We were silent, and the silence. It hung on the edge of a blade of taut tension, shaking with what wasn’t thought, with what wasn’t spoken. Caspian sat cross-legged at his feet, elbows resting on knees, fingers together in front of him. His mask-like face, but the rumpled shoulders gave it away—restraint. Again.
“You can’t shut me out, Caspian,” I replied to him, my tone strict despite the storm raging within. “I see that something’s wrong. I can see it in your eyes. I sense it when you shut down.”
He gritted his teeth, but his eyes did not even waver. His gaze was trained on the glass walls of the tower buildings, where lights glowed in the far-off city like fireflies along an evening horizon. It was beautiful to see—a blue-dark amber ocean of lights like fireflies lighting the darkness. Tonight, however, it was strangling, a golden cage.
“It’s not so simple, Lily,” he eventually growled. “There are things on the go that you don’t catch.”
I crossed my arms and frowned. “Then tell me.”
He took a bitter breath and rose to his feet, charging into the room with anger that set the beat in my heart. “For crying out loud, Lily. Do you think I don’t want to tell you? Do you think I like keeping you in the dark?” He stopped, his bitter gaze settling on me. “This has nothing to do with trust having anything to do with it. This is about keeping you safe.”
I sat up, bridging the gap between us. “And what if I don’t want to be safe? What if I wish to fight and stay with you and not stay back like some priceless bauble?”
His expression stiffened. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Then tell me!” I was shouting, frantic and close to angry. “Tell me why you look over your shoulder every time we are going out. Tell me why you receive phone calls at midnight, why you vanish for hours never for once saying so much as a word to me. Tell me why I’m losing you before I can even get to hold on to you.”
His breath caught—a pause, but I’d witnessed. A hairline crack in the mask.
“You don’t need me.” He said harshly raw. “You don’t need me every conscious minute of the day? You’re inside my head. Inside my body. And it’s not safe. For you or for me.”
I closed my throat over a swallow, my heart racing. “Just let me in Caspian, we are in this together.”
For a moment, neither of us moved. The air between us was thick, electric, charged with every suppressed emotion we’d refused to name. And then, in one swift motion, he closed the space between us, his hand sliding into my hair as his lips crashed against mine.
It wasn't soft. It wasn’t gentle. It was fierce and desperate. The kiss was nothing like the gentle ones we’d shared before. My fingers wrapped around his shirt, pulling him towards me as his arm wrapped around my waist, holding me against him.
A growl of hunger, deep in his chest as he kissed me harder, his tongue stroking over mine with drowning need that wrung a raw gasp from me. No world but this—a dreamy, muzzy feeling of being where all lines were blurred, no city out there, no danger in the darkness, no yesterday, no tomorrow. Only this. Only us.
But then, just as quickly as it he started, he jerked his head back from my face, wheezing furiously. His forehead twisted in a frown, fists tightened by his hips.
“That’s why,” he was wheezing, shuddering breath. “That’s why I keep you out. Because if I don’t, I won’t be able to hold it.”
I drew a raw pull of air, and blurted out. “Then don’t.”
His eyes blazed across mine, in halves torn by will and power. He did not have a chance to answer before the telephone was rang out from his from his pocket. The spell was broken.
He swore and jerked backward, smoothed his hair in silky strokes as he pulled out his phone from his pocket. The screen’s light flashed across his face, and I glimpsed it for a fleeting moment naked—something inviolable, something unbreakable.
“What is it?” I asked.
He said nothing for an appallingly, appallingly long time, then turned the screen over to reveal to me.
One message. No quantity. No name.
“You could have listened, Grey. Now we have in our sights.”
I chilled. I regarded Caspian’s eyes and for the very first time saw a flicker in Caspian’s eyes that terrified me more than anything else.
Fear.
The rest of the night was a blur. Caspian doubled the guards on the penthouse, growling under his breath at the men in a low, threatening tone. I paced back and forth, numb. Someone was tracking us. Someone had made me a target.
I ought to have been afraid. A part of me was, I suppose. But I was angry. Angry that Caspian had to endure this alone. Angry that he'd attempted to keep it a secret from me. Angry that the man who did this thought he could harm him by making me a bargaining chip.
I was not going to be made a bargaining chip. Not now, never ever.
Later on, when Caspian looked at me once more, his face impassive as before. “You’re staying here. And you don’t have a choice.”
I scowled at him. “You can’t order that.”
He sucked in a deep breath, folding the bridge of his nose in his fingers. “Lily—
“No.” I stepped closer, forcing him to look me in the face. “I’m not gonna act like a coward. I’m not hiding. You will tell me the truth, Caspian. No half-lies. No lies.”
He stared at me for an eternity, then, to my shock, nodded. “Soon. I’ll explain everything soon.”
A promise.
But lying there that evening, staring up at the ceiling with Caspian standing there, waiting by me in the dark with those eyes on me, I couldn’t help but wonder what I had gotten myself into.