Page 30 of The Dawn of the Cursed Queen

“It’s not another.” I shook my head, perplexed. “You know it’s me.”

His frown deepened, his lip curling up in disgust. “It’s you wearing the flesh of another being. That, by definition, is another.”

“Well . . .” Now, it was my turn to be dumbfounded. I stumbled over my words, unsure of what to say next. In my thousand years of existence, this had never once happened to me. Other lovers I had before him never minded. Most of them even encouraged it. Kaden actually preferred it on most nights when he could stomach me, but I wished to bury those memories deeply. “I wasn’t trying to make you mad. I just thought . . . I don’t know what I thought.”

“I am not mad, perhaps a little taken back at such a ludicrous suggestion, but not mad. That . . . does nothing for me.”

That sinking, dreadful feeling in my gut suddenly dried up, and another emotion, just as poignant, seeped in. “Wait, really? Nothing? Not a single tickle of excitement? A half-swell in your cock?”

“I promise, there is zero swelling.” Samkiel didn’t grin or smirk, not even a small chuckle as he stared at me. “Is this a common thing you used to do? Before?”

My stomach dropped, but I said nothing, as if my lips had suddenly been sealed shut.

Samkiel chewed the inside of his cheek once more before slowly nodding. “With all due respect, akrai, do not compare me to him or what you’ve experienced with your past lovers. I don’t need nor want any other form but the one you wear daily. Do you understand?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You might not have, but that is how it came across. You, Dianna, my dark-haired, fiery vixen, are and will always be enough for me. No shape or form or thing you bend to will ever make any part of me swell, as you put it, like you. Understand?”

I hopped off the table and walked over to him, not stopping until I wrapped my arms around him. He rested his cheek against the top of my head, and I hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around me, engulfing me in his arms. Perhaps it was truly a funny thing not to realize how broken or damaged you were until someone came along and picked up every single fractured piece and showed you how just being you was enough.

“You really mean that? I couldn’t tempt you in another form?”

Samkiel’s chest rumbled as he laughed before placing a kiss on my cheek.

“While you can take any shape you want, your true form is the one I prefer. So no, not even on your best day.”

My form shimmered, my bronzed glow replacing the pink-hued skin. Thick dark curls spilled over my shoulders, the ends tickling my lower back. I pulled away and glanced up at him.

This time, when he looked at me, that swirling emotion I had expected to see deepened in his eyes. “There’s my girl.”

I raised up on my tiptoes, my lips brushing across his in a chaste kiss.

“Now that,” he made a noise in the back of his throat as his thumb danced back and forth over my cheek, “that does something to me.”

“Good.” My hands snaked from the planes of his back and slid lower.

He grabbed my hands. “Stop.” He laughed a deep, throaty chuckle before prying my hands from him and playfully pushing me away. “Help me figure out why they would keep these plants and herbs so carefully hidden away.”

I smiled, nodding as I held my hands up innocently. Samkiel turned back toward the jars lining the shelves. So many samples carried either small, fragmented bits or chopped-up versions. I paused at a jar with dark specks floating in a blue liquid and opened it. My nose curled as the smell hit me, and I gagged, putting the lid back on and placing it back where I found it.

“Maybe we can put this one in the hair care of the girls being mean to Miska.”

“Dianna,” he said, his tone laced with warning.

“What?” I joked, inspecting another jar. “I’m not going to.”

Maybe. I smiled to myself as I found another with what looked like a crushed root, the small branches scattered at the bottom. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I glanced over my shoulder, catching Samkiel looking at me. He saw and looked away, clearing his throat.

“What?” I asked, knowing that look as I moved to another shelf.

“What?” he asked, standing.

“You tell me.” I reached for another jar, this one with crushed leaves. “You’re the one with the questioning face.”

He was silent for a moment. The only sound in the room was the tinkling of glass as he replaced a jar.

“Very well, I do have one question.”

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