nearly as hard as steel.
He was so close. So tall. So beautiful and deadly. He could kill her with a breath. Destroy her with a twitch of his finger. And yet she felt no fear.
“I know we’ve barely spoken to each other,” she said. “And for most of the time since we met, we were bound to different sides. But despite that, I believe you’ve inadvertently seen more of my heart than I’ve ever shared with anyone else. Even with the people I call friends. You know my hopes and fears, even the depth of my wounds.”
Perhaps it was a mistake to make herself so vulnerable, but if she wanted him to trust her, she could do no less. “You’ve seen me at my weakest and most afraid, so perhaps you could find a way to think of me not as a human, but as a person. Someone you know. Someone who does her best to fight for those she cares about. Someone who would never betray you.”
He was still beneath her fingers, but for the beat of his heart, and when he did not respond, Leisa began to believe she’d failed.
“Perhaps,” he said at last, but reluctantly, as though the words were being wrenched from his chest. “I don’t know that I can ever bring myself to trust, but this much is true—you are not just another human.”
Chapter 22
She was so much more.
And he didn’t know what to do with that.
He wanted to resent her—for being kin to those who enslaved him, for having seen him at his weakest, for having the power to free him when he could not free himself.
But she had somehow destroyed his defenses and sneaked inside when he was too alone, too eaten up with anger and despair to realize what was happening. She had been the only bright and beautiful part of the last ten years of his life.
Bright. Beautiful. Was that really how he saw her? It should have been impossible. Like all humans, she was short, soft, and pink. She was noisy and stubborn and had no idea how to move through the forest. She wouldn’t last a day among his people, and she shunned her own magic instead of embracing it as the gift it truly was.
But courage was a language they could both understand, and hers never faltered. Neither did her compassion, and that was perhaps the most difficult thing of all. Because amid the darkness of his desire for revenge, he, too, felt compassion—for this lonely human with nothing to cling to but her duty to a kingdom that had been so blithely willing to risk her life.
She felt alone, and that was not something any creature should be forced to suffer.
“If I wait for you,” he said suddenly, “after you return, would you come with me?”
Her face went blank.
“Come with you where?”
“Home,” he said, not really comprehending the reasons why he asked such an impossible thing, only knowing that he wasn’t ready to walk away from her yet.
And then he instantly felt a fool. No human would willingly go to a place where they would be surrounded by creatures that probably populated their darkest nightmares.
But before he could brace himself for her reaction, she smiled as though he’d offered her the moon.
“Yes.”
“You… would?”
She nodded. “I’ve been planning to leave Farhall after I deliver my report. I just didn’t know where I might go. If your people would have me, I would love to visit your kingdom with you. At least until we figure out how to free your magic.”
Visit. His kingdom.
He probably should have thought things through before he issued that impulsive invitation. Life at home was going to be a mess for a while, and once they learned his story, a lone human was unlikely to be popular. Or safe.
But he could keep her safe. Once he was home—once she freed him—he would have the power to keep anyone from harming her again.
He would have to warn her before they returned. Have to give her some idea of what to expect. But there would be time enough for explanations later.
“Although…” She seemed to be having second thoughts. “Will your people hate me?”
“Probably.” With anyone else, he might have tried to hide it, but enough of their link remained, she could probably tell if he lied. “But you will be my guest, so they will forgive you for being human. Eventually.”
Instead of being horrified, she laughed. “That sounds ominous. But I trust you.”
He’d thought she was perplexing