Avitas Harper személy

“Force won’t work,” Harper murmurs. “You need to outwit them. You need secrets.”
“Secrets are a snake’s way of doing business.”
“And snakes survive,” Harper says.”

233. oldal

Harper lifts a hand to my cheek and traces one side, then the other. “You haven’t seen yourself,” he says.
“I haven’t wanted to.”
“You have scars,” he says. “Two of them, like twin scims.”
“Do I—” The words come out a whisper, and I brusquely clear my throat. “How bad is it?”
“They are beautiful.” His green eyes are thoughtful. “Your face couldn’t be anything but beautiful, Blood Shrike. With or without the mask.”

He reaches around me and up, rummaging through uniforms. I lean back, catching a V-shaped glimpse of the smooth brown skin at his throat. His scent is light—barely there—but warm, like cinnamon and cedar. I take a deeper sniff, glancing up at him as I do.
To find him staring at me, eyebrows raised.
“You smell . . . not unpleasant,” I say stiffly. “I was simply noticing.”
“Of course, Shrike.” His mouth quirks a little.

I swing my legs out of the bed and search around for my breeches. Avitas reddens and faces the wall, drumming his fingers on his dagger’s hilt.
“Don’t tell me you’ve not seen a naked soldier before, Captain.”
A long pause, then a chuckle, low and husky. It makes me feel . . . strange. Like he’s about to tell me a secret. Like I would lean in closer to hear it. “Not one like you, Blood Shrike.”

“If you didn’t need protection, it would be because no one saw you as a threat. Needing protection is not a weakness. Refusing to trust your allies is.”

“I know what you need, Shrike.” He runs a hand up my arm, so careful despite his anger. “I want you to ask for it.”
I need you to disappear. To never leave. I need to have never met you or felt you. You. You. You. I need you.

“Look at me,” he whispers. But I cannot. “Helene,” he says, and the sound of my name on his lips is marvelous. My eyes are hot, and his hand comes up beneath my chin. “Look at me.”
I drag my gaze to his, and my breath catches at the look in his eyes. Desire to match my own, just as dark, just as heady. He holds nothing back with this look. He hides nothing.

Harper kneels and wipes my tears away with his thumbs. Then he lifts my face to his, his own eyes wet, his gaze fierce in a way I’ve rarely seen.
“You are broken. But it is the broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is the broken things that are the most unexpected, and the most underestimated.”