He brushed a lock of hair away from my forehead and looked deep into my eyes. “They’re dull.”
“Huh?”
“Your eyes. They’re not as bright as they usually are.”
Oh. That wasn’t a good sign. That meant my magic was depleted. But how? Where did it go?
I rubbed my hands over my eyes and sat up. The world spun as I righted myself and hands gripped my shoulders to steady me.
“Stop,” I hissed. “I don’t need help, Byron.”
I just needed some space to fucking breathe.
He moved his hands away but didn’t lean back. I could see every fleck in his blue eyes. Shades of the sky and sea with flecks of sapphires and fuck, I must be more delusional than I thought if I was feeling poetical about a psychopath’s eyeballs.
The man was a killer. And I was alone with him. Shit. “Are you going to kill me?”
The corner of his mouth flicked up in the ghost of a smile. “No. I wanted to make sure you were okay. You seemed off earlier.”
“Oh.” Thank fuck I wasn’t about to die.
“Want to talk about whatever that magical explosion was?”
“Magical what?”
Byron cocked his head to one side like a murderous little puppy. “You don’t know what happened, do you?”
I frowned. All I knew was that I’d fainted and had a vision. Dread filled my stomach. Had I done something else?
Byron leant even closer, just a single inch, but it was enough for me to smell his cologne. Something expensive and dark, spicy and filled with danger. It made me want to close the distance and bury my nose in the crook of his neck.
“Do you like men?” Byron asked, startling me out of my tumbling thoughts.
“What?”
“Acheron thinks you’re straight but you’re looking at me like you want to eat me.”
“I… wait. What? Straight? No, I don’t want to eat you.” This was the weirdest conversation, and I was struggling to follow Byron. “Tell me about the magic.”
Byron’s smile was completely wolfish. “After you tell me if you like men.”
“I like men, I just don’t like you.” God, this man was impossible. “Magic, Byron.”
He finally sat back in his seat, his full bottom lip pulled down in a pout. “I’m sure you’ll like me soon enough. I won’t give you a choice.”
What? Had he actually said that? How can anyone think that’s appropriate or fuckingnormal?!
But he’d moved on to talking about what had happened when I’d blacked out. I’d have to circle back to this later.
Or just avoid the whole thing completely. I was good at that.
“—there was this purple bolt of lightning that arced from you and hit me—I hope that won’t kill me by the way, and then you started muttering something in a language I didn’t understand, but it sounded ancient.”
Good lord, this man was something else. “Hold on. I hit you with magic?”
He frowned at me like I was the crazy one. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t explode?”