Page 105 of The Dawn of the Cursed Queen

No, there’s no way he knows. My heart thudded, a cold wave of terror slithering down my back.

“Don’t play coy. You think I don’t notice everything about you? As if I don’t pay attention. I noticed in Jade City but waited for you to say something, but you didn’t. I know a lot has changed since Onuna, since the remains of Rashearim, but I thought you’d tell me.”

I didn’t say anything. A part of me was confused about exactly what he knew, the other hating myself for having told so many lies that I couldn’t tell which one he meant. My eyes bore into his. He had no idea how right he was. So much had changed. So much about me had changed. And then it hit me. Every time he looked at me these last few weeks, he wasn’t just stealing longing glances. No, he was worried about me. A fraction of my black heart cracked so hard that it outweighed the hunger in my gut.

“I know you haven’t been eating the food here, not that it’s the best, but I also don’t remember you eating while we were in Jade City,” he said. “So my next question is, how many did you feed on there?”

Relief washed over me, chasing away the bloodied, broken image of him dead in my arms, of my tear-soaked face, begging for him to stay with me. He didn’t know of my plea for help and that I’d threatened the whole universe. I wouldn’t have to face the disappointment and fear in his eyes because I’d scared Death with promises of hatefueled revenge and destruction. He was worried about my feeding.

“Just one,” I whispered, giving him the one truth I could offer him. “It was Killie. I was still full from my trip to Tarr. I don’t know why I’m so hungry or why blood is the only thing I can keep down. It is the only thing I crave.” I shrugged. “It just is, and we have more important things to worry about than a problem that neither of us has any idea how to fix.”

“Dianna.” He dropped his arms. “I don’t know how much clearer I can be when I tell you that you are important to me. So yes, regardless of what’s happening, this is important.”

I peered at the ground, begging it to swallow me whole, anything to escape the look he was currently giving me.

“Is that what happened to the wildcats here? They didn’t flee because of you, did they?”

I kicked a small rock. “I only ate a few of them. The others fled, to be fair.”

“And how many guards have you been feeding on here?”

“All of them,” I said before holding up my hands in defense. “But not to the point of death. I can erase their memories of it. They just end up really sleepy.”

Samkiel chewed the inside of his cheek and glanced away, nodding. He didn’t say anything for a moment before raising his hand and summoning an ablaze dagger. My entire body tensed, and my heart raced, my blood pounding in my ears.

“What are you doing?”

Samkiel took a step toward me but stopped short. “We can do this one of two ways. It’s your choice, but you will feed here and now from me.”

My mouth watered, and heat pooled in my core at the prospect. “Sami.” I swallowed. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

His brows furrowed. “Yes, I do.”

He turned his wrist so I could see it clearly. “Do you see this?” He pointed with his blade. They were hard to see, but there were two indentations on his wrist. My lust-clouded brain raged, thinking another had marked him, but then I realized.

“Wait.” My gaze shot to his. “Was that from Ecleon?”

Samkiel nodded. “Yes, there, but also before.”

Warmth spread through my chest. “Before?”

“Yes, after your run-in with your friend who was not your friend.”

A snort left my lips as I remembered Sophie, the witch who shot me in the chest. I remembered him bursting the door into a million pieces, pulling those spikes from my chest, and saving me. I also remembered the blooddreams after, and now I know why. I assumed he had bled into a cup and made me drink back then. We could barely stand the sight of one another, but he had let me feed from his wrist. He’d offered his flesh to his mortal enemy.

I couldn’t stop the moisture that threatened to blind me as I looked at him. “You fed me then?”

He shook his head as if it was no inconvenience. “Well, I most certainly couldn’t let you die.”

“I thought you hated me back then, and here you are, shoving your wrist in my mouth.” I choked on a laugh.

“My feelings for you have been a lot of things, mostly confusing back then, but never hate. Never you.”

“Same,” I said before standing on my tiptoes, kissing him once before pulling back. My hand slid over the necklace I’d given him and rested on his chest, that steady, rhythmic beat against my palm.

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to hurt you, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me right now. I’m beyond ravenous.”

His finger rested under my chin, lifting it ever so slightly. “Dianna, I care about you tremendously, and I mean this with no disrespect, but stop coddling me like a child. I am not frail or fragile. You cannot hurt or break me, not when you feed from me and not when you fuck me. I need you to stop treating me like I am made of glass. I have fought monsters that could swallow this prison whole with my arm hanging on by tendons. You can’t hurt me. I only hurt when you hurt. Your burdens are mine, such as your pain is. That’s what you said. Did you not?”

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