Page 61 of Cursed Shadows 1

Mine. My vicious one. Nari.

As if she reads his thoughts, her lips spread into a grin around his fingertips, and—fuck, does she know what she does to him?

His jaw clenches.

Teeth clenched firm in his mouth, he adds pressure to his fingertips. They press against her white teeth, not perfect teeth, not entirely straight, but not crooked either.

She opens her mouth a tad. Lets him in.

Where else will you let me in?

He hesitates.

The moment he pushes that finger into her mouth, feels the warmth of that tongue against his flesh, two things happen. And he’s frozen.

One, he fights the overwhelming urge to crash his mouth onto hers, to taste that tongue with his own.

Two, her teeth clamp down on his finger and bite, hard.

Her grin is still wrapped around her wicked bite, even as a drop of his black blood spills, no flicker of fear steals her expression.

She feels safe enough with him. Safe enough to be her delightfully wicked self.

Around his finger, she croons, “A taste for a taste.”

Her tongue flicks out and steals away that drop of blood—and then his light is gone.

She steps back, a black smear on her bottom lip, and she curtseys something mocking at him.

As though the negative to her positive, he’s magnetised to her. His body turns as she stalks by him, heading back to her spot on the field.

Shoulders relaxing, Daxeel releases a curt, soft breath. The relief unwinds the tension that bolts his body.

With his blood on the halfbreed’s tongue, a smear of it on her lips, and her cunt wet forhim, he’s laid enough claim on her tonight. So even as some dokkalves watch her go with hard-set faces, others with lingering glowers, and even some litalves curling their lips in silent snarls, the tension within him eases some—through their desire, they won’t touch her.

They know she’s been claimed now. If they wanted her, it would mean to challenge him. There would be no dupe daggers in that challenge.

Satisfied, Daxeel allows himself that taste of her. He swallows that bit of spit still on his tongue.

13

††††††

Before I came to father’s desk tucked away in the dimness of the offices, I stopped in to check on Pandora. But I found her room empty, her grey leather bag gone, and some of her belongings missing.

The one I noticed like an open wound was the sketch of her mother. The portrait that was never quite started before her mother died. It’s just a parchment sketch, but one that Pandora keeps with her always.

It wasn’t on the nightstand.

So this is where I landed. On the chair with a wobbly leg that I pushed up against father’s desk.

“The healer sent her home,” he tells me. The weariness of work and Pandora’s ailing health has his eyes weathered and creased. The wrinkles come with age too, since he’s about four hundred years old now, and we’re not of royal blood, so age steals us too soon.

Before panic can swell up inside of me at his words, he adds, “He he has an understanding of her ailment, but the darkness here is having an effect on her body. She needs to be in the light at home.”

“Is it serious?” I’m pushed up on the chair against the desk, my breastbone feeling the bite of the table wood. I rest my chin on my flattened hands. “Will she recover?”

Father smiles small. “If the healer is correct, she’ll be back in the garrison by the end of the week.”

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