitched forward on the hot sand. He righted me, bringing my face up in his hand so he could search me for lies. Unfortunately for him, I was still blinking the errant stars from my vision, so I couldn’t focus perfectly yet. It didn’t do much for him as he tried to examine me for tells. “Why would you want that?”
“Because this is bullshiz. You want to scare me into being with you, but you won’t see what it’s actually like for me to be with you. It’s cowardly. Let’s try it for one week. A whole week of us being together, living under the same roof that’s not in our dreams and see if we’re even good together.”
“You’re up to something. You don’t want that. You screamed when I touched you last.”
I tilted my head to the side with an arched eyebrow. “I think that’s a pretty typical response from any woman you force yourself on. I’m talking voluntarily this time, the two of us just seeing if we gel. Then if it works out, great. If not, we can move on.”
Philip’s voice came out insecure, which was my favorite shade when worn on a power-hungry megalomaniac. “We?”
I tried to soften my voice, to soften myself without letting him smell a manipulation. “You know I wanted to be with you before I found out it was all a lie. So if we’re going to do this, you can’t be lying to me. And you can’t be Sama the Almighty Jackweed. You have to be Philip. I liked that guy.” With every word that came from my mouth, I hated myself. I was seducing a rapist. I was hooking the man who’d hurt my sister.
I had a plan.
Philip’s reply came back cautious. “You’ll really come to live with me?”
“For one week if you promise to be Philip. If you promise not to lie.”
He gripped my arm and all but dragged me the rest of the way to his place in the middle of the sandy abyss. I tripped over the threshold, but righted myself when he stopped. He didn’t release me, but shook my arm, his fingers digging into my bicep. “What’s your game?”
“I’m calling you on your bluff! You’re a chicken. You’re just like every other man in my life. You say you want to be with me, but it’s all a lie. You wouldn’t know the first thing to do with me if I was really yours.” I held up my hand and snarled. “And spare me the filthy innuendos. If we lived together, you wouldn’t want me. You only want a conquest. You only want the fight. Once that’s over, you’d move on.” I sniffed, trying to work up a decent hurt expression. “You’re just like the others. I want something real, but all you’re willing to give me is a stupid dream.”
Philip released me, stepping back so I could put my hand down and see the hut he’d taken me to. It was a simple four-wall wood room that had just enough space for the two of us. There was a bed in the corner, a tin bucket against the wall, and a basket that consisted of a few odds and ends atop the counter. There were jars of various heights on the counter, as well. “I thought witches had cauldrons. Where’s your cauldron?”
He was staring at me as if I was the danger in the room. “You’d really come willingly?”
“That’s what I just said. But I want some straight answers from you first, and a few promises.” I tried to zero in on the conversation and make sure I said my piece. “If we ever get it on again, it’ll be my choice, not yours. You don’t know how to control yourself, so it’s my call now.”
Philip scoffed, but I could smell feigned bravado. “It’s my call whenever I feel the desire for you.”
“Then no deal. Don’t you remember how good it was when we were both willing?”
Philip gulped and nodded. “Okay. I can grant you that one. What else?”
“I need to take a guide. I’m not from Terraway, so I’d never make it to your place alive. And I want your word that my guide lives. He goes free when this is all said and done.”
“I can tell you how to find my island.”
“Not good enough. I still don’t know the area.”
Philip mulled this over. “I’ll give you a map so you don’t need a guide.”
“Oh, you’ll give me a map either way, but I’m still taking a guide.”
“What if I sent one of my men to bring you here?”
“No way. I’ve been abducted too many times. You want to trust me? I need this to be able to trust you. I’m risking a lot here. You’ve got home court advantage.” I cast him a dubious look, my arms akimbo. “You’re really fussed about one guard? See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Do you even want to be together for real?”
“Fine, but you can’t take either of your Duwendes. I won’t be able to keep my promise to not harm your guide if you bring Von here. And Mason’s got too hot a temper to be able to leave us alone. His love for you is too permanent.”
I nodded, trying not to feel the sweetness of the smile in my soul that I had such devoted and amazing Reapers in my life. “I’ll have to do some thinking about who, but that’s fine. They’d never let me come here anyway.” I exhaled, bringing myself to speak the questions I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to. “I need to know you’re not going to double-cross me or my guide, so I want the absolute truth, here.”
Philip crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned on the wall across from me. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Why did you do that to my sister?”
Philip watched me carefully. “Because she was weak. I thought Omens were prizes, but she was a normal girl. Captivated, then scared, then useless to me. You’re my equal. After being with you, I could see the others I tried to mate with were a pale comparison.”
My teeth ground together, but I swallowed the venom that would only blow my formulating plan. “Allie wasn’t weak; she gave up everything to make sure I had a future. She’s the strongest woman I know, and you took her from me. Do you care that you hurt me?”
Philip looked up at the ceiling. “I’m not allowed to lie to you, so no. I don’t care that you’re hurt. I care only as much as it affects you coming to stay with me.”
I nodded, breathing in his toxicity and exhaling to purge it from my system. I leaned my hand on the light brown wooden table I could tell he’d cut and assembled by hand from the trees outside. “Good to know. There’s just one other question I have for now.”
“Ask me anything.” His shirtless form didn’t even draw my eyes, a fact that was not lost on either of us.
My voice came out a whisper. “Why did you steal my daughter’s body from her grave?”
