Page 35 of Poison Sun

“I’m sorry.” I lower my eyes in respect.

“You know the laws around here,” he says so casually that you’d never guess he was talking about the murder of someone he loved. “She was hunted down by the Guardians and killed for what she did. So, in remembrance to her, I designed these. To represent our freedom from the laws that bind us.”

He raises his wrists, putting the broken shackles tattooed around them on full display.

Tentatively, I reach for one of them and trace my finger along the chains.

He inhales sharply, but doesn’t pull away.

My heart pounds, not with fear or desire, but with the weight of strategy and necessity.

“I understand loss, too,” I find myself saying. “My grandmother passed away a few months ago. It was a car crash. A bad one.”

Lucas’s gaze softens, and it’s in this moment of vulnerability—of shared understanding—that I have to make my move.

And so, I brace myself. Preparing to separate myself from what I’m about to do. To pretend it’s happening to someone else, and not to me.

Before he can react, I lean in, pressing my lips to his in a kiss that’s nothing more than a means to an end. A poison to his senses.

As the urge to move as far away from him as possible rolls over me, I remind myself: I’m the one in control. I’m the one playing with him in ways he can’t imagine. In ways that the spell of the lustberry won’t allow him to start imagining.

And since I’ve come this far, I refuse to back out now.

Amber

Lucas leans in, tangles his fingers through the hair on the back of my head, pulling me closer, and that’s when I know—I have him.

When I move away, he’s gazing at me with a mix of confusion and curiosity. It’s the sort of awe that would make my heart race—if he wasn’t one of my mortal enemies.

“That was certainly a welcome surprise,” he says, glancing at my lips in an obvious desire for more.

“Let’s just say I’m full of surprises.” I trace the chains inked on his wrist, knowing from the haze in his eyes and the way his breath shallows that the lustberry’s working. “And… there’s more I need to tell you. More you need to know.”

“I’m listening.”

He sounds just like Damien when he’s worried about me.

It takes everything in me to not laugh at the fact that Lucas’s new weakness is the same as the one he’s using to condemn Damien.

Me.

“The potion is poisoning me,” I tell him, dropping the truth on him without hesitation.

Mainly because I need to keep being vulnerable with him to seal the berry’s enchantment.

Also because I’m open to any help I can get right now.

Concern crosses his eyes. Genuine concern. At least, it appears genuine.

“How so?” he asks.

“It’s weakening my sun magic,” I admit, deflating at how vulnerable I feel saying it out loud. “I need help.”

“And you think I can help you?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Can you?”

He presses his lips together, thinking. “Maybe,” he says, his brow furrowing as he considers it further. “Is Damien unwilling to help?”

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