Page 3 of Cursed Shadows 1

Before, I’ve only ever felt fear for the dark ones. Make no mistake, I fear this one above all others, I fear him most of all because I also want him.

For the rest of the performance, he watches me without fail. He never looks away, not when I change position for a new dance down the end of the podium, not when another dokkalf comes to his side and traces his stare for a short while, not once does he look away.

I fall into the calm storm between us, the charged cloud of desire on the precipice of whirling into a blizzard that will consume us both. But it never quite does.

Each flick of my hip comes with a small smile that graces my painted lips, every caress of my fingertips down the shape of my waist is accompanied by the flutter of my lashes over my ordinary brown eyes. I draw him in further.

A dangerous thing to do, a litalf halfling to seduce a dark fae. To play with him. But oh, I do it. It thrills and terrifies me to have my hooks sinking into him.

This all goes on so long, for the better part of an hour. He watches.

Then the dances end, and the celebrations start to dwindle.

Father takes me to the carriage, and I feel the dark one’s gaze even then, cutting over me like an ice-sword scraping down my back, then piercing into the back of my head.

I only give myself one glance at him after the dances. Father is with me, gushing about how proud he is of my talents, but I only have my attention on the dark one who watches me—until the carriage door shuts on my small smile.

Later that night, when I am alone in bed, and the house is asleep, I ignore the snack on my nightstand… and instead wander my hand down between my legs.

I travel my mind to him. The dark one. I think of him.

2

††† TEN YEARS LATER †††

I always find myself up a tower on nights like these. Nights that my life falls apart around me.

A bottle of honeywine is loose in my grip, the night sky stretches above me and twinkles with its deceit, its secrets. Deceit and secrets are all we know.

Bitterness pinches my mouth as I sway with the gentle breeze. I lift the bottle to my blue-painted lips and take a step closer to the edge of the tower. The soles of my sandals are not meant for this soft, polished stone; but if I slip, I fall, and I can’t deny the temptation in that. I never could. Someday, I might fall. I won’t scream. I won’t cry. I will smile.

But not this night—

Before I can spread my arms and let the cool touch of the breeze glide over me, footsteps come out from the archway to the tower; bootsteps so quiet that, to humans, they would be silent.

“Now that’s not the reaction I’d want from my fiancé,” a familiar drawl snakes out, “when she learned of our engagement.”

The smile that steals my lips is small. “You have no fiancé, Eamon.”

I would recognize that voice anywhere.

“I have dedicated my life to a tradition that means taking no wife,” he says. “Pity me.”

As I look over my shoulder, I see Eamon leaning against the arch that leads to the stone steps. His shirt is ruffled, the strings undone, and there’s the same stain I wear on my blue painted lips, the gilded hue of the honeywine, the same gloss of his skin, a deep brown complexion that glistens gold under the stars.

My smile turns wry. “I don’t think the traditions of the bachelor life are enviable.”

He tuts, a playful dazzle in his golden eyes. So, so golden. All but his hair, those tightly wound and forever smooth black curls that fall past his shoulder, shaven on the left side of his head.

“Consider that an important difference between us,” he says and pushes from the arch. He advances on me, my dearest friend, but his eyes are on the bottle of wine loose in my grip.

There’s defeat in the way I watch him advance. “More differences matter.”

Understanding flashes in his eyes. He senses it in me, in the slumped posture of my shoulders and the weariness of my eyes.

Comfort me.

But Eamon is unlike me, comfort doesn’t come naturally to him.

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