in the dying lamplight

1

I looked into Mal's eyes—his familiar blue eyes that I knew even better than my own. Except they weren't blue. In the dying lamplight, they glimmered quartz gray.

He smiled then, a cold, clever smile like none I'd ever seen on his lips.

"I missed you too, Alina." That voice. Cool and smooth as glass.

Mal's features melted into shadow and then formed again like a face from the mist. Pale, beautiful, that thick shock of black hair, the perfect sweep of jaw.

The Darkling rested one gentle hand on my cheek. "Soon," he whispered.

————

It took everything in me and more not to scream. But louder than my fear was anger, and like the crack of a whip my hand shot out to grab his wrist.

"What do you mean?" I rasped.

He had faded from view, a blurred vision in the dark, but I was not ready for him to go. My fingers tightened their grip as if to anchor him down.

"What do you mean?"

Around us sounded a crackle of thunder. If I listened, I could hear the soft beating of rain against the shuttered windows, but I didn't care to. My world was narrowed to a single, fixed point: him. At his lack of response my fingernails bit into the skin of his wrist, and I thought he would laugh. Instead he leaned in closer. The cold curve of his smile deepened.

"How ferocious you are." His soft breath hit my neck. "You want to hate me. You relish that need. Yet no matter how hard you try, you cannot make yourself do it." His eyebrows shifted down minutely, appraising. "Are you so cantankerous with your otkazat'sya lovers?"

The pulse in my neck thudded. I struggled for words, struggled for calm. "Never mind. Stop this. Stop talking."

He looked to the fingers of his free hand, trailing them gently over my cheek as he said, "Why keep me here, if you don't wish to hear me speak?"

It was anger then, that flashed through my blood with the lightning.

"Because I want to know if this is real. Speak of that."

He leaned forward again, lips nearly grazing my own. Both of his hands touched my face. "It is as real as you wish it."

I studied his amused eyes, his lips, his rising chest. All so real. So corporal.

"Give me a straight answer."

"Afraid you're going mad, sankta?"

I loosed an animal's growl. "No more of these mind games. You appear, and you intimidate me. I'm done being toyed with like this."

That cold chuckle was back. It sent my nerves aflame, made me crave violence and other unspeakable things. "But you make it so easy."

I shoved his arms away, pulling myself up into a seated position.

"You want me to love you, but you do nothing but manipulate me. I don't even know you, yet you chase me like I am your runaway broodmare. You appear now because you want to play your stupid mind games," I said. "I am tired, old man, and I am done doing this."