Page 16 of Cursed Shadows 1

His voice is glacier as he says, “Vicious female.”

Instinct has me baring my teeth at him, but it’s subdued, it comes with a tremor down my spine. I’m no threat, so he pays it no mind. He just runs me over with his fierce gaze, then turns his back on me.

He’s about to make his way back up the path, but that means… I’ll be alone out here again, and Taroh will be just waiting to get me alone, I don’t doubt it. His wounded pride would find reassurance in harming me.

“Wait.” My voice is small. Barely a whisper.

Still, he hears it.

Some steps away, he stops. I watch the ripple of tension tighten his back muscles, and I fleetingly think of water running down a stream.

Does this dark male know that only last night in bed, I thought of him?

Keeping his back to me, he only half turns his head, an unreadable look on the profile of his shadowed face. He waits…

It’s a thick moment that pulses between us. It takes me a heartbeat or two before I summon up the strength to move my legs.

I wander over to him, keeping my pace slow, casual, but fighting every instinct to run and cry into my father’s arms.

I’m not so sure father would help me. He wants this marriage to happen, heneedsit to happen, for our estate and our family. But this dark male saved me and he might just be my source of comfort this night.

I lift my hand like it’s a delicate wonder of nature that I offer to him. “For your valour, you have the privilege of walking me to my village.” I flap my fingers and hold his stare. “This is the momentyouthankme.”

I say it like it’s a great honour. I ignore that it’s me who owes him a thanks. The bruises that stain my pride come from the glaring vulnerability that a dokkalf sees me so weak. But I refuse him gratitude because I refuse to owe him a favour.

His stony face betrays nothing.

Yet he takes my hand and—gently, as though he’s slowing his movements down for my sake, so he doesn’t spook me—brings it around to rest on his forearm. A gentlemanly gesture.

He turns to face the path and with a nod of the head, gestures for me to guide us, because of course he doesn’t know which direction to take for my village. “After you.”

“Naturally,” I murmur as I fall into step beside him, but my grip on his arm steers him with my steps.

He doesn’t bristle at the insult.

We walk in silence a while, all the way through the stone maze, and then past the court. At the court, I take my hand off his forearm in case father sees, but I keep to his side. I feel his eyes on me as I move, burning into me, watching every step I take.

It’s only when we’re nearing Royal City, and the crowds begin to thin out again until there are only a few stragglers that we pass, that he breaks the quiet between us.

“You vex me.”

His admission flickers surprise over my face. I compose myself quickly and, casting a frown over my shoulder at him, one of judgement, I stroll ahead of him—still within arm’s reach, of course.

In a blink, he’s beside me. Moves like a shadow, this one. All dokkalves are fast-moving, but this one seems like while he belongs to the darkness, the darkness belongs to him, too.

I look up at him, so tall that I have to crane my neck. “Crows vex me when they steal my baubles, but I also find I’m quite taken by them.”

A frown knits his brow. He chews on words he doesn’t speak, and I watch the clench of his jaw bring a pair of dimples to his smooth, tanned cheeks. His eyes are narrowed on me, but he looks away quick enough that it only adds a little more to my fear of him. Only a little.

It isn’t lost on me just how much focus he’s putting on keeping me calm—on intentionallyavoidingfrightening me.

Through the quiet streets of the Royal City, with all residents at the High Court, he keeps my wandering pace. Every other step, I feel his gaze slice to me, at my profile, my wild chestnut hair all dishevelled from the attack, the rip of my skirt and blotchy tear-streaks on my cheeks, and the width of my hips that put me on the curvy side. But he’s quick to look away each time.

Then I sense his gaze drop to the bronzed satin cling of my bodice against my cleavage, like a soft golden stream of water falling over my full breasts.

In answer, I reach into the material and draw out the valerian.

I pinch it between my fingers and watch as he lifts his gaze to mine, a faint pink hue on his cheekbones. He knows I caught him leering, but I doubt that’s what heats his cheeks—it’s the thoughts on his mind.

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