Law's brain stalled.
For a full three seconds, her mind refused to process what he'd just said. Then the meaning hit her like a bucket of ice water, and heat flooded her cheeks so fast she thought she might actually combust.
"You... you absolute..." She couldn't find the words. For the first time in years, Trafalgar Lami was speechless.
"Relax." Elijah held up a hand, and his expression softened just slightly. Still amused, but something genuine flickered behind those impossible eyes. "I meant my Devil Fruit. Get your mind out of the gutter, Law."
"MY mind? You're the one who..."
"Who what? Made a perfectly innocent offer?" His grin returned in full force. "You're the pervert here. I'm just a humble pirate trying to make conversation."
Law wanted to scream. She wanted to draw Kikoku and carve that stupid smile off his face. She wanted to create a ROOM and scatter his body parts across the entire North Blue.
But she also wanted to know.
That was the thing. That was the trap she could feel closing around her even as she stood there sputtering with rage. He'd seen her power. He'd watched her train. He knew she had a Devil Fruit, probably knew what it could do based on how she'd teleported to save Bepo yesterday.
And now he was offering an exchange.
Information for information. A trade between equals.
"Fine. Show me."
Elijah's eyes lit up like she'd given him a present.
"Give me your hand."
Law stared at him.
"Excuse me?"
"Your hand." He extended his own, palm up, fingers relaxed. An offering. An invitation. "It'll be easier to demonstrate with contact."
Her gaze dropped to his hand. It was larger than hers, she noticed. Rougher. Calluses marked his palm and fingers in patterns that spoke of hard work, of gripping weapons and climbing ropes and doing all the thousand things that built a body capable of survival.
Then she looked at her own hand. The one marked with D-E-A-T-H across her knuckles. The hand that had held Corazon's blood as he bled out in the snow. The hand that dissected enemies and saved allies and had never, ever accepted anyone's touch willingly.
Her heart was beating too fast. She could feel it pounding against her ribs like it was trying to escape.
"If this is some kind of trick..."
"It's not."
"If you try anything..."
"You'll cut me into fish bait. Yeah, I got that part." His grin softened into something almost gentle. "Trust me for thirty seconds. That's all I'm asking."
Trust.
What a ridiculous word.
But Law found herself reaching out anyway, her hand trembling slightly as it crossed the space between them. Her mind was screaming at her to stop, to pull back, to maintain the walls she'd spent years building.
She didn't stop.
Their fingers met in the middle.
His hand closed around hers with a gentleness that caught her off guard. No grabbing. No force. Just warm skin against warm skin, his calluses rough against her smoother fingers. His thumb brushed across her knuckles, tracing the tattooed letters like he was reading them by touch.
D. E. A. T. H.
And then she felt it.
There was no flash of light. No dramatic display of power. Just a sensation, soft and warm and deeply unsettling, like someone had opened a door inside her that she didn't know existed.
A pull.
Gentle. Continuous. A current flowing from her palm into his, carrying something with it. She could feel her own energy moving, her stamina, her body heat, even something harder to define. Something that lived in the fire behind her eyes and the rage coiled in her chest.
It was being drawn into him.
"Suu Suu no Mi."
His voice was lower now, barely above a whisper. He'd leaned closer without her noticing, close enough that she could smell salt and sea air and something underneath that was uniquely him. His purple eyes held hers with an intensity that made her forget to breathe.
"The Siphon-Siphon Fruit. I drain things."
His fingers tightened around hers. "Even the warmth from your skin."
The pull intensified for just a moment, and Law felt heat leave her palm like someone had pressed ice against it. Then it faded back to that gentle current, that constant draw that made her feel like she was slowly dissolving into him.
"Right now..." His grin became something knowing. Something predatory. Those red rings pulsed in his eyes like a heartbeat made visible. "...I can feel your heartbeat through your palm. I can feel the fire inside you. Everything that makes you burn so brightly."
Donquixote Doflamingo's face flashed through her mind, and she felt Elijah's grip tighten in response. Like he'd sensed the spike of hatred. Like he'd tasted her greatest enemy through the current flowing between them.
No one had ever touched her like this.
Not physically. The touch itself was almost chaste, just their hands clasped together like they were sealing a deal. But the intimacy of it, the sheer invasive depth of what he was doing...
It was worse than being stripped naked. It was having her soul laid bare.
And she couldn't look away from his eyes.
"You're terrified," Elijah murmured. His thumb stroked across her knuckles again, gentle despite the predatory smile on his face. "But not of me. You're terrified of being seen."
Law snatched her hand back.
She stumbled backward, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to put distance between them. Her palm burned where his fingers had been, phantom warmth lingering like a brand against her skin.
"You... you..."
"That's my power." He held up his own hand, examining his palm like he could see traces of her left behind on his skin. "And now you know why I understand roads so well. I can feel which one someone walks just by touching them."
Law's back hit a palm tree. She hadn't realized she'd been retreating.
"Wealth. Fame. Power." Elijah lowered his hand and met her eyes again. "You want all three, just like me. But there's something else burning in you, something so hot it nearly scorched my fingers."
His smile returned, sharper than before.
"Someone hurt you. Someone you're going to destroy, no matter how long it takes or what it costs." He took a single step toward her, and Law pressed harder against the tree. "Am I wrong?"
"No."
Elijah nodded slowly, like she'd confirmed something he'd already known. Then he turned away, breaking the tension so suddenly that Law nearly collapsed against the tree trunk.
"Good." He started walking toward the rocks that hid her cove from the rest of the beach, his posture relaxed, his hands in his pockets. "That's what I wanted to know."
"That's IT?!"
He paused at the edge of the rocks and looked back over his shoulder.
"For now." That grin flashed again, infuriating and magnetic in equal measure. "But Law? I'm going to become King of the Pirates. And a king needs people who burn like you do."
He climbed over the rocks and disappeared from view.
Law stood alone in her sanctuary, her chest heaving, her hand still burning with the memory of his touch.
She'd been tasted.
And the worst part, the most terrifying part, the part that made her want to scream at the brightening sky...
She'd liked it.