Chapter 15 · The Other Half

"Get out of my head, Cael." My knees hit the metal floor before I finished the sentence, and the blade in my hand snapped toward his throat.

Cael caught my wrist inches from his skin.

His fingers locked around me. Hot. Steady. Too strong to break without triggering the bond between us, and he knew it.

"That isn't me," he said.

"Your voice is in my skull. Your memories are bleeding into mine. Your hand is on my knife. What part of this feels like somebody else?"

"The part trying to kill you."

The blade trembled between us. His face stayed calm, but a thin line of blood ran from his temple to his jaw. The judgment core behind his right eye pulsed blue through the skin.

I shoved against him. "Let go."

"If I let go, you cut my throat."

"Good guess."

"Lex. Look at me."

"I am looking at you."

"No. You're looking through me."

A second voice curled through my mind.

Do it.

The words sounded like Cael. They had his low edge, his cold patience. But the shape of them was wrong. Cael never begged for blood. He ordered it.