Page 11 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

“You wouldn’t,” Caldris said, cutting me off. “No matter what rage is in your heart, you are not capable of doing something like that. You very well may kill to survive. You may harm and maim, but you would never demean someone in such a pointless way. The sole purpose of that was to hurt your heart, not to protect themselves.”

I scoffed. “I don’t think you know me half as well as you seem to think you do,” I said, turning my head away from his.

He reached up, grasping me by the chin with gentle fingers and turning me back to him. “I don’t think you know yourself at all.”

He held my stare, the challenge in his gaze blazing as he dared me to deny those words. I couldn’t, I couldn’t find a way to refuse the truth in what he was saying. My life was a stranger to me, but even worse, I didn’t feel like I knew the person hiding within my skin anymore.

“I hate you,” I whispered, fresh tears burning my eyes and nose.

His face softened further, pain lancing across his brow as he pursed his lips and hung his head forward. “I know,” he murmured.

The gentle expression only served to make me angrier as the sting of tears sharper, gathering moisture in my eyes. I shoved him back, pushing against his chest as I fought them back down.“I hate you!”I screamed, my face twisting with agony.

“I know, Little One,” he said softly.

“Would you say something else?! Stop acting as if you are the victim in this. Stop acting as if I am wrong because I will not forgive you.”

“What would you like me to say? Would you like me to tell you that I think you are behaving as a spoiled, prejudiced brat?” he asked, dropping the cloth to the rocks as he glared down at me. “That in a few years, you will come to regret the words you’ve spoken to me in anger? Those years may feel like an eternity to you, but they arenothingto me. You will come to your senses and learn to appreciate what I offer you. All I need to do is wait.”

My chest heaved, my breath coming in sharp gasps as I fought through my rage. I hated his words, because I knew there was truth in them. He had the kind of time, the kind of lifespan, I couldn’t even dream of.

He just had to wait.

I shoved his chest again, wincing when he caught my wrists. He held me still, staring down at me as his eyes bled to that familiar darkness I’d stared into so many times before. “You cannot hate me without hating yourself, Little One. Think of that the next time you want to blame me for this bond. I didn’t choose you anymore than you chose me.” His words lashed against me, harsh and hurtful and all the things I knew myself to be when I was angry. “I am just not spiteful enough to throw you away on principle.”

I bitterly mocked him. “So fucking romantic, and you wonder why humans believe the Fae to be brutes.”.

“Is it romance you want right now?” he asked, trailing gentle fingers over my wrist. They teased me slowly as he released it, raising his hand toward my throat and touching it gently. “Or do you want me to be the monster you’ve already made me out to be?” His palm clasped around the front of my throat, fingers wrapping around it as he leaned forward and touched his forehead to mine.

All traces of gentleness were gone, only the bright-eyed stare of the monstrous Fae I knew him to be.

“I think we both know the answer to that question,” he said, trailing his nose against the side of mine.

“Shut up already,” I snapped, and my gaze strayed from his intense stare, dropping to his mouth and toward the sinful curve of his lips set into a harsh line.

“Gladly,” he growled. He closed the distance between us finally, crashing his mouth down upon mine. It was the opposite of a smooth seduction, the antithesis of the careful way he normally touched me. This was the monster of Faerie, the beast under his skin unleashed as his teeth bit my bottom lip and he tore a gasp from my lungs.

He surged inside the moment I opened for him, his tongue sweeping against mine as he angled his head and took from me. I pushed back against him, shoving at his chest in an attempt to pry his mouth from mine as the taste of him claimed me, spreading across my senses in a primal way that made me want to mark him with a claim of my own.

He pulled back, his lungs heaving and cheeks flushed as he stared at me. His knees rested upon the ground as he stumbled back awkwardly on them, giving me the distance I’d demanded as I fought to regain my breath.

I stared at him across the yawning chasm between us that seemed to widen with every moment we looked at one another. His lips tipped up into a smirk that said everything I didn’t want to hear, a condescending reminder that I would willingly give in to the monster I wanted nothing to do with. But the ember of a flame burned inside of me in the darkness, watching for the moment it could burn his world to ash. Waiting for my moment to rise, to remind the world why it should never underestimate a woman wronged.

My eyes dropped to his mouth, to his lips swollen from the brutality of his kiss. “If you want me to keep my hands off of you, then I highly suggest you stop looking at me like that, my star.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” I said, swallowing around the lump forming in my throat.

“There’s a fine line between love and hate, Little One, and you are looking at me like you can’t quite decide if you should kiss me or kill me.” His lips spread into an alarmingly arrogant smile.

“You’re the bane of my existence,” I said, shaking my head with a bitter smile as I tore my eyes off his lips and tried to shake off the desire I had to feel his mouth on mine and have his arms around me, surrounding me with warmth once more.

“And you are everything I have always wanted and more,” he said, and the words might have been sweet if it weren’t for the bitterness of them. His expression filled with malice, as if he couldn’t help but blame me for not wanting him the same way he wanted me. “Keep lying to yourself, min asteren. I promise you I am not foolish enough to believe the lies that twist your tongue or the way they contradict the pounding of your heart in time with mine. I know all your secrets.”

I grimaced, my gaze connecting with his for a moment that hung suspended between us. My lungs heaved with exertion as if I’d just run through the ruined city, my body taut with the restraint that kept me sitting on the stone. All the while, he just pinned me with that agonizing glare that sank deep inside of me, feeling wrong on an instinctive level.

Fuck.

I moved before my brain processed it, lunging forward off my rock and moving toward him. He caught me in his grasp, his hands going to the backs of my thighs as he guided my legs around his waist. My mouth crashed down on his again; I plunged my fingers into his hair as I devoured his mouth with mine. He shifted as I grasped the crown on his head, tearing it from the top of his silver locks and tossing it to the side. It bounced off the stone beside us, shimmering in the light of the setting sun as we separated for a brief moment to watch it.

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