"I can't," I said, and stepped away from the counter.
Anger exploded around me, the force of it so fierce it stole my breath. My gaze snapped to Lucian's. There was no anger to be seen in his expression, not even the merest hint, but it had come from him nevertheless. "Why the hell not?" he said, his voice as flat as his eyes.
I might as well have been looking into the eyes of death. A shiver that was part fear, part foreboding, rolled through me. "What do you mean? Didn't you see that?"
"See what? What the hell are you talking about?"
I frowned, my gaze searching his. "The Dušan. It reacted to the ward."
He glanced at my wrist sharply. Now that I'd stepped away, the Dušan had resumed her normal position on my arm. Amaya, however, was still eager to bite into whatever darkness Lauren had employed to make the ward, and she was letting me know it. Banshees had nothing on the noise she was currently making inside my head.
"Impossible," he said.
"Not in this case." I crossed my arms. "I can't use the ward, Lucian. I won't."
He contemplated me, his expression still remote, then turned and faced Lauren. "It would appear you have wasted your time and energy. I'm sorry."
Lauren rose and moved toward us, her long dress flowing around her legs like the gray tendrils of a web. Definitely a dangerous, dark spider, I thought with another shiver.
But one who wasn't entirely surprised or annoyed by my actions, if her expression was anything to go by. My gaze returned to Lucian. Maybe she wasn't worried because she would still extract the price of the ward from him.
"A foolish choice, but one that she nevertheless has the right to make." Her gaze came to mine. "You may yet regret this decision, however. There are worse things in this world—and the next—than this stone and the magic within it."
"I'm more than aware of that, believe me."
She wrapped her fingers around the ward, then raised it to eye level and contemplated the oily black surface. "It is a thing of beauty, is it not?"
I didn't reply, but then, she didn't seem to be expecting me to. She dropped the stone into her bag and then, with a glance at Lucian, turned and left.