Page 44 of Cursed Shadows 2

Like a siren’s call to a lost sailor, my whisper lures him in.

Daxeel’s movements are gradual and predatory. Each muscle ripples with pure power as he kicks his knee across the mattress, knocking my ankle—a silent command to close my legs. So I do.

He moves over me, oceans gleaming in the shadows of the Quiet, nothing friendly in the way they watch me, the way they pin me in place.

All I can do is look up at him as he settles to straddle my chest. Just beneath the underside of my breasts, he tugs the button of his trousers—and frees himself.

His cold eyes don’t leave mine.

This—this moment right here—is nothing passionate. There is no rush of need and desperation and desire, all the things I was counting on. He keeps it at arm’s length, he keeps it,me, at a distance.

And he makes sure I know this as he fists the shaft of his cock.

In just some lazy pulls, he finishes with a grunt that flexes his chest.

Scenting me. That’s all he wanted from this shared time in my bedchamber. Just to get his scent on me, with a cold and cruel distance that springs a deep ache in my chest.

The warmth of his seed runs down my breastbone to my dip of my neck. He doesn’t bother watching it, he only watches me from beneath kohl lines and thick lashes as he fastens his trousers.

Then he’s gone.

Pushes off me with a grunt. His boots thud on the floorboards before he just… leaves.

No backwards glance, he stalks out of the bedchamber—and slams the door, hard, behind him.

I stay limp on the mattress for a beat, feeling the warmth of a necklace form over my neck, and stare up at arched, vined roof of the bedframe.

Then I clear my throat and reach for a washcloth. I can wallow in a pit of self-loathing or heartache, I can stay in bed and drown in my tears. But what’s the point in that?

I still won.

12

the night he followed me into the human realm

††† TEN YEARS EARLIER †††

The solid touch of a powerful chest comes up behind me. It presses against my spine and instinct bolts me rigid.

I suck in a curt, sharp breath.

But then I relax the moment I catch his scent drifting on the faint winds that rustle the woods around me. My shoulders sag back into place as a soft smile steals my lips.

His unique scent invades me: polished blades, tones of an inky earth, and fresh almond soap, like he’s only just bathed. “And where is my vicious one sneaking off to in the night?”

My.

My vicious one.

I hate to admit how many flips my tummy does at that word, cartwheeling through my insides.

I lean against his chest and, lifting my chin, meet his midnight gaze. “This is not our night.”

“Litalves,” he breathes the word over my forehead with a kiss. “Always evading in their answers.”

My smile is small. “Litalves can’t lie.”

He doesn’t pick onthatevasion.

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