Page 3 of Twisted Desire

“You’re asking me—?”

“To trust me.” He gasps far too loud. “Yes.”

Nikolai drags me back to the other fae. Standing in front of them about to let him compel me makes me feel as if I’m about to throw up.

“A lot of you are overthinking the process,” he starts as I stand there. So long as I don’t move an inch, no one will be able to see my desire to get the hell out of here. “You’re trying too hard to force your partner to do what you want. You have to pose your statements so the other person believes whatyouwant is whattheywant. The more they believe it, the easier it’ll be to persuade them to act against their will. Make sense?”

Most of the heads nod in understanding.

My throat goes dry when his eyes land on me, and the room suddenly feels much smaller than it is.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Hey.” His voice is only for me. “You’re okay.”

My eyes shift back and forth across his face. I notice the darkness under his eyes, the slight wrinkles on his forehead from furrowing his brows so often. He looks... shit, he always looks good, but right now, he looks as if he could use a week of sleep. Or a truckload of coffee. Probably both.

“Sky,” he whispers, and the rest of the room falls away. “Okay?”

All I can manage is a nod. Holding his gaze like this is making it difficult to do much else. I blink and then focus on dropping the wall in my mind. I imagine it would be a lot harder to do with someone other than Nikolai, but I can’t deny it—I trust him. That makes it annoyingly easy to let him into my head.

“I want you to take a step away from me,” he says loud enough for everyone to hear. The lull of his voice radiates through me, draping over my muscles until they move on their own, shifting away from him as he directed.

Our eyes remain locked. I find myself not absolutely hating this, watching the bright green flecks in his eyes reflect the sparkling lights of the chandeliers.

“Good,” he praises and moves closer. “Go ahead and start to attack me,” he instructs, this time without any compulsion.

The tension in my muscles eases some as I grin. “Really?”

He laughs. “Yes, really. I know you’ve been dying for the chance.”

“Only every day since we met,” I return in a sweet tone.

More snickers sound throughout the room.

Within seconds, I snap together a plan of attack, and then I lunge. I land a punch on his upper chest, and he grunts. I’m about to wind back for another when he ensnares my gaze. “Stop. You don’t want to hit me.”

My movements halt. I still feel the urge to connect my fist with his body, but there’s a nagging voice overpowering my want with his.No, you don’t want to hit him, it says.Stop fighting him.

My fist stays in the air until Nikolai blinks, breaking his hold on me, and my arm falls back to my side. My skin tingles all over, and I blink to clear my head before looking at everyone watching us with keen eyes.

He turns to our audience. “You want to be able to disarm these people. Deter them from hurting you, so you don’t have to hurt them.”

Someone scoffs. “They have no problem hurting us. Why should we spare them?”

“We’re trying to make things better and safer for all parties involved,” Allison chimes in. “You’d be wise to remember that.”

I nod in agreement but don’t add anything. I need this weird-ass training session to be over. I need to shut myself in my office and be away from people.

“All right,” Nikolai says, defusing the tension between Allison and the other fae. “Let’s try a few more times and see how much progress we can make today.” He sends them off into their pairs again before turning his attention to me.

“I think it should be my turn,” I mutter only half joking. I’m still uneasy after letting Nik use his fae voodoo shit on me. I suppose I wasn’t aware of how much I trust him. It was so easy to let him into my head—too easy.

The curve of his lips makes me wish I didn’t say anything. “You don’t need to compel me.” He tips his face closer and lowers his voice. “I’ll worship you of my own free will.”

I suck in a breath. “Killer line, Sterling.”

He tweaks my chin. “You doing okay? I didn’t upset you, did I?”

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