Page 98 of Wicked Enemy
Resting my forehead against hers, I closed my eyes and released a long exhale. “My little spitfire.”
After stealing another kiss from me, she twisted around and lay down against my side again. With her hand and cheek once more resting on my bare chest, she wiggled a little closer. I tightened my arm around her.
“You would make an excellent dark mage, you know.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Panic flashed down my spine, and I got ready to take it back. But all she did was to tilt her head back and look up at me with a curious expression on her features.
My heart slammed against my ribs. But I had already started now, so I might as well say this now before I could come to my senses.
“I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but you would be a force to be reckoned with on the south side.” I held her gaze. “You’re strong, smart, and you know how to bend the people and the world around you to fit your needs and do what you want. You’re an excellent liar, a fantastic schemer, and you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. You really would be an excellent dark mage.”
A whole host of emotions suddenly swirled in her eyes. But before I could decipher them, she let out a light laugh that felt just the tiniest bit forced.
“I can’t be a dark mage,” she said, sitting up and pulling away from me. “I wasn’t born with magic, and I only have it now because of the Great Current.”
The loss of her warm body against mine felt like a blow to the gut, but I forced myself not to show it as I sat up as well. “Being a dark mage is about more than just raw magic.”
Without looking at me, she slid off the bed and went in search of her clothes. For a while, I just sat there on the edge of the bed, watching her get dressed, while regret ripped at my chest. I shouldn’t have said anything. But I wanted to. Ineededto. Because I needed to ask her—
“I should go,” Eve said, still not looking at me.
Standing up, I walked over to my closet and then put on a pair of pants and a shirt as well while she finished lacing up her boots. I ran my eyes over her body.
An irrational flash of anger shot through me.
Fuck, I really hated her in that gold-trimmed white leather uniform. When we had first met, and she had been wearing those outfits of black and red leather, she had looked fierce. Free. But every time I saw her in that constables’ uniform, I couldn’t help but feel like she looked trapped. Stifled. Like it was suppressing her soul.
Panic crackled through my veins. I had to say this. And I had to say it now, before it was too late.
“What if you stayed?” I blurted out before I could change my mind.
She froze. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then she slowly turned around to face me. And when she did, there was a completely expressionless mask on her features.
“Stayed?” she asked.
“What if you stayed here?” I swallowed, my heart thrashing nervously in my chest, as I added, “With me.”
“But you’re a dark mage, and I’m a constable.”
“You could switch side. You could join me instead. You could become—”
“Become a dark mage,” she finished.
A storm of emotions whirled behind her eyes again. I wanted to say something, but what was there to say? I knew what I was asking her. I knew that I was asking her not only to uproot her entire life and everything she had ever known, but also to forget her hatred of dark mages. Forget her father’s death and become one of the very people who had killed him.
I knew that I was being selfish. Utterly ruthlessly selfish. But a small part of me still dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to justify following her own heart instead of her sense of duty.
Pain blew across her features. And I suddenly hated myself. Hated myself for even asking the question. I never wanted to cause her pain.
“I…” she began, looking at me with desperate eyes. Then two words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. “I can’t.”
She blinked, looking stunned by her own words. Then she drew in a breath and composed herself while a determined expression settled on her features.
“I can’t,” she repeated in a more confident voice this time.
And just as quickly as that giddy feeling from before had appeared when she told me that she loved me too, just as fast did a wave of pain crash over me now. It slammed into my chest so hard that I could almost feel my heart cracking underneath its massive weight.
“I can’t,” she said a third time. Helplessness blew across her features for a second. “I’m a constable. I’m supposed to uphold the law, not break it. I’m supposed to be one of the people who would have saved my father, if they had just come a bit sooner, not one of the people who killed him. If I became a dark mage, I would be spitting on my father’s memory. And Ulric…” Her voice cracked a little. “He has done nothing but help me since the day he pulled me out from underneath that table, and he lost his entire career because of me. I have to do right by him. I have to keep the torch that he passed to me burning. Otherwise…”