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“No. You’re the prize.”
My heart lurches at that—stupid body, always betraying me.
“You really need to work on your pickup lines,” I grumble, because sarcasm is safer than admitting how my cheeks are heating at his words.
His hand brushes the small of my back as we walk, guiding me through a curve in the corridor.
It’s infuriatingly gentle, like he thinks I might bolt or dissolve into seawater at any second.
My pulse kicks, traitor that it is.
“Pickup lines?” he repeats, brow furrowing like I’ve just spoken in riddles.
He looks so serious about it that I almost laugh.
He’s a horned, rune-covered Demon Lord who abducted me in a whirlpool, and yet he’s standing here genuinely puzzled about basic dating slang.
It’s stupidly hot.Which I refuse to admit.
“Yeah,” I say, sighing as if I’m explaining algebra to a particularly handsome toddler. “You know—corny things guys say to try to get women to have sex with them.”
He tilts his head, considering this like I’ve just given him state secrets.
“I can assure you I need no lines for this purpose,” he says finally, voice low, the words curling like surf around rocks. “Besides, I told you. You’re my viyella.”
The absolute arrogance of this man.
My stomach flips anyway.
“Yeah, about that.” I stop dead in the middle of the hall and whirl on him, chin lifted high enough to fake courage. “You keep throwing that word around like it’s supposed to mean something to me. But newsflash—I didn’t agree to be anyone’s anything.”
His storm-colored eyes lock on mine, intent and unwavering.
The weight of him is enough to make me want to back up, but I don’t.
Not one step.
“You will,” he says, calm as the tide, like inevitability is the same thing as romance.
I roll my eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t sprain.
“Wow. Real smooth. Do you come with a pamphlet too?‘Welcome to Nightfall: Congratulations, You’ve Been Kidnapped, Please Enjoy Your Complimentary Viyella.’”
His mouth curves, small but there. A smile. Which is unfair, because it makes him even more gorgeous, and I am trying very hard to dislike him.
“I do not know this wordpamphlet,” he admits. “But if it pleases you, I will have Aloysious write one. Only one small correction. It isyouwho are myviyella. The correct term for a male mate isviyen.”
Christ, he almost makes me laugh, and I hate it.
My lips still twitch, though.Damn him.
He studies me for a long, unreadable moment.
His runes flicker faintly, the light tracing his throat, his chest, like the tide itself is impatient with him.
“Well, whatever. I never said I was going to be your viyella, or that you were my viyen!”
Kael freezes. Then he exhales slowly, as if he’s making a decision.
