A small smile stretched my lips. “I already did.” Gathering my leaf-tangled hair, I draped it over my shoulder. The last dregs of sunshine disappeared behind a cloud, leaving us in green shadows.
“What?” His nostrils flared, his temper sparking like an uncontrolled blaze.
I smiled, enjoying his annoyance. He claimed he was cold-hearted and impervious. He lied.
I’ll show him. I’ll prove he’s as ill-equipped to play this charade as I am.
“Do you want me to paint it out for you? To show you how hypocritical you are?”
He grabbed Squirrel’s ear, making the dog flinch. Squirrel moved away, an angry reproof in his black eyes. “Careful, Ms. Weaver,” Jethro whispered. “Everything you say up there will have consequences when you get down here.”
I refused to let fear quiet me. Not when I had the freedom to speak—no matter how brief.
“Nila. My name is Nila. Say it. It seems we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so you might as well save yourself breath when you need to summon me. Or do you like reminding yourself that I’m a Weaver? Your so-called hated enemy. Do you need to reinforce that knowledge every time? How about that beloved silence you keep claiming you wield? You think you hide so well. Listen up. You don’t.”
Jethro backed away, crossing his arms. A dark, unreadable expression etched his face. “I call you by your last name out of respect.” He spat the last word. “We aren’t friends. We aren’t even acquaintances. We’ve been thrown into this together, and it’s up to me to make the fucking rules on how you’ll be treated.”
We both froze, breathing hard.
Oh, my God.
He’s been thrown into this. My mind charged ahead with questions.
Did he not want this?
Was he forced, same as me?
Jethro hissed, “Get out of the fucking tree. I want to be home before dark.”
Hoarding my questions and the small furl of hope, I pointed at the sky. “It’s already dusk. How long did you hunt me, Jethro? How long did you search for a vulnerable, weak, little Weaver?”
He ignored my questions, focusing on the last part of my sentence. “You think you’re weak?”
“No, you think I’m weak.”
“How so?”
I straightened my shoulders. There was a…genuineness in his tone. The animosity between us suddenly…disappeared. It took me a few seconds to answer. My voice was quieter, less abrasive. “You think I’ll put up with what you plan to do with me—that I won’t fight? That I won’t do everything in my power to stop you from killing me?”
His face battled with a smirk and understanding. He settled on a frosty grimace. “Of course, I expect it. If you didn't, I’d say you were already dead inside. No one wants to die.”
I had no reply to that. A chill darted over my skin. For the first time, we were talking. So much had happened since we met. There was so much between us that it felt as if we’d been fighting this war for years—which maybe we had, and we just didn’t know it.
“What do you mean to do with me?” I whispered, dropping all pretence and opting for truth.
He jerked, his eyes tightening at the softness in my tone. “I’ve told you.”
I shook my head. “No, you haven’t.” I looked away. “You’ve threatened me. You’ve made me come in a room full of men, and you’ve told me the method of my death. None of that—”
“You’re saying that isn’t being honest about your future?”
I glared. “I wasn’t finished. I was going to say, before you rudely interrupted, what else is there?”
His mouth parted in surprise. “Else? You’re asking what else there is to this debt?”
“Forget the debt. Tell me what to expect. Give me that at least, so I can prepare myself.”
He cocked his hip, trailing the whip through the rotten leaves by his feet. “Why?”
“Why?”
He nodded. “Why should I give you what you want? This isn’t a power exchange, Ms. Weaver.”
I bit my lip, wincing at the sudden hunger pains in my stomach. What did I have that he wanted? What could I hope to bribe him with or entice some feeling of protectiveness and kindness?
I have nothing.
I hung my head.
Silence existed, thick and heavy like the rolling dusk.
Amazingly, Jethro murmured, “Come down, and I’ll answer three questions.”
My head shot up. “Give me answers now, before I come down.”
He planted his boots deeper into the mulch-covered dirt. “Don’t push me, woman. You’ve already gotten more conversation out of me than my fucking family. Don’t make me hate you for causing me to feel weak.”
“You feel weak?”
“Ms. fucking Weaver. Climb down here right now.” His temper exploded, smashing through his iceberg shell, giving me a hint at the man I knew existed.
A man with blood as hot as any other.
A man with so many unresolved issues, he’d tied himself into untieable knots.
My heartbeat clamoured as Jethro’s ice fell back into place, blocking everything I just glimpsed.
I sucked in a breath. “Hypocrite.”
He seethed. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.” Standing on awkward legs, I hugged the tree. “Three questions? I want five.”
“Three.”
“Five.”
Jethro moved suddenly, stomping to the base of the tree, gripping the bottom branch. “If you make me climb up there to get you, you’ll be fucking sorry.”
“Fine!” I moved carefully, wondering how the hell I would climb down. “Call me Nila and I’ll obey.”
He growled under his breath. “Goddammit, you push me.”
Someone has to. Someone has to smash that hypocritical shell.
I waited, face pressed against knobbly bark, fighting against the weakness in my limbs from exhaustion and hunger.