“I see.” Roksana took her sweet time brushing her hair back. “I take it I am not the first one to come up with that strategy.”
His lips twitched. “No.”
Frustration mounted in her breast and she kicked the box hard, scattering the cards onto the floor. “Oops.”
Something like affection flashed in his eyes, but all they had in the apartment was candlelight, so she was definitely mistaken. More than likely, what she’d seen was triumph that he’d forced her into losing her cool. “Do you want to take a break?” Elias asked.
“I can’t afford a break.” She massaged the center of her forehead. “I have to be an expert by tomorrow night.”
His hands paused in the act of picking up the downed cards. “Why?”
“Winning a poker game is the first phase of my task.”
“How many phases are there?” he asked calmly.
Three. The last of which is killing you. “Two.”
Elias absorbed that with a slow nod. “We better keep playing then.” He cut the deck and shuffled them together, never taking his eyes off her. “Do you want two more painkillers?”
“No.” Even though she could feel the last round wearing off, the sharp edges of her injuries reforming under her skin. “No, I…”
“You what?”
“I need to fight the pain and win. My ego is taking too many hits lately.” Why was she saying this out loud and giving him a weapon in the form of her insecurities? It was stupid and reckless, but in the tight cocoon of the candlelit apartment, a place where no one on the planet knew they were, she found herself blurting too many truths. And her honesty might have had something to do with her faith that Elias wouldn’t repeat a word of it to anyone. Why couldn’t he just be completely terrible, instead of mostly terrible with some honorable qualities? God, it was annoying. “First I have my ass kicked and you have to come scrape me off the street like road kill. I can’t even stand up. Now I am bad at poker. At least if I don’t take medicine, I am beating the desire to give in to one weakness.”
Elias leaned forward slowly, the cards seemingly forgotten in his hands. “There can be strength in recognizing your own weaknesses. Just like laying down a bad hand and living to fight another day.”
She took that in, let it roll around her mind. He did have a point. Knowing where her shortcomings lay during a fight taught her the valued skill of compensating. Adapting. “What is your weakness?”
His gaze flickered and dropped away. “Look, you came here to face your own death instead of running away like a coward. That speaks to your character more than some arbitrary skill. If you didn’t have a serious game tomorrow night, I wouldn’t give a shit that you have a terrible poker face.”
Roksana sucked in a breath at his mean-spirited insult. “My face will heal. I just had a fight with fifteen slayers. It tends to leave a few marks and bruises behind.”
“Jesus Christ. Fifteen—” He tossed the deck down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “‘Poker face’ is just an expression. It’s the ability to remain unreadable by your opponents no matter what kind of hand you have.”
“Oh.” Her heating cheeks made her grateful for the lack of light. “I knew there had to be a misunderstanding. Ordinarily, I have a face that inspires sonnets.”
“I’m aware.” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You know I’m aware.”
The air in the apartment thickened dramatically. Elias’s attraction to her was an unspoken thing. He got annoyed when she brought up other men (that’s why she did it). He made it his business to guard her. To keep the closest of tabs on her whereabouts. Every once in a while, he didn’t manage to hide his hunger when looking at her. But apart from that night in Vegas a million years ago, when he’d been a different person, there had been no verbal acknowledgment of the inconvenient pull between them.
Why would they acknowledge their attraction when nothing could ever be done about it? This was a man who’d not only been a party to the slaughter of her friends, but he’d rendered her helpless during the ordeal. She’d beat that door in the chapel so hard, she’d broken bones in her hand. For years she’d watched her mother slay vampires. If she’d just gotten out of that office, maybe with her retained knowledge she could have saved one of them.
But Elias hadn’t given her that chance.
It was galling to possess such devastating need for this man.
And it would continue to burn unquenched. Touching him, being touched by him, would be a betrayal of those who’d been slain—and she would not dishonor their memories. Not when she’d already made them a target that night for those vampires.