Page 93 of Cursed Shadows 2

It’s everything and more, it’s bliss and godly. I am godly beneath him and he worships me so gently, so softly.Don’t spook her. That’s what it takes me back to.

Without another word, he makes to leave.

He’s halfway across the bedchamber before I kick and shimmy my way out of the furs. “Wait,” I snap at him.

He stills.

Like each time I’ve given that command, he obeys it, as though he’s swept back to the statues in the garden of the High Court. But his eyes smoulder with obvious annoyance as they follow me across the room.

He watches me rip open the rusty jewellery box on the desk in dire need of a polish. Delicately, I pluck out the silver beaded bracelet I prize above most of my treasures. And while it’s worthless, it means something to me.

So, with a nervous smile, I turn to him.

“I wear this on my person for every dance,” I tell him and close the distance between us. “Every time. I don’t know what it means to me, if it’s a lucky charm or just a bauble. Like theones you left for me.” I stretch out the bracelet and his eyes cut over it for a beat. “But I need you to have it on you for the Sacrament. If it’s luck… I need you to have it.”

He makes no move for it. He just watches me.

Slowly, I lower myself to my knees in front of him. Then a pulse of lust hits me, hard. I blink through it, a flicker of surprise on my face as I process the desire raging inside of me—but not mine.His. And I think again of the bond.

I say nothing about it.

Steadying my hands, I reach for his holster. There, I coil the bracelet around and around, until it’s secure on the strap, then I fasten the clasp.

Still, he doesn’t move, not a muscle, not an inch.

Pushing up from the floor, I grab the trunk from the foot of the bed and drag it over to him.

Silent, he only watches me.

And I step onto the solid wood trunk—it brings me eye-level to his chin, close enough that I can reach his mouth. So I do that, I rest my hands on his strong shoulders, lean into him, and bring my lips to his.

This might be our last moment because he might die in this passage. No matter how skilled a fighter, how brutal a warrior, how dark his blood, Daxeel is mortal as all fae are.

I’m not ashamed to swallow my pride with him. I will toss my pride aside and declare it my enemy—for him.

It’s no surprise he doesn’t kiss me back. It doesn’t stop me.

The flutter of his lashes tickles my skin. His eyes shut, his body tenses, but he still doesn’t kiss me back.

“I know you hate me,” I say against his lips. “But be careful. Be safe. Survive. Even if it’s to come back and hate me more, just come back alive.”

Then—

He ghosts his lips over mine. The whisper of a kiss. It firms as his hands come up to my jawline, and he holds me in place. His kiss is hard on mine now. And I know—with this poisoned chaste kiss—what he’s telling me, that it will never be the way I want it to be.

Daxeel comes, long and smooth and tender. He moans in my ear. A kiss he grazes there then words he strains out with a breathy sound, “You will never have this with me.”

He shatters it with that. And my face twists with a cry as I finish with him, and he laughs against my ear. I climax and weep.

The shudders haven’t even stopped assaulting my legs as he pulls out of me. He wipes himself on my inner thigh and says, “Daffodil is a fitting name for you. Disarming in appearance, pretty, but a little-known poison as vicious as any other.”

He steals the kiss away from me.

With a step back, the warmth is gone.

I fix a dazed look on him.

The tension in his jaw flexes before he grabs the bracelet on his holster.

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