Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(92)

But even wearing her softer appearance, Drizzt recognized something in his heart, and his eyes only confirmed it. She was not looking at him with the warmth of love, but with the heat of passion.

Would she have been any less aggressive with any attractive partner, he wondered? Did it matter that it was him? Was there more of a bond here than the satisfaction of physical needs?

He felt himself a plaything at that moment. That bothered him, but what bothered him even more was that he felt Dahlia a plaything, as well, as if he was using her for her obvious charms.

She bit him on the neck then, lightly, then leaned back and stared at him, smiling mischievously. He noticed that her white shirt was unfastened, quite low and revealing.

Drizzt pushed her out to arms’ length. He tried to say something, to explain his feelings, his confusion and fears. But all he could do was shake his head.

Dahlia looked at him curiously at first, then with disbelief as she pulled back from his grasp with a clear edge of anger.

“When I caught up to you outside of Neverwinter, you were engaged in a serious conversation with Entreri,” Drizzt said, glad to move along to some other issue, one likely related to his emotions, but still removed from the immediate sense of rejection. “What were you talking about?”

Dahlia stepped back even farther, out of his reach, staring at him incredulously, and asked, “What?” sounding as if she had just been slapped.

Drizzt swallowed hard but knew that he had to press on. “I came out from Neverwinter to your camp, and from the brush, witnessed your discussion with Entreri.”

“You were spying on us? Did you expect me to throw him on the ground and ravish him?”

“No,” the exasperated drow replied, his thoughts spinning as he tried to figure out how to better communicate the turmoil within him.

“I didn’t even want him along!” Dahlia snapped at him, harshly and loudly, and across the way, Entreri’s snoring broke cadence as if her words had disturbed his slumber. She paused for just a moment, waiting for the rhythmic breathing to resume, but never let her glower leave her face. “You invited him, and then accepted him back again after he deserted us—and for all we know, he betrayed us in his time away.”

Drizzt shook his head.

“How do you know?” Dahlia asked skeptically. “He was gone and suddenly we were found.”

“And he returned to aid us when we needed it,” Drizzt reminded.

“Or he set the whole thing up so he could become a hero to us.”

She was deflecting him, he realized, and he shook his head forcefully and waved his arms before him, at last silencing her. “We were beaten by Alegni on the bridge,” he stated flatly. “It was not deception that brought Artemis Entreri back to us, but his own hatred of Herzgo Alegni.”

His mention of the tiefling, his reminder of the tiefling’s demise, seemed to calm Dahlia down a bit.

She looked at Drizzt slyly, as if it had been her intent all along to bring him around in this circle. “Now you defend him?” she asked.

The simple question made Drizzt’s initial statements—accusations?—toward Dahlia seem rather idiotic.

He brought his hands up to his face and took a deep and slow, steadying breath, feeling very much off guard. Entreri’s snoring distracted him. It occurred to him that if he crossed the camp and hacked the assassin to death in his sleep all of his concerns here would be resolved.

Yes, a dozen strides and a single swing, and he and Dahlia could go along their way without a worry, without the need to return to Gauntlgrym, the tomb of Drizzt’s dearest friend, a place he did not wish to go.

A single swing—perhaps with Entreri’s own sword!

He shook the thoughts away and refocused on Dahlia, to see her refastening her shirt, her expression showing many shifting emotions, but surely nothing amorous.

“You had a serious conversation with a very dangerous man,” Drizzt pressed anyway. “I would like to know about it.”

“Be very careful not to press too far into places that are none of your concern,” Dahlia replied, and walked away.

Drizzt stood there in the dark for a long while, watching Dahlia as she moved near to the low fire and settled, half-sitting, half-reclining against a log. She lowered her wide-brimmed black hat over her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

What was it between them, Drizzt wondered? When they entwined, was it lovemaking or recreation?

And if it was not lovemaking, then why did he care so much about her seemingly intimate conversation with Artemis Entreri?

Because it was Entreri?

Perhaps Drizzt’s nostalgia for what once had been could carry him only so far in his dealings with the assassin. Perhaps their long battle, the taking of Regis’s fingers by Entreri’s dagger so long ago, the many innocents Drizzt knew Entreri had wounded and killed . . . perhaps all of that dark past of Artemis Entreri was now invading on that wistful nostalgia, reminding Drizzt that, while his personal circle might have been greater in the time that had been a hundred years before, the world at large was not so kind a place.

Once again, it occurred to Drizzt that he might be doing an act of great good for the world if he crossed the encampment and put an end to Artemis Entreri.

Once again, his desire for such violence surprised him and revolted him.

But there it remained, hovering within his consciousness.