But she did know him, didn’t she? She just didn’t remember all of it. “I remember hating you. I remember wanting to destroy you.”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you came close to understanding what led us to this point, and you turned away from it in disgust. You never learned the whole story, I’m afraid. You assembled as much of the jigsaw that you wished to see, and that was enough. No, correction—it was too much.”
She lifted their hands and looked down at them thoughtfully. His skin was a darker shade than hers, but still paler than it should be. His fingers were just slightly rough, as if he used them for something, but still soft enough to prove it wasn’t precisely hard labor. And all those silver rings of his—she had never really seen them. Each one was different and looked as though it came from somewhere else in the world. Some were finely made and intricate, some were plain, and others were roughly stamped and crude.
She wasn’t the only one who was “complicated.”
“I’ll make you a deal, lich.”
“Oh?” There was the first hint of amusement returning to his voice.
“I promise I won’t judge you until I know it all. I’ll wait until I have the whole picture before I decide whether I want to smash us both to bits or not.”
“And in return?”
“Once we’re sitting down at dinner and we both have a couple of drinks in our hands, you’re going to tell me where you came from, and exactly how you became a motherfucking necromancer. ’Cuz I’m betting it’s pretty goddamn hyst—”
She yelped as he suddenly took an abrupt left, dragging her away from the main road and down a small alleyway. It was overgrown with vines that reached down from rock walls, and before she could say a single thing, he had her pressed against the solid surface.
And he was kissing her.
His lips crashed against hers, stealing away her breath in that one unexpected moment. His hand abandoned hers to rest his palm against the brick next to her cheek as he caged her in. She would have gasped or made a noise if she could have.
But all that existed in that moment was him. Him, and his passion. Tangled together like their fingers had been, devouring her, and leaving her helpless and in awe.
He broke away after a moment, and she couldn’t do anything but gasp for air, her chest heaving, and look up at him in confusion. Partially because she didn’t understand why he had kissed her, and partially because she hadn’t wanted him to stop.
Sheepishly, his silver eyes flicked down to the ground between them. “I half expected that damnable hero to stop me.”
“Kinda…glad he didn’t.”
His attention turned to her lips for a second, and she wondered if he was going to close the distance between them again. But he took a step back, tugged on the bottom of his vest to pull it straight, and nodded once as if making up his mind. “Alcohol.”
“Yeah. I could—I could really go for some of that right about now.”
He turned to walk away from her and paused. “Oh. Deal accepted, by the by. I hope you gathered that.”
“I think I figured it out, thanks.”
He laughed and shook his head with a faint smile as he reached out to her. “Come, princess. Dinner awaits.”
She put her hand in his and let him lead her away.