Page 80 of Cursed

“I’ve been thinking,” I said.

“About?”

“Your offer.”

“My offer.”

I gritted my teeth. “Are you just going to repeat everything I say?” I countered.

A brief smile.

He slid a charred ribbon between the pages of the book to mark his place and set it down on the bookshelf in front of him. “That depends on what you say next,” he said evenly.

“You offered to help me,” I said. “With… with the grimoire.”

Titus' smile was smooth, but calculated. “Did I?”

My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides and I moved closer to him. “You did,” I replied. “And— I’ve been selfish. I’ve been… naïve. I thought I would be able to wield the grimoire’s power on my own. But I was wrong.”

He shifted and then stepped away from the bookshelf. “Go on. What else have you been thinking about?”

He towered over me, and I swallowed hard as his dark eyes held mine.

“I— I’ve been thinking about what you said. And what you might want in return for your help.”

Whore.

The whisper was sharp, cutting, but I pushed it away.

I paused and searched his eyes for any sign of vulnerability beneath that chilling confidence. Instead, I found only amusement—he liked it when I begged. “Perhaps you need a taste of what I’ve been thinking about,” I offered.

“Enlighten me.” His dark eyes held me captive as he crossed his arms over his chest in a movement that was both casual and predatory. The space between us narrowed as I took another step closer, drawn to him despite the instinctive warning bells that rang in my mind.

But then the whispers of the grimoire drowned them out.

It was so close—everything I wanted was just within reach.

“There’s something exhilarating about surrender,” I murmured, and I allowed my vulnerability to bleed through the facade just a little. I bit down on my lip as I looked up at him and hated myself for putting on such an act. “Especially when it’s not a choice.”

“Ah, but isn’t that the beauty of it?” His gaze never wavered; it was a cold flame that consumed everything in its path and I couldn’t deny the way lust flared inside me at the memory of what had happened to me—and how my body had responded so eagerly—when I had been under his hands. “To be completely at the mercy of someone else? It can be... exquisitely thrilling.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It can be.” I tilted my head slightly. I could feel the heat radiating from him, a magnetic pull that made it impossible to retreat. “You like being in control, don’t you… brother?”

He stiffened at that word.

I knew it was a risk to antagonize him, but I had to keep him off balance. And part of me, the part that yearned for some sense of control, reveled in his brief discomfort.

But a wolfish grin that sent chills down my spine replaced the faint smirk on Titus’s face. “And you like testing boundaries, don’t you…sister? Venom laced his words, yet his eyes held a glimmer of interest.

For a moment, I felt dizzy with conflicting emotions and the pressure of the grimoire’s whispers in my mind. They had grown louder, and more insistent, since I’d taken Valen’s power. It was starting to feel as though I couldn’t remember a time when my mind had been quiet.

I had never wanted anyone this much before—but I was playing a dangerous game that could easily cost me my life—or worse.

His proximity was electric, and the scent of him filled my senses and made me feel both giddy and terrified at the same time.

But I couldn’t falter now—not when I was so close to completing what I had started.

“Are you going to tell me what you want, Avril?” Titus’s words were almost soft, but the painful intensity in his eyes remained. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards before his lips curved into a slow and wicked smile. My heart pounded, and I dared to whisper the first words of the incantation that would bind Titus and allow me to steal a shred of his power.

---