Page 207 of Curse of Darkness
I slam into him, but he’s already waiting.
It’s ridiculously easy the way he throws me.
My knees hit the ground and then one arm is yanked behind my back and he shoves me down, face into the loam, the back of his thighs grinding into mine.
Twisting and wrestling, I manage to get the upper hand. I don’t want to kill him. I want todestroyhim.
I shove my hand under his jaw, forcing him to bare his throat.
Our eyes meet.
The mocking glint in his gaze makes me bare my teeth.Fuck this.I reach for him with my ungloved right hand.
His smile dies as if he senses my sudden determination. “Oh, no. Gloves are off.” Running his tongue over his teeth, he beckons me toward him. “I prefer a firm grip, if you want to know.”
He doesn’t know what I can actually do with my touch. “I wasn’t planning on fist-fucking you.”
“Shame. You’re almost pretty enough to tempt me.”
I grab him by the throat, bare fingers wrapping around his windpipe. Lysander merely laughs, hammering his elbow toward my face. Ducking away from the blow, I come up defensively but he’s merely dancing to his feet, waiting for me to attack.
There’s no sign of my white handprint burning into his skin.
No hint of decay streaking away from where I touched him.
Whole. Untouched.
“What?” He touches his throat as if to chase away the sensation of my gaze.
I stare at my hands. It’s impossible.
And then I grab him by the throat again, shoving him back against the oak, clenching my fingers tight and digging them into the smooth column of his esophagus, daring them to destroy him.
Nothing. Happens.
Lysander grabs my wrist, laughing at me. “Not to be indelicate, but it wouldn’t work, pet. We both clearly prefer to be on top.”
What the fuck…?My hands tremble.
I’d touched three fae before I realized what Adaia had truly cursed me with.
I’ve watched those black lines streak through their veins as if they’re being consumed from within. I’ve seen their faces crumble to dust, until they collapse in upon themselves. I’ve tried to capture those ashes in my hands as the wind blows them away, knowing there was a fae there once. Knowing that I caused this.
Live a thousand years, Edain, and never know another’s touch again….
I didn’t understand what she meant until it was too late.
The day I pulled those gloves on was the day I consigned my heart to the silence within me.
But now…. “I could touch her,” I whisper.
“If you’re talking about Andraste, then tell yourself the truth, Edain.” Lysander captures my face in one hand, leaning close enough to taste my breath. “Your princess doesn’t want you. She never wanted you the way you wanted her, did she? And now she’s sleeping in the same tent with the goblin king. Sharing his meals. Bathing right in front of him. You can deny it all you want, but he’s treated her with nothing but kindness, and you? You’re her mother’s whore. Her assassin. The reason she’s in this predicament. Maybe you’re prettier than he is, but everything you’ve ever touched turns to rot, doesn’t it? Why would she choose you?”
I grab his wrist and shove him off me, breathing hard. Lysander laughs as he pretends to brush dust off his shirt. “Touched a nerve?”
I reel away from him.
But it doesn’t deny the truth tingling through me, the way the imprint of his touch echoes in my skin.
