Daemon opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I don’t care if he could twitch his f**king nose and make the Luxen disappear; he’s not going to feed off you.”
“If he doesn’t, then he’s not going to help us,” I reasoned carefully. “None of the Arum are going to help us.”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
“Yes, you do. I know you care. There’s too much at stake for you to not care.”
He laughed harshly as he faced me. “You know me better than that.”
“Exactly! I know you, and I know you’re angry right now—”
“‘Angry’ isn’t a strong enough word for what I’m feeling right now,” he shot back.
“Okay.” I raised my hands. “But we have to get him to help us.”
“Not if it means you have to go through with that.” He started to pace. “I can’t allow it. There’s no way I can let you go through being fed on. Nothing in this world is worth that. You have no idea—”
“I know what it’s like to be fed on,” I reminded him, and he flinched. I swore it was the first time I’d ever seen him do that. “When I got caught in Mount Weather, I was fed on. I know it’s not fun and it won’t be pretty and it’s going to hurt, but—”
“No!” he shouted, hands curling into fists. He cursed again, thrusting his fingers through his hair as he twisted his upper body toward me. “It kills me that you even know what it feels like, that you had to experience it and I couldn’t protect you.”
“Daemon—”
“I’m not going to allow that to happen to you again. No way, so don’t even think you can convince me.”
“Then what do we do? Just say screw it?”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
I stared at him.
“What? We can go live in a damn cave,” he said, pacing once more. “Look, I’m a selfish person. You know that. And I don’t want you to go through that, so I’m willing to say screw it and we cut our losses.”
“Really? What kind of life would that give us?”
“Don’t bring logic into this conversation.”
Frustration whirled inside me as I stepped in front of him, clasping his cheeks. The stubble grazed my palms. “Daemon, there is no life for any of us if we don’t get them to help us.”
“We can make it work. I know we can.”
“Daemon . . .”
He broke away. “I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation.”
“I know the idea is upsetting.”
“Do you? Sounds like you don’t.”
My eyes narrowed and I planted my hands on my hips. “Come on, you know I don’t want to do this. The very idea of—of feeling something like that again terrifies me and makes me sick, but if that’s what it takes to get them to help us, then that’s what I need to do. That’s what we need to do.”
“You do not need to,” he snapped.
I dragged in several deep breaths. “We need to. For your sister.”
“You’re going to make me choose between you and her?” he shouted, eyes a vehement white.
“I’m not making you choose.” I followed him around the tight circle he paced. “You are making that choice. By trying to protect me, you’re letting her go.”
He stopped and stared at me. I thought he’d lash out again, but he closed his eyes, his striking face taut and his body rigid.
I knew in that moment I had him thinking instead of feeling. I latched onto it. “Are you ready to do that? Because she’ll probably die. I hate saying so, even thinking about it, but it’s the truth.”
Mashing his lips together, he turned away from me, his head bowed. Several moments passed. “He’ll be touching you. He’ll be—”
“It’s not like Lotho wants to have sex with me.”
He faced me, nostrils flared. “God, I’m going to kill him. Just even hearing his name and the word ‘sex’ in the same sentence—”
“Daemon.”
“What?” He turned, thrusting both of his hands through his hair. “How can you ask me to be okay with this?”
“I’m not! I’m not asking you to be okay with it, but I’m asking you to understand why we have to do it, to acknowledge how much is at stake and who is at stake. I’m asking you to not think about me or think about yourself in this. I’m asking—”
“You’re asking for the impossible.”
Daemon lunged forward, and a second later, my back was flush against the wall and his mouth was on mine. The kiss . . . holy alien babies, the kiss was a raw combination of lust and possession. There was a taste of desperation and anger as our teeth clanged, but the hand against my cheek was so gentle, barely there, and all those emotions were in the kiss, but the love was far stronger than anything else.
As his mouth moved over mine and the deep sound from the back of his throat reverberated through my skull, I didn’t feel the cold press of the damp wall or the bitter edge of panic that had started clawing at my insides the moment Lotho stated his condition.
Daemon kissed like he was staking a claim, but he already had me—all of me. My heart. My soul. My whole being.
When he lifted his head, his breath was warm against my lips. “I can’t promise you that I’m going to let this happen. I also can’t promise that I’m not going to walk back in that room and try to kill him. But you’re right. We need them.” Those three words sounded painful for him to say. “All I can promise is that I will try.”