He jerked. “What did you call me?”
Her smile was wide and sickle shaped. “I am going to kill you.” She lifted her hands and that’s when he noticed that her claws were out, looking a lot like cat claws.
“Show yourself for who you really are!” he demanded of her, convinced that Wonderland was playing with his mind. Because the woman he’d loved last night and the woman in front of him now, it wasn’t the same woman. He knew it. Felt it to be true, deep in his soul.
She advanced slowly.
His heart tripped. Her pale skin was deeply grooved with scratches and gouges. The heart under her eye dripped inky black tears.
This was a predator. A killer. He’d felt her power once, coming against her was like coming against a lioness—graceful, painfully beautiful, and utterly deadly. Black hair swayed as she moved.
Aeric grit his teeth as he reached into his pocket for the net. Lissa had found the hiding place, it was the last thing she’d done before she’d disappeared. And when he’d asked her how she’d known exactly where to find it, for a split second he’d seen a flash of something in her eyes.
There’d been fear, liquid and thick.
“It’s been you all along!” he hissed.
She laughed. “Now you know, man.”
Then she jumped.
Aeric didn’t have time to think, the moment she landed on him, the small bit of netting blazed to life like a wild flame, covering her body.
Chrysalis tumbled to the ground with a loud oomph. The harder she struggled the tighter the net drew on her, like a python’s coils, until her body began to turn a pale bluish-purple.
He dropped to his knees and yanked on the netting. Trying in vain to relax its grip. He had questions and now that he knew who she really was, she was going to answer them.
Chrysalis held up a weak hand and rasped out, “No, don’t. Don’t let me out again.”
“You’ll die and I’ll be damned if I let that happen before you admit the truth.”
“No.” She shook her head and stopped fighting, stopped striving to get out. “No, I’m fine. If I relax, so will it.” As if on cue, the rope did relax and the color of her skin returned to normal. “And I will tell you everything.”
Leaning back on his heels, Aeric wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and realizing he finally had a chance to really look at her, study her, he did.
Taking measure of the countless scrapes and scratches all over. He hadn’t remembered Lissa getting cut up on their walk here, but maybe she had and he’d not been paying attention.
He brushed his fingers over the flesh and she shivered. Her eyes widened and they were no longer manic, or confused. They were clear and vital and electrifyingly blue, just like the shade Lissa’s hair had once been.
“How?” he asked, sick that he hadn’t made the connection all along. Hadn’t realized his travel mate was also the monster he’d been searching for the entire time. “And goddess help you if you lie.”
Her bow shaped lips tipped down. The movements so eerily similar he laughed, a sound full of disdain and without humor. “You must have thought me a fool,” he spat.
Now that he had her, his panic and fear for Lissa turned to white-hot rage. Clenching his jaw, he shot to his feet and backed away, then pointed at her.
She just shook her head, but still refused to speak. To defend her position. As if there was one really.
But he wanted there to be something, he wanted her to tell him something. Give him any form of consolation. Because he’d fallen in love with Lissa, and just like Claudia, she’d betrayed him too.
They always did.
“Don’t try to deny it.”
“I won’t,” she finally spoke, casting her eyes to the side. “I never meant for any of this to happen to you.”
“You must think me incredibly stupid, I might have fallen for the ruse, but I’m no fool. The entire trip was you screwing with my head, my mind…” the rest would be left unsaid, he refused to give her anything else.
She frowned. Her delicate features were pinched and so unbelievably lovely he could hardly stand to look upon her. Seeing her was seeing Lissa. The shrug of her long, slender neck. The sweep of her brows and the slope of her cat like eyes. Her slashing cheekbones, how could he have been so blind! All along he’d felt as though the clue were staring at him, and it had been. Through her eyes.