Page 95 of Cursed Shadows 2

At the sound of it, his dark eyebrow arches and, slowly, the dark male turns his somewhat amused look on me.

My eyes widen some as I lift my gaze up and up to meet his glittering gilded stare. Porcelain skin gleams with the light of the glowworms, a cool tone to his complexion, such a striking difference to his dark waves.

He doesn’t turn to me fully, but he watches me, a mouse cornered.

Hidden behind loose strands of chestnut hair, my snarled lip trembles a little, but he sees it. “Alasdare,” I hiss the namewith as much tension as what keeps me pinned in place.

In answer, a grin that can’t be considered anything less than preying sweeps across his handsome face, the sharp points of his rear teeth revealed like the promise of a bloody end for me.

My hiss quietens.

His golden eyes brighten in the dim, dusty light. And he winks—that one simple gesture that silences me entirely. “Narcissa,” he practically purrs my name, “Don’t you look good enough to just… bite?”

I stumble a step back—but he follows with a fluid move that I hardly see at all. His golden eyes have me snared.

There’s a hunger in the gleam, one that chills my spine all the way down to my tailbone. We might have shared moments in the Fae Eclipse, and maybe I thought him something of a friend, but the way he’s watching me now is without any of the kindness he once showed me.

Those eyes have sharpened into gold blades, like the razored metal shards that edge the whip coiled around his forearm. I don’t get the sense he’s amiable with me now, no matter his grin. And his regard of me is not the only difference I notice in Dare.

He wears scars now.

And I meanwearsthem. Proudly. Those permanent ones from ateralum that are ridged: Jagged, ugly cuts down the side of his neck, one line after another, and I know fae well enough to see the precision in it, to know that those weren’t a frenzied attack, they were intentional.

Fleetingly, I think of Luna and her tattoos, those crimson strikes down the side of her face. Then it clicks for me, that these scars are how many lives he has taken. I know it in my gut. Those are his trophies. More than I can count, they disappear down the collar of his leather vest.

The grin vanishes from his face in a blink.

I have only a moment to suck in a sharp breath before he’s closed the distance between us—and I wince at the sudden searing sensation at the dip of my neck.

Staggering back, my wild eyes are on him. I reach my hand up to my collarbone. My fingertips touch blood. Hot and wet,but only a small smear.

He cut me. A mere scratch, but still.

Looking down on me, Dare tilts his head. In the darkness, shadows are cast down his pale face, over his coal-toned hair, and he brings his full mouth to my brow.

“Boo,” he snaps in a whisper. It’s enough to jolt me with a gasp.

I turn and shove through the crowd to the far wall.

He doesn’t give chase, though I imagine his instincts would itch to hunt me down. But all I hear is a faint laugh before the sound melts in with the hum of the courtyard.

I escape in one piece.

I make it to the wall I stood at with Eamon a month ago.

And the tight ball of tension in my chest suddenly loosens. Like metal pieces peeling away and fading into nothing but dust and ash.

Eamon knows me, knows my thoughts before I do apparently. Because already, he’s at the wall, reclined against it, waiting for me.

I rush at him.

His smile is small as I throw myself into his arms. The hug he wraps around me is loose and lazy, but it soothes the nervous tingles nipping at me all over.

“Rumour is,” he drops his head to speak his rough, jagged voice into my hair, “you forged the bond.”

I slump against his hard, lean chest. My answer is a grunt and a lazy nod. I’m certain he feels my expression tighten against his silky blouse, undone at the strings.

His chest muffles my words, “I was foolish enough to think it might be easier than this. That once we forged the bond, it would run smoother. But I think he might hate me now more than ever.”

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