Page 216 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

I bite my lips, not daring to make a sound as his power enshrouds me. Not that gentle kind hum that caressed my skin the previous times, but bristling and prickling, biting my flesh and underneath it like a writhing, raging creature. As if it wants to crawl into me.

I can feel my magic flaring, trying to push it away, silver light running under my skin. But his magic just closes its fangs around it, biting deep into my magic’s flesh until my magic succumbs, holding very, very still.

“Do I have to say it again?” His voice is laced with impatience. Coldness. His power, a merciless prickling that licks up to my wrists, harsh and scolding. A mixture of lightning and dark fire. He has been angry before, but I have never seen him like this. Socold. So inhuman.

My throat tightens as I say very quietly, “I… I don’t know how to… how to dothis. I’ve never done it before.” I barely force the words out.

He lets out a derisive snort, almost a snarl, that slithers over my raw skin and makes me want to curl up in shame.

I flinch when he grabs my chin again, tilting my head back.

“No, you do not. Apparently,” he says, though his voice is not mocking, but tender. Tender like a bruise.

I try to rein in my thundering heartbeat, my trembling, but fail when he runs his hand along my collarbone, pushing my wide shirt off my shoulder. “Now, take that off.”

I do. And just like the night after he saved me from that worm, I hold it in front of me, as if it could shield me. Protect me.

“All your clothes,” he says.

My pants. My underwear.

I can’t. I shake my head. “Please, Caryan—”

“That was an order.” His words are relentless.

He will keep me in his bedroom.Caryan’s whore,they called me. I didn’t want to listen. No, I didn’t dare to.

I whisper before I can think, “Please. Please don’t do this. Not tonight. Please give me some time,” I beg with all I have.

I press my hands against his chest, more reflex than anything as he steps up to me, his power engulfing me once more. His hand finds my cheek, his fingers caressing me so tenderly I close my eyes, suppressing tears. He leans in and I shudder when I feel his breath on my neck, right over my pulse. My heartbeat flutters under his lips.

His voice is impossibly gentle when he murmurs, “This is not about sex.”

My eyes fly open, up to his, simmering clear and bright like a hellish flame; bottomless. I’m not sure what I find in his face. But I know I don’t like it. He looks almost pained, and my heartbeat stutters into an even faster, violent beat.

Instinctively, I try to wrench free, but he just yanks me close, between his legs. His shadows pushing me against the wall, twining around my limbs, my ribs, my throat.

“Do not fight me. You’re a liability like this.” He spits the words at me, like an insult.

“Like what?” I manage to snap at him.

“Weak. Defenseless.”

My throat tightens. I had it all wrong. He’s not going to make me stay for the night. He’s going to do what Gatilla did to him, over and over. What I saw in his mind. The pain I felt like my own.

“You’re going to chain me to an altar and rape me?” My voice comes out all wrong, my breathing too fast, matching my galloping heartbeat.

He looks like I’ve slapped him. “I would never do any of those things.”

“But I saw what—”

“What you saw was me chained to an altar and her inking the tattoos in my flesh,” he cuts me off. “And sequences of me and her in the bedroom. Those were two entirely different things.”

“And you’re not going to dothat?” I’m proud to manage to speak the words, to deliver them with some sarcasm, although a part of me is falling apart.

His expression darkens. “No. Because of the bond between us,I can give you some of my power without having to mend it with your flesh. This process is going to hurt, but you will get used to it,” he says. Cold, dead horror slices through me, splitting me in half. Consuming me.

“No. Please, no! I don’t want that,” I bare my teeth as his magic again comes for me.

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