Free Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh Page B

investment?” The razor of his words sliced over her flesh, slitting her open.
    “Yes,” she whispered, wanting to believe that the cold man who’d raised her, with a woman as cold, cared whether she lived or died. “He’ll help me.”
    “Against the Council?”
    No, she thought. Her father was no rebel. He’d brought her up to be a good Council soldier. But she’d chosen her own path—and in that truth, she had found her strength. “I’ll help myself.”
    Dev shook his head, sunlight gleaming off the black of his hair, highlighting the hidden strands of bronze. “You can’t even stand for ten minutes without your legs getting shaky.”
    It angered her, his sheer disregard for her abilities. She was— a blank. No one. She was no one. But she would become someone, she vowed, looking into that arrogant face. Devraj Santos was going to eat his words.
    Walking over on the legs he’d mocked, she pushed him in the chest.
    He didn’t shift so much as an inch, but his eyes narrowed. “What was that for?”
    Her palms tingled where she’d touched him, her skin tight with painful craving. “I want you to leave.” Fighting the need for tactile contact, she folded her arms and tilted her head toward the door. “Right now.”
    “And if I don’t?” He stepped closer, until they were toe to toe, those impossibly beautiful eyes of his staring down at her.
    He was good at intimidation.
    But she was through with being intimidated. “Then you’d better eat carefully,” she said sweetly. “I am a scientist, after all.”
    “Poison?” His lips curved. “Bring it on.”
    “I just threatened you and you smiled. I tried to escape and you got angry?” She didn’t understand him.
    “The threat,” he said, touching his fingers to her cheek in a slow caress, “is permissible. After all, I’m keeping you prisoner, and it’s hardly as if you can overpower me. But the escape attempt? That, I won’t allow—you belong to the Forgotten, and until I figure out what you’re meant to do, you’re staying right where I can see you.”
    She understood the distinction. When she dealt with Dev, the man, she might get away with a great deal. But when it came to Devraj Santos, director of the Shine Foundation, rebellion could cost her everything. The heat that had reignited within her during the argument, the sudden spurt of fire, chilled under the ice of understanding.
    She didn’t know what she would have said, didn’t know how he would have responded, because his cell phone beeped at that moment. Except... he made no move to retrieve it from his pocket. The sustained eye contact stole her breath, threatened to pull her under. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Her voice sounded strained to her own ears.
    “No.”
    The sheer iron of the answer made her heart crash against her ribs. “Has anyone ever talked you out of anything?”
    “If I’m in the mood.”
    His answers kept confounding her. He didn’t behave according to how her brain, how her knowledge of the world said he should behave. “What do you want?”
    The phone stopped beeping.
    Dev blinked, a slow, lazy thing at odds with the wild energy that she’d felt under her palms. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
    PETROKOV FAMILY ARCHIVES
    Letter dated November 30, 1971
     
    Dearest Matthew,
     
    Today you fell off a swing and bloodied your knee rather spectacularly. But you know what? You never cried. Instead, you stood there, your face all scrunched up and tears glittering in your eyes as I cleaned and bandaged the wound. It wasn’t until I kissed it better that you threw your arms around me and told me it “hurt.” Oh, my baby, you make my life a joy. And soon, you’ll have someone else to play with—your father has charmed me into giving him another son or daughter, you a little brother or sister.
    I love him, your father, exasperating man that he is at times. But I wonder at bringing a child into this world. The tide is changing, Matty.