The chair, of its own accord, returned to the table, but slightly pulled out, for her to sit.
“Okay, fine.” She’d just ignore him then. Eventually Talia would be down, and she was far more forthcoming with answers than anyone else had been. Working with her would be a pleasure. Besides, Layla had no patience for games, especially as tired as she was. In fact, with all this paranormal business, she was shocked she got any sleep at all last night.
“I am not strong enough for your world right now,” Khan said.
Layla whirled back to the painting. Khan stood in the trees wrapped in his cloak, dark and pale. His appearance had the same brushstroke quality, the fine ridges of texture, that comprised the rest of the work. The painting, like his gilded mirror, was a window, a passage to another world. She understood that now. But when she put her hand to the canvas, all she felt was the surface slickness of the dried oil paint.
“Will this do?” he asked.
She’d seen Khan in his vampire pose before—yesterday, when she’d been attacked and knocked unconscious. She’d had a ridiculous princess dream. His look had been the same: solemn, so dark as to be mistaken for shadows, his eyes full of power and feeling.
And come to think of it, he’d been in her nightmare last night, too.
“You were there,” she said. He’d been a presence when she was all alone. Because of him, for once, the dream hadn’t been as bad.
He gave a rueful smile. “I’ve been many places.”
He was dodging again. “How about in my dreams? If you’re not strong enough for my world, are you strong enough for that?”
She held his gaze until he answered.
The smile faded. “I should have been there to protect you.”
So he had been there in her head. “You can read minds, too?”
“No.” He walked forward, shifting the motley daubs of color over the canvas as he moved, then crouched in the foreground nearer to the canvas barrier. This close she could see the brushstrokes on his skin, the fine lines that created his hair, and the swirls of paint that were his shadows. “That is for the angels. But I can sense what you feel—your loneliness, your isolation, even among people.”
The soft rumble of his voice was getting to her, and the color smudges of his appearance gave him an old-world romantic cut, though he needed no help in that department. He belonged in those trees, and something about their rustling sway made her want to join him. It was a fantasy, and the accompanying yearning was mixing her up. Again.
“Well cut it out.” Her feelings were her own. “All these superpowers are going to give me a nervous breakdown. And by the way, I happen to prefer my isolation.”
He lifted a brow, not mocking exactly, but telling her he knew better. “Emotion penetrates Shadow, so I sense the truth. And if you don’t want me in your dreams, shut me out. You have the power.”
Emotion penetrates . . . ? Well then he had to know she was irritated. “I just say, ‘Go away’?”
“That will do.”
“Then—” She stopped herself. She’d have made a definitive statement blocking him, but the Joyce nightmare had haunted her for years. The possibility of a good home. The encroaching dark ones. The blood. She just couldn’t shut him out.
Layla was shaking again. Better to change the subject.
She floundered to gather her thoughts, then focused on what was right in front of her. “Is the painting under a spell? Or is it another way to your world?”
“You know about my world?” His gaze went very, very serious. And not a little scary.
Layla squared her shoulders. “Talia told me. She said that you were fae and that your kind exists in the Shadowlands, a world between mortality and the Hereafter.”
His gaze grew darker still. “Is that all she said?”
“Yes,” she lied. It was also much better to stay away from volatile subjects, like the suggestion that she and Khan had been something to each other. “Now about the wraiths—”
“Layla.” Khan’s voice lowered. “What did she say?”
She winced. Okay, fine. Might as well get it over with. They had to reach an understanding about this, too, if she was going to get any work done. “She said that, um, you and I . . .”
The tension in his eyes relaxed. Then the man smiled, big and dangerous. “Yes. You and I. Exactly.”
Something about the way he spoke sent a fever burn over her skin. Had to be exhaustion, or she wouldn’t be reacting so strongly.
“We were bound together with those words,” he went on.
Layla choked. “Like married?”
“That’s right. You’re mine.”
No, no, no. The closest she had come to marriage had been Ty, and she’d known from the beginning that it wasn’t right. She went to fidget with the band of her engagement ring, but it wasn’t there. Just that white stripe of skin. “I’m not married.”