Page 63 of Savage Crown

And she knows it.

She can see it in the way my fingers flex at my sides, the way my breath catches.

She’s still inside my head.

Still knows how to twist the knife.

"You used to crave me," she murmurs. "Do you really think that’s gone?"

She lifts a hand to my neck, tracing along my collarbone, slow, knowing.

"Or is it just buried?"

I inhale sharply.

Her lips brush the corner of my mouth.

A ghost of a touch.

I move.

Fast.

My fingers snap around her wrist, crushing her momentum.

She freezes with a gasp.

I lift my gaze to hers, letting her see it—the anger beneath my skin, the restraint fraying at the edges.

"Tell me, Lartina," I murmur, voice low. "Did you come here to fuck me or to poison me?"

A slow, curling smile. "Would you believe me if I said both?"

I chuckle, dark and low. "That’s the problem with you."

I twist her wrist just slightly—not enough to break, just enough to remind her who I am.

She hisses softly, but doesn’t pull away.

Because this is the game we always played.

Twisting pain into pleasure, turning power into seduction.

I lean in, my lips ghosting her ear.

"You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing?"

A slow inhale from her.

"What do you mean?"

I smile against her skin. "Nhilian."

A sharp, violent silence.

It’s the first time she’s faltered.

I feel it as her pulse jumps beneath my grip.

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