I felt. How can I dislike someone else for just trying to survive in this world in the only way she knows how? I move away from the fire, drawing my cloak closer, and follow the sound of digging into the woods.
Before I can take more than a few steps into the trees, Aron is there before me, glowering. “Where are you going?”
“Oh. I was coming to talk to you.”
He scowls at me. “I told you not to stay by the fire.”
It takes a moment for me to process that. “Right. Well, I was just coming straight for you—”
“Faith.” Aron takes me by the arm, sending tingles up and down my body. If anything, the electric shocks seem to be stronger than before. Maybe they’re doubling up because he’s two Arons now. “I do not want you by the fire where I can watch over you. I trust these men. They have proven themselves.”
Ah. He’s worried we might still be betrayed. Of course he is. Haven’t we been betrayed by everyone in this land so far? “I’m sorry, Aron. I just needed to talk to you. I’ll stay by the fire…but do you want a bed slave?” I rush the words out before he can scowl at me again.
Aron cocks his head, amusement on his handsome, arrogant face. “You are volunteering?”
“What? No!” I can feel a hot blush on my face. “You wish!”
“Do I?”
I…can’t tell if that’s a lie or not. He’s still casting that slow smile in my direction, the one that makes my belly flutter, and I don’t know what to think. “Yulenna,” I manage to say. “She wants to stay on as your bed slave.”
“And what do you think?”
Okay, now his questions are getting on my nerves. “I think you’re in charge of your own damn dick. You tell me.”
He studies me for a long moment. “Because I have defeated Lies…it means that I am him. The thought of having her in my bed is appealing.”
I open my mouth to snap at him for being a pig—when I realize that I’m supposed to read the opposite from his words. Right. It’s still taking me some getting used to. I can’t help but preen a little. “So you don’t want her in your bed? She’s going to be disappointed.”
“And I care?” He arches one arrogant eyebrow at me.
“Hey, you know what? That’s kind of neat—if you ask a rhetorical question, we can get around the lies thing.” I give him a little poke in the chest with my finger. “Remember that, because talking to you now is confusing.”
“Is it?” His grin is practically flirty, and my pulse hammers in my throat. “Again, should I care if you’re confused since you are here to serve me?”
Good ol’ Arrogance, rearing his head again. I give his chest a little pat. “I’m going to ignore that. So what’s the plan now?”
Aron studies my face, and then glances down at the hand I have on his chest. I leave it there, just to be obstinate, and I get the distinct impression that he expected that and it amuses him. He puts his hand over mine a moment later, and then I’m trapped against him, little shockwaves of lightning skittering through my skin. “Nothing has changed, has it?”
“Everything has changed,” I whisper. “You’re different now.”
“I am,” he tells me.
Oh sure, he can pretend nothing is different, but I’m having to interpret every word he says now. “I’m just glad you won,” I admit. “I don’t like to think of ending up like the wizard.” I shudder, still picturing him as the last time I saw him, his slender, robed body tossed atop the pile of fallen soldiers. “Promise me you’ll win against the next two, also.”
“I can promise nothing, Faith,” he says in a low voice, and his thumb brushes over my trapped hand. “You think I would let harm come to you?”
I smile faintly at him. “I have to admit this puts a kink in our plans. Soldiers and a bed slave?” When he snorts, I shake my head. “I don’t feel safer. You’d think with extra people around, it would feel like we’re less vulnerable. And yet…” Now I’ve seen what happens when a god’s anchor is killed. I watched Liar Aron fade out before my eyes.
Fade into nothing.
I’m not sure which image disturbs me more—that the wizard was slain to get rid of Liar Aron, or that Liar Aron could just vanish into nothing. I think of that happening to