Page 137 of Sharpest Court

Because regardless of whatever else he might have torn from me, Erik could not tear away my power.

He must have recognized my morbid victory, because his jaw flickered with irritation. Then his hand was in my hair, yanking my head to the side as he traded the compass for something else in his pocket. Before I could trace the movement, a pinprick nipped the back of my neck. My eyelids drooped just as the chains above me snapped free. I plummeted, then gasped as I hit the hard wall of his chest.

“Remember, Little Thorn.” His solid arms kept me upright, his lips moving hotly against my ear. “People can only bend so far before they break.” Dread chased me into darkness as he whispered, low and intimate, “And I know how to break you.”

38

A sharp, pungent scent drifted under my nose, and I gasped awake.

“Sorry for waking you so soon.” Erik’s voice was soft as velvet again, his hand impossibly gentle around my cheek. “There’ll be plenty of time to rest on the voyage.”

I blearily lifted my head, wincing at the soreness at my nape. I was trapped in that stretched position again, my tight limbs begging for release. A sheen of salve now numbed the scratch he’d made on my collarbone, but the reek of fire still lingered in the sweat-curled waves of my hair. We couldn’t have been here—wherever this was—for more than a few hours. And what had he just said? There’ll be plenty of time to rest on the voyage.

Which meant we were still within the western waters, perhaps even closer to Banarrat than I’d thought.

Belated hope flared inside me. If we hadn’t journeyed far, then Keil and the others might still find our location.

I just had to keep Erik here long enough for them to arrive.

I forced myself to straighten, to meet Erik’s eyes as he stepped back.

“I brought you a gift,” he said, smiling. Something gold and round glimmered over his knuckles; was this the gift?

“Don’t spoil me,” I said dully. “I might get used to it.”

Erik chuckled, and the sound skittered over me. The hard ice of his rage had cracked away, leaving his usual cool composure to lap across the surface once more.

But it was only a matter of time before he frosted over again.

“You’ll like this one,” he said. “I brought it all the way from Vereen.”

I refocused on that golden glimmer—and then stilled. This was not the gift he was referring to. This was what he must have discovered while I was unconscious, tucked beside the compass in my pocket.

My mother’s coin, now rolling over his knuckles.

When he noticed the direction of my gaze, he laughed under his breath. “Ah. I’d been meaning to ask where you got this cunning little thing.” And then the coin rose over his palm, twirling on what had to be a tendril of his power.

The sight hit me like a punch. Over the last few weeks, I still hadn’t produced a tendril thin enough to twirl this coin. Yet Erik was doing so now, carelessly, as though it were nothing.

But no, the coin wouldn’t have meant nothing to him, either. A cunning little thing, he’d called it. He must have recognized it as the coin I’d used to distract him in the palace tunnels. The coin that had been my salvation.

Which was probably why he now engulfed it in a tight fist, stealing it from my sight. “Alissa.” He said my name like a command, and I realized he must have been speaking, his voice lost over the thud in my ears. “I need your full attention,” he said slowly, slipping the coin—my coin—into his pocket.

That was when I noticed the sickle-shaped blade sheathed once again at his belt.

I shuddered. I know how to break you, he’d said. Because he believed I knew why the compass wasn’t functioning as he wanted it to.

So this was to be an interrogation.

I swallowed drily and lifted my chin, steeling myself. “And this is the only way you can get my attention.” I glanced at the irons around my ankles. “Is it not mortifying, having to physically restrain someone to keep them from fighting you?”

“You needn’t fight me at all,” he said mildly, unaffected. “Once you understand that, you’re free.” Then he tilted his head, his smile laced with teasing, and took a slow step toward me.

I stiffened as he captured my waist between two firm hands, the chill of his skin seeping through my blouse.

“But if it would make you feel better, I could let you down right now.” He tugged at my waist, more playful than sincere. “You and I could engage in some semblance of combat,” he said temptingly. “You could satisfy your rage.” His thumb slid down toward my stitches. He applied the slightest hint of pressure, and I gasped. “Then I would nurse your wounds all over again,” he whispered. “Because we both know how it would end.”

I clenched my teeth hard enough to hurt. He wanted a reaction, and weary and aching as I was, I couldn’t find the strength to withhold one.