Page 117 of Pretty Little Prey
“And if she can’t and she sucks me dry?” Sly asked. “What then?”
Bastille strode up to the fox shifter and grabbed his arm, squeezing it. “Thank you for your service.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Sly snorted.
“Moonbeam won’t hurt you,” Kobe grunted.
“You have to trust that she can pull back in time,” Nikolai stated. “Can you do that?”
“Trust the woman with major trust issues? Oh, sure, of course.” Sly crossed his arms, trying to appear tough but Bastille saw right through him.
“She won’t kill you, Sly,” Bastille said.
“How do you know?”
Annoyed by the truth, Bastille huffed. “Because she likes you. You make her smile.”
Daxton frowned at that and narrowed his eyes on Sly, seeming to assess him for the first time as a real threat.
Sly sighed and shook his arms out nervously. “Fine, she can drink from me.”
Nikolai shrugged and deadpanned, “If you die, at least you’ll enjoy it while it happens.”
“Thanks for the silver lining, Nik.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
Chapter 46
“Little mate,” Daxton cooed to Luna as she dozed off into the pillow.
Gods, the bed was so soft.What kind of sheets are these?she wondered with her eyes still closed.I never want to leave this bed or face the consequences of my actions ever again. It was entirely possible that sphinx blood had kind of made her high. Or tipsy. Or whatever happened to new vampires hyped up on ancient, powerful juice.
“I need you to sit up for me,” Daxton whispered to her, rubbing a small circle on her back.
She scrunched her nose but shifted on the bed, turning until she met his gaze. The memory of what happened slapped the sleepiness away. Guilt and fear claimed her entire expression.
Her lip trembled as she suppressed tears.My emotions really are on the fritz.“Are you going to execute me?”
“What?” Daxton exclaimed. “Gods, no! I would die before you were ever harmed.”
“No one will want me as a queen now.” She sniffled. “I—I’m a murderer.”
“It was not your fault,” Daxton said, trying to soothe her. He brushed a strand of her hair from her forehead. “It was the bloodlust.”
No, it wasn’t, she wanted to say. Yes, the bloodlust was what caused her to launch herself onto him and drink him to death, but the idea of hurting him once she saw the man toying with a prey shifter…
Horrified, she realized,I liked it.
Daxton would never want someone like her. She used to wonder how she ever got unlucky enough to be matched with someone as jaded and complicated as Bastille, but maybe this was why. She was notall goodthe way Daxton was. Righteous? Fair? She had killed someone at her engagement party.He must be so embarrassed of me.
“Daxton, what if I’m not meant for your castle? Your people hate me…”
“They hate what you are, not who you are.”
She clenched the sheets in tight fists as she sneered, “But that’s fucked up. Don’t you see that? Why are all these light shifters so focused on animal origin? Or old prejudice. That shifter I k-killed, he was hurting a prey shifter in the middle of a party. In front of some members of the Council. They were alllaughing.”
Daxton rubbed a thumb over her cheek tenderly. He patiently let her spew all her thoughts at him instead of interrupting her.I like that he listens.
