Page 60

"Oh." She sounded disappointed somehow, but Ryziel didn't ponder or ask why. She had to get back to the safety of the upper levels.

"If anyone asks," Ryziel said, "you fell and got caught on a rock and lost track of time."

"That...seems a little fantastical, don't you think?"

"If you play innocent and naïve, they will think it possible."

"Ah," Aly said. "Well, it's a good thing I'm a pro at that."

A smile curved his mouth. He quickened his pace until the lights of the elevator came into view. As he approached, he set Aly on her feet then waved his hand over the pad to call an elevator down.

"Well, that was one hell of an adventure." Aly laughed. "But I think I'm good for a little while."

"That won't happen again," Ryziel swore. He looked over to her, ready to ask her what exactly had happened, what he had done, when he froze, the heat draining from him.

Aly had lifted her hair back to expose her neck and there, across her bare shoulder where her suit was ripped, were the markings of bruises in the shape of teeth marks.

"And there goes another suit," Aly continued on, not noticing his sudden icy silence. "Damn if Braxin will give me another. Good thing I have one last spare. Otherwise—"

He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. Before she could say a word or yank away, he gripped the cuff of her suit at the wrist and ripped it upward.

"Ryziel! What the hell are you...Oh."

He didn't hear her. Everything around him was black, and the only thing he saw was the bruises encircling her wrist.

She tried to pull away from him, but he refused to let her go.

"It's nothing," he thought he heard her say. "Ryziel, it's really nothing. My skin bruises like a peach, always has, it couldn't be helped."

Couldn't be helped...

Something new rose in him, a different sort of fury he had never felt before.

"You let me do this to you," he whispered. "You said nothing. You were just going to go back up and say nothing."

"I didn't even know, honestly. I mean, it’s a little sore, sure, but it’s nothing."

"It is!" he yelled. She drew back, looking suddenly afraid, and he chose then to release her. She staggered, wrapping her arms around herself. He turned from her, unable to look at her.

"Tell me," he said in a low voice. "Tell me what happened."

"Ryziel—"

"I want to know!"

Aly went quiet. She stayed that way for so long he almost turned around to face her and demand again, when she said, "You weren't yourself. You were badly wounded. I went back for the medical kit in your pack then used the tool inside to mend your wounds. You...you swiped at me, but you never struck me. When I got close enough, you grabbed my wrists as if you thought to keep me back, but you didn't. You let me help you. You just didn't know your own strength."

Ryziel closed his eyes, desperate to keep his anger under control, trying to ignore that she just told him she went back for the kit, back into the very hall where the nyghi had been roaming, just to save him.

"And your neck?" he asked.

Again, she was quiet for some time until she said, "I fixed your wounds, placed the salve on you, then..."

"Then?"

"You were on top of me," she confessed with a wavering breath. "You tore my suit then bit me."

Ryziel opened his eyes but couldn't find words.