Page 1 of Shadowkissed

1

LIORA

The bassline crawls under my skin like a living thing, low and hungry, thudding in time with the shadows that curl around my ankles. Lights strobe overhead—blood red, then violet—casting fractured halos over the floor as I move. The platform beneath my boots is slick with sweat and spilled drinks, but I don’t miss a step.

This club breathes sin, and I’ve learned to move like I belong to it.

The rhythm owns the room, but up here? I command the stage. It’s my job to.

“Dark goddess,” the regulars call me. Not that they know how close they are.

The glamor clings to my skin like oil and silk, shimmering faintly beneath the low light, hiding things it’s better they never see. Tattoos—living runes—shift slow and silent over my ribs and arms, whispering secrets to the air. The humans think they’re body paint. Art. Maybe a branding thing.

They think a lot of things.

But no one questions the girl with violet eyes when she’s dancing like sin incarnate.

That’s why I took this job in the first place—freedom in plain sight. Most people only see what they want to see when the music’s loud enough and their drinks are full.

And I keep it that way.

The floor below me sways with bodies—sweat-slicked, wide-eyed, and high on whatever they took to make the night feel endless. The energy feeds me. Not literally—dark fae don’t feed like that—but there’s something intoxicating about moving through their hunger without letting them touch you.

Except tonight… the air’s wrong.

Tight. Tense. Heavy.

I can feel it in the way my skin prickles under the lights. In the way my breath catches as I pivot, slow and sinuous, wrapping my arms above my head. Something sharp slices through the atmosphere.

Power.

Not the lusty, weak kind bleeding off the crowd. No, this is ancient. Clean and hard-edged, like steel drawn in the dark.

My stomach dips. My pulse stutters.

I force a smile, arch my back, twist into the next movement like nothing’s changed. Eyes still watching. Always watching. But not like this.

I sweep the room slowly, like I’m playing to the crowd, but really, I’m hunting the source.

And then I find him.

Up on the second-floor overlook, half-swallowed by shadow, is a man who doesn’t belong here. Tall, broad, dressed in black like he walked out of a war and didn’t bother to dust himself off.

And those eyes—ice-gray, sharp,focused—they lock on mine like a shot to the chest.

Shit.

I stumble—just barely. But Ineverstumble.

His mouth doesn’t move. No smile. No shock. Just quiet, lethal awareness. Like he already knows I’m not what I pretend to be.

I tear my gaze away and drop low into a spin, dragging the attention of the crowd back toward me with a flash of thigh and a slow, practiced arch. Someone whistles. Another throws a crumpled bill toward the edge of the stage.

I ignore them.

My focus is wrapped around the man on the balcony like a tether pulled tight.

What the hell is he?

---