Page 81 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

I shiver with aftershocks as he rubs his thumb over the fleshy part of my hand. “Is it painful?”

“It is a bite. I will make it as good for you as I can.” His gaze slides to my mouth. “Yours will probably be more painful for me because those tiny teeth of yours don’t look like they tear flesh easily. My hand will be mangled by the time you are done with me.”

I laugh, slipping my hand out of his grip and batting his arm. “Be nice! I have perfectly normal human teeth. I’ll do as well as I can.”

“And I will enjoy it because it is my mate marking me as hers.” His eyes seem to glow brighter at the thought.

“Now what’s this about a chase?”

“After the bride and groom have given their cake offerings to the gods,” Nemeth continues, “The bride flees the groom. It is my duty to capture you—to prove my strength—and fly you across the threshold of our home.”

Except he can’t fly inside the tower. And his wing is wounded. “I assume we’ll improvise?”

“Considering you’re human?” He gives me a sly grin. “We must.”

Chapter

Forty-Six

It doesn’t matter how good I feel after my delicious orgasm or how convicted I am of my path. I have nightmares that night, of King Lionel dragging me from the tower for betraying my people. Of my sister spitting on me, her child in her arms, as the stone tower is destroyed with Nemeth still inside. Of being dragged through the streets of the capital and my people throwing rocks at me.

Vestalin whore, they cry.

I want to protest that I’ve always been free with my affections, that it’s only now that they have a problem because of who my partner is. But dreams are impossible things and my mouth won’t work. I can only scream silently as they stone me and call me names, and somewhere behind me, the distant tower is being destroyed with a broken Nemeth buried alive in a sea of rubble.

Vestalin whore!

I gasp awake, my body bathed in cold sweat. It’s pitch-black in our chambers, and I can’t see anything. My breathing rasps hard in the silence, and for a moment, the tower feels oppressive. My skin crawls with the need to escape, to drink in the sunlight, to be free?—

“Candra?”

A hand strokes my arm. Nemeth’s sleepy voice instantly reminds me of his presence. I look over and see two glowing green slits of eyes, the only light in the darkness.

I swallow hard. I want to marry him. I do. So why is my head full of dragon shite?

I curl up against him, letting him loop a comfortingly heavy arm around me. “Bad dream,” I manage. “Just a bad dream.”

“I have you. Go back to sleep.”

I can’t sleep, though. I don’t want to dream about my sister, or Lios, or that I’m betraying them. Why is it so wrong to want to marry a kind, loving man? Does it truly matter so much that he’s Fellian? Is my happiness not the most important thing?

Unfortunately, I suspect I already know that answer. My happiness counted for nothing the moment Meryliese died. And her happiness counted for nothing at all.

Even after Nemeth returns to sleep, I stare into the darkness at nothing. The tower feels incredibly vulnerable with the loss of the bricking outside that barricaded the door. While it was up, I only thought of how it kept me in.

Now it’s far more important that it keep the rest of the world out.

I slide out from under Nemeth’s arm. He immediately stirs, reaching for me, protective even half-asleep. “I’m all right,” I tell him in an easy voice, finding his hand and squeezing it. “I’m headed to the garderobe.”

“Take a lamp,” he tells me sleepily.

I find one in the darkness—Nemeth always keeps them in the same spot for me so I don’t fumble like a child hunting for one—and hold it against my sleep-chemise as I step into the hall. Tapping it once to light up, I don’t head for the garderobe after all, but down the stairs and towards the door, the flimsy barrier that keeps the world out.

It doesn’t feel like enough. Not nearly enough.

Standing in front of the door, I raise the lamp and eye our efforts. The knives wedged into the doorjambs. The wood wedges at the bottom and down the middle of the double door. The broom slid through the handles to act as a bar. The ropes tying the two handles together. Nothing has been disturbed, but on the other side of the doors, in the sand, are two sprawled bodies. Someone’s going to see them and come ask questions, surely.

Or someone else will be curious.

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