Page 79 of Mama Si's Paradise

No matter what the ritual was or if dragons and blood could make mistakes, he had to see that it hadn’t been a fair offering. I only got in that water because she’d lied to me.

“Ah, I see,” the man said, leaning away a bit so that I could see more than just his face. So I could see the small dragon on his shoulder as well, and risk passing out even more.

Fuck!

“Mamayka Sionne,” he said, looking down at the groundfor a moment. “The filthiest serpent in all the lands—the deadly kind. You were her offering.”

“Yes,” I said, praying with all my being that I could somehow get through to this man, and that I could ignore that dragon watching me so intently while I did. “Yes, I was. But she lied to me. She told me I’d simply become an Enchanted if Ennaris accepted me—she didn’t even mention dragons and sirens and biting and?—”

“And you believed her?” he cut me off, eyes slightly squinting.

“Well, yes.” She’d orchestrated everything so fucking well that I genuinely thought I’d stumbled upon the Burrow by myself, that the Burrow hadinvitedme.

“Have you no instincts, then? To believe someone of her kind. The succubi feed on lust. They manipulate. They know how to play feelings. That is why you don’t trust a word coming out of their mouths.”

My brows narrowed. “Succubi?” I knew that word. I’d read about it in my fantasy novels many times.

“Succubi,” the man said with a nod. “You do not trust the succubi. Especially not the first one of their kind. The original seductress herself.”

Those words—the original seductress.Just like I’d read in that notebook under Mama Si’s picture, which she’d planted for me herself, no doubt. She’d awakened my curiosity, had dipped herself into mystery so masterfully—and I hadn’t noticed a damn thing.

“I didn’t know,” I said, feeling more pathetic than ever. “I didn’t know her. I just met her a month ago—I didn’t know!”

“You didn’t know, and you accepted a stranger’s promise to dive into a completely different world?”

Laughter burst out of me. It was raw and unhinged—exactly like my feelings toward myself at the moment. My God, this guy nailed it. He fucking nailed it word for wordbecause that’s exactly what I’d done. So desperate was I to escape my life that I hadn’t asked questions. I hadn’twantedto see the whole picture—a glimpse had sufficed simply because it had given me hope. Just a tiny bit of hope.

He stepped back a bit and watched me curiously as I laughed my heart out, and his dragon jumped off his shoulder as well, flying almost soundlessly around me and the tree at my back, as if he were analyzing me. As if he weremeasuringme.

“Yes, actually. That was exactlyit. Couldn’t have said it better myself. So, I guess I had all of this coming.”

The man—Valentine—didn’t smile or laugh or even roll his eyes, only watched me like he was trying to figure me out. Like he was as suspicious of me as I should have been of Mama Si—ofeveryoneat the Paradise.

That name was so damn ironic. That place should have been calledtheHellinstead.

“How much do you know about the Seven Isles?” he then asked me, no longer amused, and when the dragon sat on his shoulder again, wrapping that long tail around his neck, he turned to him and kind ofnudgedhim with his nose a bit, like a secret sign or something.

“I know there’s a curse. I know the names of the Isles. I know that you’re having trouble reproducing. That’s why the Isles offer humans to Ennaris, so they can be turned into Enchanted and bring more magic to the Isles.” My voice was shaking as the memories returned to me.

And wasn’t it sad that those nights in the forest playing the piano with the animals as my audience was still the best memory of my whole life?

“Lies, most of them. Or rather…half-truths,” said Valentine, shaking his head, eyes wide as the realization hit him. “You have indeed been tricked.”

My heart skipped a long beat. “Exactly. I have been—exactly!” A tiny glimmer of hope suddenly shone down on me. “So, you see, I have to go back. I have to?—”

“Your blood, however, proves that you were meant to be here anyway, even if you were tricked,” he cut me off, and there went that stupid hope again, crashing and burning within the second.

“My blood proves that I was meant to be out there, far away from the Paradise to begin with,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Believe me, I’ve tasted you and I know, you were meant?—”

“Then you’re wrong!” I shouted. “You’re wrong—I wasn’t. You. Are.Wrong!”

The way he looked at me like I’d just slapped the shit out of him, and the dragon roared that awful sound before flying off his shoulder again, like he knew.

He knew that his owner was about to grab me by the fucking neck the next second.

My breath caught in my throat at the touch of his hand. Valentine came closer, his nose practically pressed to my cheek when I turned my head to the side, trying to get into that tree trunk altogether. He wasn’t squeezing me—on the contrary, his hand on my neckcaressedme, his fingers running down my skin and to the spot where his dragon had bitten me, the blood now dried. He touched me so damn gently that every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps, and then his head lowered a bit and he was sniffing me. He was inhaling deeply, his thumb right over the dip of my collarbone.

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