Wraith(70)

‘It's not like that,’ he growled. His dark eyes swept over my body. ‘I'll prove it to you.’ He stepped towards me, his body stiff with resolve.

I swallowed my fear. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I'm going to prove to you how much we are meant to be together.’ He took another step towards me.

I backed up until my spine pressed against the wall. ‘Don't you dare touch me,’ I hissed.

‘I promise I will not lay a finger on you,’ he said, ‘until you beg.’ His eyes gleamed, his earlier frustration replaced with desire coupled with determination. No way. This was not happening.

‘That's not going to happen.’ I wished I felt as confident as I sounded.

‘After you have begged me to touch you,’ he said, as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘I will make you scream in a way that no man has ever done before.’

I was a wraith – I hated being touched. Supposedly. I'd never been with a man who had made me scream before because I'd never been with a man but I wasn't going to tell him that. ‘We can’t do this,’ I insisted.

‘Of course we can.’ He reached me.

I had no clue what he was planning to do. I banked down the temptation to feel his hands, his lips, his body on me, and gazed at him with sad eyes. Marrock, I mouthed.

Whatever Gabriel had been about to do, I stopped him in his tracks. The flames of desire in his dark eyes were replaced by something different; it looked like a flash of hurt replaced quickly by anger. Then it occurred to me that it wasn't anger that Gabriel was feeling, it was jealousy. He had completely misunderstood my meaning when I’d brought up Marrock’s name.

I met Gabriel's eyes, my own gaze unwavering, then I slowly drew one finger across my throat. He looked confused for a moment before he realised what I meant. His eyes widened as if requesting urgent confirmation and I nodded.

Gabriel staggered back slightly and his shoulders dropped. It was one thing to know theoretically what the goblins were capable of; it was another to learn that it had happened to someone you knew. Gabriel de Florinville was finally beginning to see what it meant to live in Stirling under goblin siege and goblin rule. Part of me wished I could erase the knowledge from his eyes and part of me wanted to reach out and hug him.

He spun away back to the desk, opened a drawer then another and another. In our brief absence, it appeared that someone had been inside the room and removed all the paper and pens. Whether they had realised what we had been up to or they were guarding against future notes, I couldn't say. I wondered what else was missing. The goblins’ actions sent shivers down my spine.

Gabriel's posture was ramrod straight and a muscle throbbed in his cheek, indicating his fury. There was no telling what he would do. I’d witnessed plenty of others with the same look in their eyes, especially during the early days of the siege. It only took a second to completely flip and say or do something that would lead to destruction. Gabriel was teetering on the edge between rationality and fury; I had to bring him back.

I placed a hand on his arm. It was such a small gesture and I didn’t believe it would be enough to calm him but, as soon as my skin touched his, he stopped moving. He was as still as a statue. I left my fingers where they were, marvelling at the heat of his body and how right it felt to touch him. To someone else it would be a fleeting gesture of comfort but for me it was a revelation.

Gabriel was right. I knew in my heart of hearts that we were connected for life. It wasn't just sexual intimacy with him that I craved – although I knew from the look in his eye that when he'd promised to make me scream he had not been lying and there was a lot to look forward to. No; what really made me understand the connection between us was the revelation that I needed, wanted and couldn't bear to stop having him close to me. It was knowing that I could touch him and he would calm. It was knowing that I could touch him and I would feel reassured by the sensation rather than horrified. His muscular body, his handsome face and his glittering eyes were wonderful things but they paled into comparison with the way my heart felt when I was next to him. He made my blood sing.

I lowered my head, ran my fingers down towards his wrist and felt his pulse throb steadily against my hand. Whether it made sense or not, his heart rate did indeed match mine. Goosebumps rose along the length of my body – and I wasn't even slightly cold.

Gabriel was looking at me with an unfathomable expression on his face. His earlier anger and his shock at the news about Marrock had been replaced by understanding. He knew what I was thinking and that I'd finally realised what it meant to be his Fior Ghal. Soul mate didn't begin to cover it; those words seemed trite in comparison to the truth. I'd never truly lived until this moment. I was completely terrified – but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

I pulled my hand away, absorbing the sensation of loss at no longer feeling his bare skin, then I reached up and gently brushed my lips against the corner of his mouth.

Gabriel still hadn't moved a muscle, as if he were afraid to break the spell. Perhaps movement would make both of us lose all sense of decorum and logic. And we knew, without saying it aloud, that we needed logic more than ever right now. Decorum, on the other hand, could go hang itself.

Pulling back my shoulders, I turned away from him and strode towards the window. I selected the same warped pane of glass that had helped me find these rooms, leaned forward and breathed out, fogging up the glass. With the tip of my index finger I traced out a single word: Torture.