“I’m fine, Will.” She clenched her hand shut and then flexed her fingers, shaking them out again. They didn’t feel right. Annoyed with herself, she shook her head. If she got frostbite after one afternoon outside, she’d kick herself. After all those years of traveling from safe house to safe house, she’d managed to guard her skin against the elements. In one day she’d done more damage to her body than she had in a lifetime. It was because she was distracted, she realized. It was because she thought there would be no tomorrow for one of them. There wasn’t time to think earlier, never mind take care of herself. She limped along next to Will, her ankle still swollen. It smarted when she stepped, but she didn’t want to wait in the maiden’s rooms. She’d rather sneak in after everyone was asleep. All the other girls looked exhausted.
Will took a chance and reached for Kahli’s hand as she was shaking it. He caught it between his palms, and she looked at him with those beautiful green eyes. “You know what frostbite does, and you know I can fix it—and your ankle too. Will you please just let me—”
She cut him off, jerking her hand away, “No, I’m not drinking your blood.” She started to limp away from him.
Her name rolled off his tongue in a breathy whisper before he could stop himself, “Kalahandra.”
Kahli froze, her eyes wide. Slowly she turned back to look at him. “You promised. You promised you’d never say my name.” Panic edged into her voice. It was strange. She stood nose to nose with the King without fear, but Will said her name and it looked like she was going to fall to pieces. A slow tremor made her shiver, as she stared at him open-mouthed.
“I promised I wouldn’t compel you,” And then I promptly broke that promise, but you don’t remember, he thought. Still, he wished he hadn’t done it. He wished he could speak those words and tell the truth. The mistake would haunt him, and if Kahli ever found out, she’d never trust him again. Will stepped closer to her, “Kahli, we can’t leave you like this. Let’s go to the medic and—”
“No. I can’t. I’d rather deal with the frostbite. I’d rather—”
Hearing the panic rising with her voice, he cut her off and gripped her hand gently, “Then let me do it. We can try application instead of drinking. Surely you can stand that, right?” The way he looked at her made Kahli want to cry. He thought that she didn’t like him. He thought that she detested him because he was a vampire. Part of her did, but part of her realized he was also human. At some point he stopped being the enemy, and became Will—the guy with bright blue eyes and a wicked smile that he rarely used—the guy who seemed to care about her.
She nodded slowly, too ashamed to look at him. They walked in silence through the corridors until Kahli finally asked, “Where are we going?” They wound past elaborate tapestries from when the world was green. She wanted to slow down and examine them. It was strange, seeing pictures of summer and deer and birds. All those things were gone now.
Will pushed through another doorway and the hallway suddenly stopped. They stood at a door. Will pulled it opened, and they passed through. He didn’t speak until they began to climb. “We’re going to my room. It’s forbidden to heal you this way. I’m supposed to take you to the medic, and make sure you drink. So I had to take you somewhere they wouldn’t look. Only servants are in this part of the castle. If the Queen finds out you’re here...”
“She won’t,” Kahli said quickly. The Queen was insane, and she surely wouldn’t volunteer that Will offered to heal her unconventionally so that she didn’t have to go to the medic. “You can trust me, Will.”
The words gripped his heart and twisted. She trusted him. That made everything so much harder. He nodded without looking back at her, listening to her small feet climb the stone stairs behind him. Before he opened the door to the upper-landing, he stopped and turned back to her. Kahli glanced up just before walking into him. His eyes searched her face. He wondered how much she knew, if she remembered when he compelled her. “I say this with complete sincerity, so I hope you’ll listen. There is no one—no human or vampire—that you can trust within the palace walls. Everyone is in a fight for their lives. Every person is a player in a massive game with death lurking at every turn. What you did today was incompressible to most of them—especially the king. Never go to see him alone. Ever. You won’t survive.”
Will’s words seemed out of place. One moment she said she trusted him and the next he was spewing dark warnings. “I have no intention of seeing the King. After tonight, I’ll do my best to run the other way when I see him coming. I think I lost my BFF status,” she smirked, but Will didn’t respond. “I know he hates me, and what I did tonight probably made it worse…”
“Definitely made it worse…” Will corrected.
