Page 60 of Cursed Shadows 1

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DAXEEL

Vicious one.

Daxeel has never been more certain about any thought he’s ever had.

This halfbreed in front of him, so much smaller than she realizes, blinks up at him with a faux innocence in her doe-eyes, a line of blood at her neck, and the cinnamon and honeywine flavour of her spit still on his tongue.

Vicious, seductress, naïve.

Her scent snares around him, wraps him in its embrace, it invites him in. He senses that in her, how she’s welcoming him into her.

But not yet.

Not yet.

It takes everything in him, every scrap of control to not take here on this mat. He’s no stranger to desire, but this is different. Daxeel is overpowered by this battle raging through his body. The desperation of it is new, the animalistic urges are more feral than ever before, and that eternal rush of rage storming beneath his skin.

He should leave.

Daxeel should turn his back on those fucking eyes, and no matter how much he wants to stay with her, he should walk away. Just until he gains enough control. If he loses his grip on this restraint that he keeps around her, she’ll be frightened—and then all of it will be lost to ruins.

“Did you like your prize?” she asks, and her husky voice is as thick with the need he feels straining against the leather ofhis trousers. But does she mean the inflection of mockery, of triumph?

Do you think you have bested me, vicious one?

Dax is bristled at the thought. And now he learns what the glint in those eyes mean. Victory.

Do you notice how I’m learning you like a language?

She thinks she can keep up with him, that she reads him easily. She’s not just a step or two behind, she’s lost in the dark. He is the dark.

I’ll show you, vicious one. I’ll show you that I am the victor here.

His hand lifts.

For her, he keeps his sharp fingernails vanished. Not all his kind can recede the claws into the nailbeds. The slight skills and talents all depend on the bloodlines. His is a mild shapeshift talent, and so he disappears the claw-like nails into filed and neat fingernails every time he’s around her.

Don’t spook her, don’t spook her—or she’ll run from him, and he’ll have to chase. The hunt will terrify her, remind her of what he is.

Daxeel presses his fingertips to her cheek. His touch is gentle, even more so without the sharp nails, he can graze her soft cheek without nicking her skin on accident.

She blinks her doe-eyes up at him. The victorious glint fades.

Her perfect, pink mouth parts around a loosened breath. His eyes land on that, his fingertips not far behind.

All around him, the scent of animals rears up. Lust, desire, all from his kind, and some from a litalf here and there.

They want her. He needs to block that. Claim her here, right now, in front of them all—and then she won’t be touched by anyone other than him.

But how to claim her?

It’s a battle to wrestle his mind away from pinning her down and fucking her in front of their audience. She won’t like that.

Fingers brushing over every subtle line and groove of her full lips, his mind shifts to this—her mouth, his fingers. And he knows now how to mark her as his own.

The others might want her body, but he wants her mind, too. Her soul, her darkness, her light. Not just for one night, either.

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