seen.”
“You’ve seen me.” She was deeply aware of that as he looked at her, as heat shimmered in his eyes and his gaze darted down to her tunic before meeting hers again.
He had seen more than the fact she was a phoenix shifter. He had seen all of her.
It would only be fair if he stripped and let her see all of him too.
She slapped that rogue thought out of her head. There would be no sexy stripping, no sleeping together, nothing of that kind. She focused back on what they had been talking about, and a light feeling ran through her, lifting some of the weight from her tired limbs.
It felt good to talk with him about this, to share things with someone and have them look at her as if she was incredible, not something to sell out or someone who was weak because of the things that had happened to her in her past.
They felt more like allies than enemies now.
She stared into eyes that held heat and a wicked promise, a need that ran in her veins too.
Lovers.
Too dangerous. She tried to banish that word, but it lingered as he gazed at her, as he leaned towards her again and closed the distance between them. She could reach out and touch his face at this distance, could feather her fingers along his jaw and tip his head up, and if she leaned forwards too, she could easily kiss him.
He lifted his hand but didn’t touch her face, ghosted his hand through the air as his gaze softened.
“Is what happened to you the reason you paint your eyes the way you do? I thought you wore it like a mask at first…”
She touched her cheek just below her left eye, swallowed and nodded. “After I escaped the mansion, I painted my face. I was trying to conceal my identity and I had seen other females who had used makeup in a similar fashion.”
She had thought it looked good, better than an actual mask because it looked less suspicious. A real mask would have drawn attention to her. Using makeup had just made her look like many other females in the free realm—out to make herself more beautiful and mysterious.
“After a while, it just became part of who I was.” She felt naked without her makeup now, strangely panicked as she thought about the fact she had no way of donning her mask.
Oddly, it wasn’t the thought of Hartt seeing her like this, without a trace of makeup, that disturbed her and set her on edge. It was the thought of everyone else seeing her like it. Hartt had a terrible way of making her feel too comfortable around him, as if she didn’t need any barriers between them and didn’t need to protect herself from him.
“Why is the mage after you?” His amethyst eyes searched hers. “What happened at that mansion?”
Mackenzie looked at the window again, fought the tide of memories as they surged forwards, as they swept her along and threatened to pull her under.
“We lived in a valley, a place that had been safe for centuries. Secret.” Her gaze slid back to meet his, a need to know she wasn’t alone flooding her and tugging at her, making her crave the connection she felt whenever she looked into his eyes. She felt strong as she gazed into them, able to face her past and the pain that awaited her there. “The mages came one night. They took out the guards before anyone knew what was happening and then they were in the house. There were so many of them. We managed to take out some of them, but they overpowered us, used spells to weaken us. Someone knocked me out and when I came around, I was in a cell.”
“How old were you?” He shuffled closer, moving to the edge of his seat.
“A hundred and twenty. Around that. An adult.”
He looked as if he wanted to ask how old she was now. If he did, she was going to ask how old he was, and she had the feeling she was going to be shocked. Every elf she had met had been centuries old. How much older than her was he?
When he said nothing, sparing himself an interrogation for now, she took it as a prompt to continue.
She sucked down a breath, dreading thinking about this next part. “I’m still not sure how long they held us captive, shut in those dark cells beneath the