“Right, so he’s on my list of people to avoid. And I’ll do everything possible to evade every other vampire in this place as well.” Except you. The pause, the break in her sentence implied it, so she rushed to cover it up. “The humans didn’t realize they could do such a thing. Jess never even tried to get the flag before. They condemned themselves without a second thought. There was no way I could allow that, never mind lend to it. I stole the other teams stuff, Will. I might as well have killed Alice myself, because taking their stuff—that’s what it meant. I traded one life for another. I couldn’t let Cassie die. But I couldn’t have Alice’s blood on my hands, either.”
“That’s the problem,” he said, eyes narrow like he was assessing a threat, “you’re not like them. None of them would have even thought to do something like that.”
“I did what was right.”
“He offered you freedom…” Will’s voice caught, as he looked up at her from beneath dark lashes. “I thought you’d take it and be gone again.”
For some reason Kahli’s heart was pounding. They were standing in the stairwell, whispering. A first she didn’t feel any different, but the way Will looked at her, the way his eyes melted into liquid sapphires—it made her pulse race. She felt dazed, and couldn’t think straight. Her eyes were fixated on Will’s perfect lips. As he breathed, they parted. She wondered what it would feel like to brush her lips to his, to taste his kiss.
The two drew together slowly, as if magnetized until the last word he said sank into her mind, “Again? What do you mean ag…” but she didn’t finish speaking. Their lips had met, cutting off her question and it died in her mouth.
Will’s lips touched hers, warm and soft. His hands slid along her cheeks, his fingers gently threading in her hair and he pulled her closer. The kiss sent a shiver down Kahli’s spine that erupted in butterflies in her stomach. Will was so gentle, so careful. Without warning, it felt like the runes on her side burst into flames. She gasped, pulling away from Will, her hand slapping away flames that weren’t there. There was no fire, no spark. Her hands stilled and she looked at Will, her green gaze soft.
His eyes widened, horrified at what he’d done. Relationships between vampires and humans were forbidden. “Kahli, I’m sorry.” Before she had a chance to respond, Will’s voice was cold, calloused. “It won’t happen again.”
She gasped, staring at him. He kissed her, a flash of pain shot up her side, and then he said he’d never do it again. When he opened the door, she pretended it didn’t matter. She nodded at him, trying to act the same as she had before, but it was a lie. That kiss meant something, and she didn’t like what it meant.
CHAPTER TWNEY-FOUR
Sitting in Will’s room was different than she thought it would be. Instead of having walls lined with books and maps like some of the Trackers she hunted, he had nothing. His room consisted of a bed with sparse linens, a table and chair, a reading light and a single window. There was nothing marking the space to make her think it was his. If the room didn’t have his scent, she would have thought they were in an extra bedroom kept empty for new servants.
There was a box on his desk. It had the Queen’s emblem on the lid. Will opened it and took out a small golden knife. Kahli knew what he was going to do, but the thought still made her sick. Blood was precious, spilling it like this seemed wrong.
“Turn your hand over,” he said and slid the knife over the center of his palm. Will didn’t wince as the blade opened his hand. He immediately reached for Kahli, spreading the warm blood over every inch of her hands. Soon, her hands were completely red like she was wearing gloves made from blood. It looked like she’d killed someone. “There. Give it a minute. When we wash it off,” Will wrapped a towel around his hand to stop the blood, “we’ll see if it healed you. If it did, we should do your feet, too.”
She started to protest, “My feet are…” Will tilted his head, his expression said that he wasn’t an idiot—that he knew her toes were in worse shape than her hands. Kahli shut her mouth. She tried to keep her gaze on her hands. When her eyes drifted to Will’s face, her mind was consumed with thoughts she shouldn’t have. It made her feel weak and she didn’t like that. His blood was warm and sticky. She stretched her hands, waiting.
Will watched her wiggling her fingers. The last time he saw Kahli covered with that much blood was when he was nearly too late. The wolves attacked, nearly shredding her to bits. He still couldn’t believe how she fought. She wasn’t afraid. Or if she was, he couldn’t tell.
That was something he admired about her. She fought back, even when it seemed hopeless. Kahli’s lack of submission no doubt caught all the wrong attention tonight. He was worried about her, worried that he couldn’t protect her from the wolves inside the palace walls.
“Will,” she said shattering his thoughts.
“Hmmm?” he was looking at her hands, refusing to meet her eye.
“Can I ask you something?” she stared at the side of his face, wondering who he was and how he came to be trapped between the most powerful vampires in the world.