Page 173 of The Nightmare Bride
When I didn’t respond, he pulled away, taking that gift of a tongue with him. For long moments, he stared down. Only it wasn’tstaring, really. More like peering into my soul. His pupils were huge and black and bottomless, his irises little more than frosty haloes.
I stared back, my heart thudding a frantic rhythm. Had Merron ever looked at me like this? I didn’t think so. He’d never kissed my neck that way, either, or sent me spinning through space with nothing to grab hold of. He’d never melted me to a red-hot glow. No, Merron was steady. Safe. He was...
Oh, goddess.Merron.
His name sliced through the haze. I’d had him on top of me mere hours ago, just like this. I’d had himinsideme, for Zephyrine’s sake. Right in this very spot.
What the hell was I doing?
Kyven bent, clearly aiming for a kiss this time. I managed to wrench my dagger free and angle it toward his throat. The blade stopped just short, the sharp edge kissing his skin, the flattened spine braced against my forearm.
Nothing moved. Harsh breaths invaded the quiet—mine? His?
Kyven’s gaze flicked downward, then back up. “Is that a knife in your hand,” he said slowly, “or are you just happy to see me?”
“Get off.”
He jerked up into a sit, palms raised. I chased his retreat with my blade, never breaking contact with his skin.
“I’m...confused,” he said.
“Really? What part of having a knife to your throat isn’t clear?”
“That part’s rather crystal. It’s only...I thought you said you wanted this. That you wantedme.”
Dead, I told myself. That was how I wanted him. I eyed the soft, vulnerable flesh of his throat, where his pulse shimmeredagainst the bright line of my dagger. Just a flick of my wrist, and his life would escape onto the floor.
Kyven studied me. “Lioness?”
I raised my eyes, searching his for some kind of tell. Surely a man who harbored horrors upon horrors couldn’t contain them completely—some hint wouldhaveto leak through, like light from beneath a barred door.
But no matter how deeply I looked, I couldn’t find an edge in him. Only confusion and the banked blue burn of desire.
A growl piled in my throat. Goddess, if only he’d hurt me, or let me peek beneath the facade, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But he hadn’t.
I lowered my blade, disgusted with both of us.
Kyven scooted away. He stretched out along the bed’s far edge, his head propped on a hand, looking far more relaxed than a man who’d just rubbed elbows with death had any right to.
“Apologies,” he said. “I thought... Well, when you said you wanted this, I took that to mean we’d both decided to enjoy ourselves.”
“No.” My voice sounded hollow. Ground down. As if he’d held a knife tomyairway instead of the other way around. “This is about duty for me. That’s all.”
“Ah. My mistake, then.” His tone was light, enough that I wondered if he was even capable of having a serious conversation. It didn’t seem that way. “Though you didn’t have to make your pointquiteso emphatically.”
“Would you have stopped, if I hadn’t?”
He scoffed. “If you’re suggesting I would ever force a woman, I would suggest you don’t know me at all.”
“Of course I don’t,” I snapped. “I just met you this morning.”
He inclined his head in apparent surrender, then flopped onto his back and laced his fingers behind his head. He slung one ankle over the other, the very picture of a man at leisure.
I blinked, perplexed. Then again, if last night’s storm hadn’t rattled his composure, why should attempted murder be any different?
“So, now what?” he said. “What do you do in this place?”
I scrambled to follow the latest of his capricious subject changes. “Do? As in...for fun?”
