Cal didn’t know what it was that pulled him closer. He didn’t care.
“You are just like the others, then,” he snapped. Or rather, as close as he ever came to snapping. He spoke so infrequently that his default tone was mild, almost whispery. Even so, his displeasure came through loud and clear.
Elise blinked twice. “What?”
“You say you don’t have a purpose, but you do.” Cal lifted a hand to flick a damp lock of hair away from her eyes just to show her he could and would do whatever he liked. She gasped again. This time her cheeks flushed a deep, dark red. It pleased him to see it, though he didn’t understand why. “See?” he accused, suddenly unreasonably angry with her. “It’s in your eyes. The way you look at me. You want something.”
He so rarely got truly angry, but this witch made everything in him bristle. He didn’t want her to be like the others, he realized. He didn’t want her to only speak to him because she wanted him to spy on someone, or kill someone, or trade something for the knowledge only he had.
Elise was pretty and he liked her smile. She smelled like comfort and her magic sang a song that made his entire being sit up and take notice.
All of that made her clear desire to use him more galling than usual.
He never hurt another being, no matter what the public thought he did. When he encountered the scum of Burden’s Earth, he preferred to drop them on Patrol’s stoop rather than let another stain bleed onto his soul.
But Elise didn’t know that.
Surging almost out of the fog, until all but his lower legs were visible to her, Cal closed his fingers around her throat and pulled her closer, closer, until their noses brushed.
“What is it you want from me?” he rasped, staring into her wide eyes. The witch was not so composed when he had his fingers curled around her neck. He could feel the warmth of her breath ghosting over his lips, sending a bolt of some hot, hungry feeling through the brewing rage in his gut. “Are you looking for an assassin? An informant? Perhaps a spy?”
Her pulse was a thundering beat under his palm, but he had to give her credit. Elise the weather witch didn’t panic. She didn’t fight him. Her hands came up to stop her fall into his chest, her palms two hot brands on his naked skin, but she didn’t claw or kick or shout for help.
She met his gaze squarely, without fear, when she answered, “None of the above.”
Cal felt a jolt move through every fiber of his being when her fingers spread ever-so-slightly over his ribs. It was a twitch, barely anything at all, and yet he could have sworn he felt the whorls of her fingerprints moving over his skin.
His breath quickened. The pad of his thumb moved before he thought it through, pressing just under the corner of her jaw, where he was treated to the rhythmic pounding of her pulse. Each beat reverberated through him, bigger and louder than the last.
Like the familiar cadence of lapping waves, her heartbeat made a home for itself where it didn’t belong: under his skin.
Cal’s hand was much larger than her throat. Everything about him was much larger than her, despite her athletic build and long legs. When he held her this close, his hand engulfing her vulnerable neck and her face turned up to peer at him through thick lashes, she looked very fragile.
He was surprised by the way the sight, the feeling of her relaxing into what should have been a threatening hold, made his blood run hot in his veins. Cal wanted to shy away from the foreign feeling at the same time that he yearned to clasp it in his hands and crush it close, to keep it with him always. It was terribly heady.
A rush, he thought. Just like that time Kaz convinced him to drink one of his dark liquors, Cal felt the foreign thrill bleed into his bloodstream and cloud his thoughts, the righteous anger siphoned away to make room for something else.
“Then what are you?” he breathed, only succeeding in hiding the tremor in his voice at the last possible moment.
He saw the thoughts flashing in her eyes — what color were they? Why did it matter so much that he know? — seconds before he felt her fingers drag slowly down his stomach to fall away. He felt the touch all the way down to his incorporeal toes.
Her shoulders relaxed as she leaned into his hold: a sign of surrender or complete confidence?
“My name is Elise Sasini,” she told him. She paused briefly, eyes flicking back and forth as if she expected some recognition he couldn’t offer. Her posture was easy, submissive even, but her expression wasn’t cowed. She looked at him with a confidence that raised his hackles — like she was the one in control. “I am a writer. I came here to talk to you. That’s it.”
Cal narrowed his eyes. “You’re a reporter?”
She tried to shake her head, but when he tightened his grip just enough to send a message to hold still, she stopped. “No. I used to be a journalist, but now I mostly write books. Histories. Non-fiction.”
Suspicion niggled at him. “What story do I have that a writer might want?”
He watched, transfixed, as Elise’s expression transformed. Gone was the easy confidence. In its place, she glowed. Her eyes gleamed with unconcealed pleasure and that ever-present smile widened until he could see a hint of white teeth. “You have all of them,” she explained, leaning forward unconsciously.
Cal found himself easing backward. Now he was the unsettled one, and yet he still had his hand wrapped around her throat. He still had the power. Didn’t he?
How in the world did she manage to make him feel like she was the dangerous one?
“So you are looking for information.” He tried to infuse the right amount of disgust in his voice, but he fell woefully short of his goal.