Page 120 of Glutton for Punishment

“How?”

His gaze sharpens. “I was following orders.”

A cold unease crawls down my spine. “Whose orders?”

His smile turns secretive. “Good orders. Orders that will bring us together, my little stormcloud.”

He moves to touch my face, and I slap his hand away. “Stop that. And quit talking in riddles.”

“Would you prefer a poem, my sweet?” he asks cheerfully.

I could scream.

He steps closer. His fingers raise again to brush a strand of hair behind my ear, and this time I let him. My breath catches. His touch is strangely gentle. And the look in his eyes—

“If I could, I’d be with you now. Tie myself to you. Taste you. If I could, I’d just shrink myself and live inside you all day, licking your walls.”

Swallowing, I step back. His unhinged words are doing something to me I don’t quite understand.

Strangely intimate. It’s too intense. Too tempting to reach out and run my fingers over that sharp jawline.

“Does this have something to do with your power?” I ask, crossing my arms again. Putting up a barrier and composing myself. “Whatever weird knowing thing you keep doing—”

“All in good time, stormcloud.”

“I am not your stormcloud.”

His grin falters.

“And if you cared about me at all,” I snap, anger breaking through the confusion, “you would’ve warned me I was about to become a carved turkey at Councilor Blaise’s table.”

The shift in him is instant. Terrifying.

His entire body goes still as rage explodes across his face. “That was not supposed to happen.”

I freeze as his voice continues to rise in a rant.

“Master said nothing of that—he didn’t know—if he would have known…”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were supposed to be in the Wastes!” he shouts, pacing, frantic energy crackling off him like static. “Safe enough for us to find—not in a dungeon, not bleeding, not—”

His breathing turns ragged and wild as he musses up his dark hair. He looks genuinely panicked. And more than a little insane. None of what he is saying makes sense.

“Maylo,” I say cautiously.

He keeps muttering. “He didn’t know. He didn’t know. He didn’t—”

I step forward and place a hand lightly against his wrist.

“Maylo.”

He goes still. The frenzy drains from his face as his breathing slows, and his eyes drop to our hands.

“It’s not fair,” he whispers.

My heart thuds. “What isn’t fair?”