Page 63 of Cursed Shadows 1

I wonder if he used to file them back for me, for gentler touches, to stir safer feelings within me. But then I’m reminded of his dismissal of me, how uncaring he is, and how he used me in those days—and I decide he wouldn’t do any such thing as file his nails for my comfort.

I tear my gaze from him and tuck into the slender muscles of Eamon’s back. He doesn’t so much as tense, as though he knew I was behind him for some time now.

“A few more moments,” he answers my unspoken question, the one found in my gesture and in my weary sigh.

How much longer do we have to stay out here?

But we’re waiting on Aleana.

Still down the hill, Aleana seems to be challenging her eldest brother.

I don’t have the hearing of a dark one, but it’s still sharp. So I strain to listen as I watch her press her slender finger into the groove between Caius’s pecs, and it’s a threatening gesture—made more by the twist of her snarling face.

She hisses words at him that I don’t hear, not even as I focus on eavesdropping.

Casius, at first glance, is a replica of Daxeel. Soft, sunkissed complexion, smooth to the touch; blue eyes that forever gleam from the natural shadowiness that seems to stick to him; and the inkiness of his black hair.

All I see are the differences—how pale his diamond eyes are compared to Daxeel’s ocean ones; the darker undertones of his tanned complexion, but Daxeel’s skin is like honey; and his hair cropped only an inch or so long, but Daxeel’s inky hair falls into his eyes and brushes over his ears.

Caius is every bit a warrior, but a soldier too.

His posture isn’t just straight, it’s stiff. There are no personable gestures from him to his sister, no smiles or reassuring squeezes of the hand, or snarls, not even a flicker of a person behind his blank mask.

Still, I watch them, watch whatever it is that has Aleana seething through her teeth at him, but not like they argue, more that she’s telling him off, or putting him in his place.

I wonder what sort of power the sickly sister has over her brothers, how far she can manipulate their protective love of her.

I smile. At her, for her.

I like Aleana more every day.

Beneath the relaxed hold of my palms, Eamon’s muscles clamp. The sudden tension in him prickles my skin and I lookup his arm at him, blink, then trace his gaze as it slowly turns over his shoulder—and glowers into the arched entrance to the courtyard.

From the arch, Taroh and some litalves stalk onto the barren hill. His ivory leather boots crunch on the dried-out grass, long dead, long withered. Out here, in the lower torchlight of the hill, his normally soft brown hair looks darker. He speaks in low murmurs with his companions, but his eyes find me instantly.

It’s not that he knew I’d be out here, but that he’s so used to hunting me by now that he recognizes my scent probably better than he knows his own.

A wicked smile steals his face and I blanch.

Surely he wouldn’t. Not out here, for all to see. He wouldn’t touch me here—oh, but then of course he would, because out here I wouldn’t fight the kiss. Wouldn’t be proper to smack him, wouldn’t be my place to reject the advances of my fiancé—and father would hear all about my misbehaviour. That’s not a punishment I’m willing to face.

Taroh seems to understand this.

His smile is cruel, and it’s fixed on me.

I think he’s about to make for me. He mutters something to his friends, turns to angle my way—but a frown digs into his porcelain-toned brow, and those green eyes like lush, dewy blades of grass, brighten. He shifts his focus over my head.

The frown melts away, twists into something of a silent snarl.

He doesn’t look at Eamon, whose darkened face is nothing short of vicious. Taroh gives no attention to Eamon, because he’s a lordson—and what can a hybrid do? Even if Eamon is from an ancient bloodline, it’s a dark one, and in Licht that means nothing.

So Eamon can do nothing at all.

But Taroh falters in his move for me. He stills, then—without so much a final look at me—turns back to his companions. They stalk down the hill.

A frown of my own tightens my face.

Keeping close to Eamon, hands still resting on his back, I look over my other shoulder. Right where Taroh had focused his hesitations, a dark one stands.

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