Page 58 of Barbi and the Villain

“Uhm, what else do you want?”

His lips curve up in a dangerous smile.

“Do you have to ask?”

I gulp down uncomfortably. This is going all wrong and for so many reasons. Good Lord, was I actually wrong about him? Is he just another Ivan?

“What you are insinuating is inappropriate,” I choke out, averting my gaze.

My chest feels suddenly too tight, my breathing constricted.

“Is it? Why?” he inquires lazily, leaning in until his warm breath fans my cheek.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“My ex-boyfriend, the Dark One, would mind it very much. He doesn’t like to share, you see. We might be broken up, but he doesn’t want these lips to go anywhere near another man. If you try anything, he might show up and turn you into mummy dust—even though you’re technically not a mummy. But he’s that strong,” I speak breathlessly, word vomiting in my panic.

He doesn’t reply for a few seconds. Seconds that feel like an eternity.

Then he laughs.

He rests his forehead on my left shoulder and laughs. The vibrations spread through my body, creating a paradoxical mix of yearning and fear.

When he’s finally done laughing at my expense—since let’s be honest, he’s not laughing with me—he pulls back.

He takes a step away from me, and his expression strikes a new fear in my breast.

It’s empty.

Dark.

The shadows from the fire play ominously on one side of his face, leaving the other shrouded in mystery. One corner of his mouth is raised sardonically—a wolfish smile that threatens to swallow me whole.

“I am sorry to break it to you, sweetheart, but I am not a misunderstood villain, nor do I have a heart,” he drawls mockingly. “I may not have caused the plague you speak of, but I have done everything else they accuse me of.”

My eyes widen as I stare at him in shock.

“Y-you… B-but… You can’t be… He’s dead…” I stutter. Embarrassment, shame, and mortification prevent me from uttering even one proper word.

“Oh, but I am very much alive.” He smirks.

I may have mentally swooned plenty of times before in his presence, but at his proclamation that he is, in fact, my fake boyfriend, the Dark One, my spirit decides to leave my body.

For the first time—or maybe the second, since it did happen before when I stole his finger—I swoon. And I fall limp to the ground.

I waver in and out of consciousness to the point I no longer know what is real and what is not.

On the ground, my head rests against Nykander’s thigh as he gazes down at me pensively.

My lashes flutter against a flicker of awareness.

“You silly girl,” he mutters to himself.

His hand cups my cheek, his thumb caressing my skin in circular motions.

A shiver goes down my back and I try to move.

“Do not,” he commands, and for some reason my body obeys him.

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