Of all things, Philip smiled at me. “Ah, that’s something I’ll have to show you, not tell you. Come stay with me, and I’ll answer that question to the fullest extent. I can tell you this much: I did it for us.” He moved his pointer finger between us. “And she’s our daughter, not just yours. My immortality came at a high price. I couldn’t conceive until I found you. It’s why I was searching for Omens. Your kind tends to be able to hold up under much more than the average resident of Terraway. I think it’s the Matruculan blood that’s stabilized by the human blood in your genetics. Makes you able to withstand true brutality and come out of it gracefully.”
I exhaled my attitude. “Lucky me.”
“Mariang was pitied for being so weak, but I don’t know many who would be able to carry the weight of a world the way she did. No one was more delighted that you turned out to be an Omen than I was. That you think I’ll let you go without a fight shows how little you know the monster you let into your sheets.”
I shuddered, and he laughed. My eyes narrowed in time with my scowl that bloomed on my lips. “Don’t pull that crap with me. You’re trying to be gross to intimidate me.”
“You’re stalling. Kiss me.”
“What?” I took a step back without thinking.
Philip advanced on me, pinning me to the wall of his hut with anger behind his smile. “Exactly what I thought. You have no intention of staying with me. You’re just trying to stall for time so I don’t remember you’re wearing too many layers of clothing for my taste.”
“Knock it off,” I said, keeping my voice annoyed and light so he didn’t sense the fear that gripped me from the inside out. “It was my idea to come stay with you, you jackwagon. You want to kiss me? I’ve got nothing against that. Maybe wait for a second when we’re not talking about my comatose sister, my dead sister, or my dead daughter to set the mood a little. I mean, honestly! Have you even met any women before? This is why I wanted a week together. If you think you can force a connection, you’re wrong. You’ll end up with another Allie on your hands. If you want me because I’m strong, stop trying to make me cower.”
“Don’t lecture me!” he shouted, his anger building, trying to make his fury bigger than mine.
Just goes to show how little he knows the monster he let into his sheets.
I reached up and smoothed a few errant white-blond hairs from his forehead, softening him so that I had the upper hand. “If you want to be the man I come home to, then be a man. Don’t try to scare a kiss out of me, you tool. Earn it, like a gentleman.”
My insults, for some reason, seemed to knock a little sense into Philip, and he released me in the next breath. “I haven’t been near you in so long. To see you command nations at the funeral and not be able to take you right then and there? It was the height of my self-control not to use the body my spirit possessed and plow his seed into you right then and there.”
I rolled my eyes. “Try harder. Something I’ll think is gentlemanly. Care a little bit about what seduces me, not about the songs you want to sing in honor of your almighty psychic penis.”
Philip barked out a loud laugh at my sass. “My ‘almighty psychic penis?’ That’s the best thing I’ve heard in ages.”
“You’re supposed to be telling me the best thing I’ve heard in ages. Reel it in, Philip.”
Philip’s laughter died to a light smile on his lips, gazing down at me like... well, like he used to. His thumb reached up and grazed my cheekbone, tracing the lines of my face as if I was delicate – as if I hadn’t been through too many battles. His eyes lasered in on mine, observing more than I usually let people see. “I watch from afar, but it’s not the same as going through it all. The wars you’ve fought, the things your young eyes have seen – it’s a wonder you still look so innocent, like you have lifetimes of beauty yet to give the world.”
I tried not to get too swept away by the words that hit me right in my tender spots. “Thank you. That was actually kind of amazing. Sometimes I don’t think people get how hard it’s been.”
“Sinta, I’ve possessed thousands in your name, trying to free you from Geon’s prison, to avenge the injustice done to you by Serena, to keep our baby healthy – all of it just to make sure life doesn’t stamp out that light in your eyes.” He rested his forehead to mine, and for a second, my master plan was a distant memory. “Some nights, your light is the only thing that keeps me warm.”
“Dang. That... You really feel that way?”
“I do. You’re really coming to stay with me?”
“For one week. But Philip, you’ve got to stop scaring me. No more trying to force yourself on me. No more fighting dirty. No more hurting me. You want a good woman? Then be a good man.”
“You scold me like...” He trailed off, frustrated with me, but impressed that, as he’d claimed, I’d played his game like an equal.
“I think you’re smart enough to want the real thing.”
His voice came out like a growl. “I want you.”
“Then let me come to you.”
Philip’s hand wrapped around me, inching up the bottom of my shirt to press his hand on the small of my back. I tried to squirm away, but he held me in place. “Be still, sinta. I’m putting a map on your back. Only show it to your guide. I’ll know if you’ve shown it to Von or Mason or anyone else. Only your guide can see it, and only using Terraway’s light. Promise me.”
“Only my guide. That’s fine. It might take me some time to find someone willing to go with me, so be patient.”
“Careful, now. This might sting a little.” His hand started to heat up to a slow burn. My back and abdomen muscles clenched and spasmed while I bit my lower lip, trying not to cry out. “There you are,” he cooed as the burn faded. He rubbed my lower back to soothe the ache. “You handled that like a champ. I can’t wait to get you here, so do your best to hurry home to me.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.” His forehead touched to mine again, his lips so very close.
“What does ‘sinta’ mean?”
The corner of Philip’s mouth tugged upwards. “It means my true love. My soul’s mate. It’s the perfect word for you.”
My heart ached in my breast when I recalled how early on Finn had called me that – how sure he was about us, about me.
“Kiss me, sinta,” Philip said in a soothing coo.
I began to doubt my master plan when the bile rose in my throat. Philip’s lips descended on mine, while the ocean in the distance beckoned me to make this nightmare a reality.