My face pinched. “How can I trust you when you’re parading me around like bait?”
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re not already the end-goal, Aster. You are the cup and the crown and every jewel that has ever existed.”
The blood thudded heavily in my veins.
“If you want me to help you, you have to trust me.”
Every line in his face was hard.
Every cell bated.
A tremble of foreboding in the air.
From across the room, I could feel Jarek tremoring, too.
It felt like I was being ripped between the two of them.
Logan pushed back his chair a fraction and patted his leg. “Come, sit on my lap, let me feed you.”
I gripped the edges of the table. “Are you insane? What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m simply reminding him of what he can no longer have.”
“You are trying to start a war.”
“What I’m doing is trying to set you free. And if a war is what it takes, then so be it.” The words were clipped, his expression fierce, the inevitability set deep in the wells of those green eyes. The browns and golds swirled from their depths.
Entrancing.
Enticing.
He patted his leg again. “Come here, Aster. My rules, remember?”
I’d almost forgotten the power I’d left him with.
I guzzled the entire glass of wine in search of courage, and I pushed from the chair.
Jarek never averted his caustic stare, and I could feel the lances of anger blistering through the room. It clashed with the stupid need that suddenly welled up in me as Logan sat there watching me like I was his.
Possession seared through his gaze as I slowly moved his way, but it was different than the way Jarek viewed me.
Logan looked at me like I was the treasure.
The reason.
The destination.
My breaths were jagged as I eased around to his side, and I settled down onto his lap, angled across him so both my legs draped off to one side.
Warmth spread fast, goosebumps a flash that sizzled along my arms and skated to my nape. Logan curled an arm around my waist, and I curled both of mine around his neck.
I was inundated with his aura.
Clove and cinnamon and corruption.
I knew that’s what he was set on.
He would see to it that even if I walked away, I would never be the same.