“Steel will do nothing to you.”
“And yet you risked the goodwill I was attempting to build with you by taking it.” He leans forward, placing both hands on the back of the settee, on either side of me. I’m framed by his arms. Pinned without a touch. The vampire lord’s face is so very close, close enough for me to smell the scent of moss and leather on his clothes and feel the heat of his breath. The last time it was this close I still had a silver weapon. He was a husk, not a breathtaking creature of death and moonlight, and I still had a chance to end him. “So use it.”
I don’t move. I just glare at his stolen face and lying eyes.
“Do it,” he urges harshly.
All the hatred I’d wound up earlier around my heart snaps. I reach for the weapon, yanking it from its hiding place. With all my might I thrust forward, going right for his throat—as though I am trying to stab through, and carve out the mark at the base of his neck. The mark that is supposedly mine.
Thousands of invisible hands wrap themselves around my limbs, holding me in place. The knife quivers in the air as I strain against the unseen restraints. Using every muscle I have, I bring my left hand to my right and grip the knife with both, trying to force it forward. My heart hammers as if it is about to explode from the effort.
But it doesn’t move.
A hair’s breadth away from the vampire lord’s neck, and the knife won’t move forward any more. I can’t move. An invisible wall holds me back from him. No, it actively pushes me away.
With a frustrated grunt, I fall back. The knife clatters to the floor as my muscles release, exhausted by the effort. A smirk slides across his face. Horrible and exceedingly self-satisfied. The vampire lord reaches down and grabs the knife, turning it over in his hands, making a show of inspecting it.
“Do you see now? Do you understand why I will arm you? Why I do not fear you and neither will my kin?”
“The oath.” I’ve never said a word with such disdain before.
“You swore on your blood that you would not harm me or any loyal to me—you marked yourself with your vow to me.”
Until the curse is broken, I add mentally. I am only trapped in this arrangement so long as this curse exists. The second it is lifted, I will be free, and he will be dead.
“So, steal all the weapons you want, Riane. Squirrel them away, keep them in your clothes, in your bed. Hide them wherever you think they will be safe. But know that you will not use them on me, or my covenant. Not now, not ever.”
He hovers, looming over me, golden eyes shining, waiting to see if I will try and argue. Maybe he’s waiting to see if I will try and attack him again. But I am a fast learner, adaptable. He’s made his point clear and I will not throw myself against that wall again.
I will have to be clever. Maybe, if I cannot do it by my hand, I can force the hand of another. Or perhaps it could be as simple as an accident, a silver dagger, tiny and unnoticeable, stabbed upward to the base of his pillow. And when he lays his head upon it, he will be skewered dead. A trip of my clumsy feet and the curtains are yanked off as he stands right before the sunlit window.
Yes, there are many things for me to try. And if he thinks that I am only deadly while a weapon is in my hand then his life will be the cost of underestimating me.
“Now go to sleep. You’ll need your strength. The nightmare begins at sunset.”
