Cursed by Fire

Author:Jacquelyn Frank [Frank, Jacquelyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Paranormal, Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9780345549907
Google: 73loBAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 034553493X
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2015-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Selinda was being watched.

She ought to have been used to it. She’d been spied on constantly since Grannish had come into a position of power. But this was something very, very different. The dark eyes upon her were those of a tall, powerfully built man, one whose surety and confidence seemed to radiate into her even from the relative distance he was standing at.

Dethan didn’t even flit an eyelash when she turned to meet his regard of her with a lifted chin. She wanted him to know she was aware of his disconcerting staring. She couldn’t figure out why he was watching her so closely. Was he looking to see if she would somehow betray his trust? Was it just because he lacked Grannish’s network of spies and therefore had to resort to doing the dirty work himself?

She tried to focus on her task at hand. She was in the main antechamber, sitting on the cold stone floor amongst a throng of children, all plucked from the lower quarter of the city. Their clothes and their feet were brittle with dried mud.

She was teaching them basket weaving. On other days she taught stitchery. On still others she taught cooking.

She stood up after a while, moved around the children, and encouraged or corrected them, then—unable to help herself—she left the circle of children and faced him, moving to the wall he had chosen to lean against. As she confronted him, she couldn’t escape how much bigger he seemed. Taller for certain, but the sheer mass of muscle had increased considerably throughout the day. She was realizing that this was truly how he had once looked. The frailer man she had first met had not yet had the opportunity of a full day to heal. Now it was nearing evening meal and he looked … vital. So alive and so strong. It gave her hope that he really would be able to face the challenges he would be coming up against, and it also filled her with trepidation. There was no sense that this man might be tamed. When he gained traction in this world, there would be little to stop him. She would once again be ineffectual in the face of a powerful man should he choose to use that power against her.

Still, she would not let herself be tamed by him any more than she let Grannish tame her. Perhaps that made her stupid. She often argued with herself about it: Wouldn’t it be better to just keep her head down, do as he wished, and not make any waves? It would be safer, but it would not be better.

When she reached Dethan he nodded to the gathering of children. “Why do you do this? Can your time not be better spent?”

She lifted her chin and set her jaw, and he could see the affront in her eyes. He knew he was about to be upbraided, and she did not disappoint.

“These children have nothing,” she said. “They are poor, their parents barely able to clothe them.

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