Zen’s expression softened, and she pushed on: “And I’d do it again. You’ve never had the need. You don’t know what it’s like, to suffer at the hands of the Elantians.” “And if I did?” His gaze was sharp as a black blade. They were close, so close that she felt tension drawing tight between them like a bowstring. There was something so intimate to his words, so private to the way he regarded her, eyes flaming with a mix of anger and vulnerability at once.
