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His eyes turn to slits. “Yes.”

“You really think I can outrun any of you?” I set my gaze on the large rocks on the shore that would certainly break my ankles if I tried to run, then on the shadowy woods behind me.

“Are you suggesting I chase you and find out? Maybe you’d like to see what happens when I catch you.”

I breathe away the scandalous thoughts his words give rise to…him tackling me to the ground, my body pinned, those vengeful hands claiming triumph over every inch of me.Stop stop stop. I channel all my anger from learning about the elixir and hurl it at him. “I want one minute without your fucking hands on me.”

Eli lowers his lips to my ear, my elbow pulled against his abdomen. “That’s not what it sounded like earlier.”

I can’t stop it. Warmth spreads through me from cheeks to thighs with the memory of his hips pressing into mine, how hard he was sliding over me, the deplorable noise that escaped my lips. That almost kiss. Dammit. Why does he do this to me? I release my pent-up steam with a long exhalation just as the wind brings in a cold rain from the dark gray clouds above.

Goosebumps cover my skin, and I cross my free arm over my chest to hide my hardening nipples. We stand in heated silence, watching the reflection of the moonlight fracture on the lake’s surface with the splattering of rain. The boulders on the shore darken, and I try really hard not to notice Eli’s white shirt getting soaked and sticking to his body.

“Come on,” he says out of nowhere, tugging on me.

“What?” I throttle the cravings for him and explode. “You want to drag me around again? And I’llcooperatebecause I’ve spent my life drugged?!”

Calm and fierce, he says, “You’ll cooperate because I’ll make you.” His hand slides from my arm to my wrist, and he yanks me toward the lake.

I plant my feet, resisting his pull—and failing. My feet drag over the rocks as I yell at him. “What’s the Centress going to do once the new elixir is in the water? What will shemakeme do?”

He stops and turns to me. “She won’t make you do anything. I won’t let her.”

My head rises from my toes to his face. He’ll protect me?

He brushes his knuckles over the scars on my neck with his free hand, his cold fingers deceptively warm grazing my frozen skin. I fidget and pull away from his touch, swishing around the taste of blood in my mouth.

His eyes meet mine. “OnlyIget to control you.”

Oh. He grabs me by the waist and carries me across the shore under one arm. I scratch his thigh, clawing at him, as if that might make a difference. “What are you doing? Put me down!”

“Swimming.”

“You’re fucking mad. It’s freezing.”

We reach the crisp water’s edge where the lake licks the rocks.

“I still have my boots on,” I yell, one last attempt to stop him.

“That’s so you don’t step on a sole-ripper.” He splashes into the water, fully clothed.

I kick and squirm, the surface closer and closer as he walks out toward the expanse of the lake, holding me above it. “What’s a sole-ripper?”

“You don’t want to know.” He flips me head up and drops me in the water.

It surrounds me, rushing under my clothes and forcing its way into my boots, and it’s…warm. I sink down until the water laps at my neck, my anger dispersing. “It’s not cold.”

Eli grins—not a grin at my expense, but atme, with something like happiness behind it. My heart jumps, and the black-blue water ripples around us, the only evidence it’s not a mirror of the sky.

Kaleida tips over, crashing down from Sypher’s shoulders with a splash. She swims back to him, grabs his head and shoves his face underwater. “You weren’t supposed to let me fall,”she squeals when he surfaces, gasping and already reaching to retaliate.

But their laughter fades when they notice Milo staring in our direction, treading water, his face hard in silent warning.

Eli turns his back to Milo and pulls me around with him, a foreign warmth in his eyes. “Can you swim?”

“Is this another trigger?”

He steps into me. “It could be.”