Chapter 10: The Heat Beneath the Cold
851 Words
Leya gasped, looking at the burned letter, Samuel's words branded like a cancerous blessing in her mind.
"If they find out what you are—"
What was she?
All that she had seemed to roll away from her like loose marble, leaving her chilled. She balled the burned paper in her hand, heat branding the shape of her palm where ash foamed like hidden secrets.
Shayla watched her with wide eyes. “Leya… what does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, though her voice was sharp, her spine steel. “But I’m going to find out.”
Moments Later – Harrison’s Wing
The hallway leading to Harrison’s private rooms was veiled in shadow, the sconces dimmed, casting sharp lines on the marble. Leya stormed forward, no longer caring about being silent, about being proper.
She wasn’t here for answers anymore.
She'd arrived in needing the truth—and she was going to get it out of him if it was the very last thing she ever drew breath.
Guards to his front gate started tattling, but one glimpse at her—and off they slunk. They sensed it too: there was something different now about her.
She was no longer a stranger.
She was a bottle of dynamite with a burning fuse—and the top to be pulled off.
She blew the door wide open.
Harrison stood in the middle of the room, upper half-shirt open, hair loose and tousled, a tumbler of black drink clenched hard in his fist. He did not even wink.
He was sin-wrapped up in steel plate—and she still hated it for choking off her breathing so convulsively.
"Leya." His voice boomed above her, the sound of it grating harsh. "And now breaking and entering into my room?"
"You've already taken my life" she snarled, slamming the door.
His jaw muscle tensed. "What do you want?"
She dropped the burned letter on the coffee table as the ashes swirled like dark butterflies.
"I want to know who I am."
A flash of recognition danced over his eyes. For a second. One second. But a second. It was present.
Recognition.
Fear.
Guilt.
"I told you so," he declared, putting down his glass with measured intent. "Some things are left alone."
She approached closer, her voice trembling—not with terror, but anger. "You lied to me from the beginning. I was a pawn, you told me. A beggar. A parasite. But I was the one who didn't belong, wasn't I?"
His mouth curled into a half-smile and still words couldn't get through.
She went on.
You knew. You still know. And in the meantime, instead of speaking with me, you've just stood there staring at me like I'm some--some bomb set to explode.
He jerked back from her before he could prevent it--circling his hand around her wrist, tugging her closer. "Because you are, Leya."
They stood inches close now. He wasn't holding on tight but tight enough. Erratic. As if he was holding something else besides the wrist.
"Imagine you asked yourself, I spent the night brooding in the rearview mirror, why your father had become close to you. Journeys to think about what he'd written, what he'd spoken to the wind? You imagine that I've searched high and low for something my father had remembered?"
Leya's face was burning with anger.
Harrison leaned forward once more, mouth to cheek. "You are the storm Samuel never finished. And I've been in its center."
His hold eased.
But Leya was not vanquished.
She was too close now. Her skin vibrated with heat, anger, adrenaline—and something else.
"I've waited long enough to know if I'm worth the truth to you," she gasped, her breath short. "So either you tell me. or I'll go out and get it out of myself. And when I do, I won't care what I ruin."
Harrison's eyes seemed to harden. "And what if it ruins me?"
Leya's mouth curled slowly, fatally, into a smile. "Then you should have been more careful to whom you were married if you didn't know her at all."
She was moving away.
But his arm shot out.
And in an instant—it was spinning her around, breast to the hard contours of his chest, his face inches from hers.
"You want the truth?" he growled. "Very well."
His lips brush against hers—slimy, bruising, angry, furious, and of something wildly, wildly too dangerous to speak. It was not beautiful. It was not sweet. It was the hurricane that lashed against its equal—and against both of them, giving nothing.
Her resisting head presses against his shirt as she tries to push him away back into her and her resisting knuckles push him away.
It was war.
It was not love.
And both of them were bruised.
He broke the kiss first, forehead to hers, both of them gasping.
"The truth," he gasped, rasping voice, "can destroy everything."
"Then burn it to ashes," Leya gasped.
Because if the truth would kill them.
Their emotions just might.
- Writer
