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I watched through narrowed eyes as Arran appeared.

He was impossibly tall when we stood on even ground. Now, several steps above me, he was nearly as imposing as the beast he so carefully kept hidden within. The wool tunic cut across his chest, this time a deep brown color. He’d left the top two buttons unfastened, allowing a triangle of his chest visible. I briefly wondered if that was intentional—was he trying to play against the lust between us?

I’d thought of it as I dressed, selecting a tight-fitting bodice held in place with leather straps. My breasts were cinched down by necessity, but I knew the leather straps accentuated their curve.

Of course, that part of my plan backfired. Arran’s eyes might have been on my breasts, but I didn’t know it. I was too busy remembering the way his mouth had felt as he dragged it over my tortured flesh.

When I did manage to drag my eyes up to his, they were vaguely amused. Damn him.

“Who are you sneaking out to kill tonight, Veyka?” he said, his voice sounding vaguely bored.

“I only killed the Shadows informant because he tried to stab me first,” I said innocently.

Arran barked a harsh laugh. “Liar.”

He was right, of course. But I didn’t intend to tell him that.

“Why should I tell you?” I asked instead. The words could have come out as petulant, but I was careful not to let them. I wanted them to be wary. Iwaswary. Trusting Arran, even in this measured, calculated way, was dangerous.

But I was running out of time and options.

His hand caressed the head of his battle axe, those long fingers that had caressed me so many days ago. “I can help you,” he said simply.

It was the answer I’d expected—the one I’d hoped and planned for. But I was still not prepared for it. The force of the words was one thing. I knew they were true. Arran couldn’t lie. He could help me. I knew it as well as he.

But it was the earnestness in his face that truly shook me.

His brows knitted together, his dark stare intense even in the low light creeping through that slivered opening to the fading daylight beyond our secret staircase. He’d gotten better at dissembling, but he wasn’t even trying now. I could see the conviction in every line of his handsome face.

The shredded remains of my heart whispered into the black void inside my chest--What would it feel like, to stand at his side as an equal? To trust him fully?

It is not a luxury I have, the darkness said back. He would betray me—he would leave. Like everyone had before. Even Arthur had been torn from me.

But my body betrayed my mind, allying with my heart. The space we occupied, this half-landing balanced between a steep ascent and a neck-breaking fall, forced us close together. I wanted to reach for him. I wanted to mold my soft curves against the hard planes of his body. I wanted to hear more of the words he’d given me that first time—speaking of my perfection, his adoration for my body.

My chest heaved upward, my lungs clawing for air. I hated the trembling shake as I exhaled that breath. I dug my fingers into the goldstone wall behind me, forcing myself to focus on the pricks of pain where my fingernails began to break against the immovable stone.

I forced my next words out, past the clawing in my chest and the tightness in my throat. “Why do you want to help me?”

Arran shifted his weight, moving fractionally closer to me. A battle tactic, if I’d ever seen one. “What answer would satisfy you?”

“The truth.”

I couldn’t give it to him. Not entirely. I’d share my quest for vengeance, because I could no longer avoid him. I could not tell him the truth of my powers—or lack thereof. It would throw everything into chaos, and I couldn’t afford to lose the time it would take him to grapple with that irrevocable truth. But I knew that he would give me the truth, even if I could not reciprocate.

Arran’s fingers flexed at his side. I found myself waiting, expecting him to reach for me. Instead he gave me the truth. “Because I know you will think of nothing else until Arthur is avenged.”

Good.

He understood that, at least.

I took another breath, steadier this time as I returned to the firmer footing of the plan I’d laid out. “I will let you help me—” Arran snorted, as if to remind me I had no choice in the matter. “—If you will take me to the human prisoner.”

Arran stilled. He hadn’t been expecting that.

I couldn’t decide if that was helpful or harmful to my prospects. If he’d anticipated the request, he could have resigned himself to it. But he also could have found a way to dodge it. But Arran wasn’t an idiot—he had to know that I would continue my quest to find the human, to bleed him. It was why he’d been so careful in hiding the prisoner away, out of my reach.

“I will not let you kill him,” he finally said.