Page 204 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Blood in my throat blocks my screams. Humming in my bloodstream as it seeps in, power coming along with it, the heat of it the only feeling left in me.The woman whose blood is running down my throat is already dead, her body chalk-white without the vital fluid. I feel nothing when I look at my own naked body—the perfectly defined muscles of a man—then at all the other naked bodies around me. They are not only naked—they aredead.Ikilled them. I stare, repulsed by the horrors, but the body I’m in takes it all in, unfazed.

Taking life means nothing to him. Never has. Never will.

The darkness swooshes back in, and I’m grateful for the break, grateful for the change of scene.

Riven. Naked. So utterly beautiful, his eyes no longer so empty, so hollow, so dead inside.

I feel a jolt of relief.I—not the body I’m still in—to see him like that.The body I’m in, bristling with golden and black power so endless, so immense there are no words for it, no boundaries. But the relief is short-lived because Riven’s eyes—those beautiful, violet eyes—are wide with pain because of what I have just said, I realize as they come into clearer focus.

“You can’t, Caryan. There must be a way…” he whispers.

Don’t cry.Please don’t cryI want to say as he falls to his knees, resting his forehead against my thigh.

Cut. Darkness.

Riven again, but dressed, no longer naked but in a half-sheer shirt gaping open almost to his navel, revealing his muscled chest as he lounges on a sofa with his usual dramatic flair. But the nonchalance of his posture doesn’t match his eyes, which are trained onMelodybefore me on the floor. My voice reacts to a thing Kyrith said before a sharp command down that bond forces Kyrith into submission.

Yet my own gaze strides back to the girl, taking in the fine features of her face, her delicate body. The unpointed ears. Those deep, brown eyes are so wild and lost when they glance up at me, knowing she shouldn’t, holding mine a touch too long before she looks away again, down at her hands. Her rush of fear is so strong it’s palpable, so real it’s as if he—I—am feeling it myself as a resonance in my veins.

Yet it’s those eyes that have arrested me ever since. Everything is so open in them, as if I could look right into her innermost being.

Those eyes that make me want to touch her. Make me want to…

I, the angel, lean forward to her and whisper, “Come here,” watching how the girl shakily gets up, confusion and terror all over her; again the reflection of it in my own body—the sensation of feelings so strange, like a long-forgotten memory.

Curious.

Unnerving.

I say,Amuse me, just to see what the girl will do, what it would do to myself.

The effect of her blood in me when I tasted her in that dungeon still haunts me.

Ciellara’s daughter—no,I—I’m looking at myself kneeling over Caryan through Caryan’s eyes. The thought dawns in my mind before it slips away again; before I slip away again into that memory. She kneels over me, and my golden magic flares up like a flame in an unexpected gust of wind when she touches me. Melody’s body singeing my skin where her thigh brushes against mine, twin to the flame her hands leave on my chest. He—I—clench my teeth, fighting the instinct to push her off, to throw her back into that dungeon.

To have her so close is pure agony; letting her stay only prolongs it.

Her smell is everywhere—this permeating smell of lilacs, woods, and vanilla, evoking the memory of the taste of her blood. It’s like physical pain not to drink her in again. To see more of the memories in her blood, even if they are heartbreaking.

I want to, though. I want to seeeverythingof her. Taste her. Consume every inch of her. Own her.

What is this?The thought cuts through me… no, throughhismemory—not for the first time.

Nemesis: that’s what she is. His—no,mine—my personal nemesis.

I clench my fingers to fists when Melody’s full lips brush ever so gently over my skin.

The need to touch her, to taste her—to justtakeher—

I can no longer keep my hands to myself. More wildfire ofmagic erupts when he—I— touch her, so intense it’s soul-burning.

Her skin is like silk under my fingers. Her full lips. Her elegant face up so close. Her scent mixed with fear, trepidation, and arousal.

Her eyes again, so wide, so open, so deep, overflowing with everything.

Those eyes. They undo me. Haunt me.

Make me want to do all sorts of things to her.Dark things.

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