Page 52 of Cursed Shadows 1

In Willow, he sees all of Nari. But he doesn’t smell her.

No order has to come from him. Willow knows what to do now.

Silently, she turns around, a slow orbit so he can get a good look at all of her. But his attention hooks instantly onto one feature—the black stockings that end before her firm buttocks begins; the stockings connected to a garter belt by straps. He reaches out, brushing his fingertips over the hem of the skirt.

Willow stills.

She waits.

For a beat, his fingers just wander there, along the skirt, as though tracing the hemline. Then he tucks a finger beneath it and lifts. The suspenders that hold up the stockings are pressed up along her ample cheeks, and he feels the strain in his trousers at the sight.

Something about those stockings, those garter straps, threatens to unravel him. Ever since he first saw them, a fucking decade ago, when she marched her self-important ass over to him during lessons, dropped down beside him with merely a glare his way, then sprawled out on her front. She didn’t realiseher skirt had ridden up a little, that he could see the straps moulded to the perfect curve of her soft, firm ass—and that for the rest of the lesson, he only thought about pinning her down and biting right into that flesh.

“Sufficient,” he says in a detached tone. “Face me.”

She follows the direction and turns to face him once more. Her full, pink mouth puckers with its natural pout, an innate sulkiness she wears always.

He doubts Nari realizes these things about herself, her scent, her self-important snappiness, the way her chin scrunches when she’s offended, how she bites her bottom lip when she’s unnerved or afraid—and just how fucking intoxicating the smell of her fear is.

With a final step closer, that wild mop of chestnut waves comes up to his pec only. He looks down at the imitation.

She looks up with doe eyes.

Those fucking doe eyes.

How quickly they can sharpen into seduction and deceit. How beautiful they are when wicked, how capturing they are when naïve.

Daxeel drops his head, but even that’s not enough to close the distance in their heights. Still, it’s enough that he can pick up on her scent from the skirt and bodice, the ones he stole from her bedchamber when she was up in the tower, none the wiser to the dark fae that sometimes enters her bedchamber, inspects her things, steals a strand of hair here and there, reads the very few letters on her desk, and just exists in that scent of her all over the room, in the air, in everything. Her distinct blend of plums, cinnamon and bitter almonds. A sweetness forever mixed with the smell of arsenic.

Satisfied, Daxeel takes a step back and reaches into his pocket. From it, he draws out a few gold coins. Her eyes—Nari’seyes—follow his hand to the glass tray perched on the edge of the copper tub. There, he drops the coins.

They clatter and, with a small smile that seizes his insides, she thanks him in that silent gesture.

He doesn’t have to pay her anything. She’s a concubine, after all. But since her talent is so special, and she does it so well, he tips. Every time.

She flicks those fucking eyes back up at him.

A shudder of anger rinses through him, bolts his muscles to his bones, but it’s the lust that has his cock straining.

He’s steeled against all of it. The concubine will notice hardened muscles, tension in him, but not the sheer desperation he battles.

“The usual?”

That voice shatters an illusion he needs if he’s to survive these months near the true Nari.

The usual…

How this fake-Nari will try to kiss him, sweep her plump lips over his jawline, flick her warm tongue over his lips, chaste kisses anywhere she can plant them as he fucks her into the mattress.

But no, he doesn’t want that this phase. Not after what Nari did just two phases ago.Stepped to him.

The only way he was planning on getting through this time so close to her was to ignore her. Never speak, never touch. So this arrogant little twit storms her way to him and…

His hands fist at his sides and, slowly, he draws in a long and deep breath. Just the memory of having her by the throat,wanting to hurt her, fuck her, claim her. It’s too much and he stomps it down.

Ignoring that Willow has shrunk back a little, sensed the surge of rage he felt, Daxeel shakes his head just once, a curt gesture. “No kissing,” he answers her, and decides to add, “No talking.”

With a jerk of his chin, he gestures her onto the bed. “Face down.”

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