Page 30 of Broken Star

Internally, I curse.

Outwardly, I shrug, feigning indifference. “They’re hard to ignore,” I say simply.

“Or do you notwantto ignore them?” His voice lowers, and he takes a slow, deliberate step forward.

His question steals my breath away.

But I can’t keep letting whatever he does to my insides distract me. Because this thing between us needs to go further than physical attraction.

I have to keep building trust with him. How else am I going to make him fall in love with me so he’ll trust me with information about the Blood Coven, the Revenants, Kallista, and whatever else he’s hiding?

Well, I know how else. I haven’t gotten there yet… but I will.

And from the restlessness I sense more and more from him during our feeding sessions, I’m going to have to get on that—soon.

“Victoria’s been unleashing her wrath on me more often than usual.” I force the words out—anything to redirect my thoughts and steady the erratic beat of my heart.

“Yes, I’ve heard her whining.” He moves closer, and the air shifts with him, carrying his predatory grace. “She’s afraid I’m going to ditch her and keep you to myself.”

“Are you?” I ask, my voice quieter than I intend.

Because I’ve seen what the queen’s frequent feedings have been doing to Matt. How they’re turning him into a hollow shell, stripping away everything that made him human.

How they’re slowly killing him.

“You intrigue me too much for me to kill you,” Aerix says, and then he adds, more quietly, “In a way that confuses even me.”

An unexpected warmth stirs in my chest, but I force a smirk, hiding the tangled mess of feelings his words awaken.

“I do enjoy being alive,” I say, taking a sip of juice to push whatever feelings I’m having as far down as possible.

He stares at me for a moment, and I can’t read his expression.

Then, as if making a decision about something inevitable, he retracts his wings and unbuttons his shirt, shrugging it off in a single, fluid motion.

My breath catches as I drink in the way the firelight carves shadows across the lean, sculpted lines of his chest, and how his muscles move with precise, effortless control.

He’s perfect and unnatural—beautiful in a way that shouldn’t exist.

I place the glass back down on the nightstand, unable to focus on anything other thanhim.

No,I think, trying to shake myself out of it.This is a man who brutally killed Jake and left his drained body on display for the entire human wing of the palace to see.

Still, the magnetic pull I feel toward him doesn’t go away.

Especially not when he crosses the room and settles onto the bed, close enough that my knee brushes his thigh, making my heart race so quickly that his supernatural hearing candefinitelyhear it.

“You’re welcome,” he finally says, his gaze sharp enough to pierce straight through me.

I tilt my head, letting my hair fall aside as I meet his eyes. “You don’t think you can seduce me into thanking a fae, do you?”

His lips curve, slow and wicked. “Is that an invitation?”

Something in my stomach twists. And instead of answering, I do something I haven’t done since the night of Jake’s murder.

I lean in and press my lips to his.

It’s only supposed to be a fleeting kiss. A show of appreciation, since I can’t give him the words he’s trying to coax out of me.

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