Page 61 of Monster's Pretty Bride

Her head snaps toward me, eyes burning with a fire that should have died in the cold waters. “Stop. Sowing. Discord.” Each word is razor-sharp, dripping with warning. “They saved me. They came for me. That is all that matters.”

I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Oh, youthinkthat’s all that matters? That Catalina didn’t misfire that magic on purpose?”

She stops walking. Dead in her tracks.

I turn to face her, crossing my arms, waiting.

“You will not stand here,” she hisses, stepping closer, her voice barely contained, “and throw suspicion on my family.”

“They’re not your blood.”

“They are myeverything.”

I tilt my head, studying her. Her jaw is clenched, her hands curled into fists, her chest rising and falling too fast. Beautiful, enraged,wrong.

“You think you mean the same to them?” I step into her space, forcing her to lift her chin. “You think they won’t betray you? Or have they already?”

The moment stretches, thick and heady, the tension between us no longer just anger.

It’s something darker.

Somethingworse.

She shoves me. Hard. “You don’t get to say that to me. Not after everything. Not when you don’t understand what it’s like to be alone.”

I catch her wrist before she can retreat, yanking her against me. She gasps, her body colliding with mine. The impact is a shock, a burst of heat where there should be nothing but fury.

“I understandeverything, Eryss,” I murmur, pressing her back against the rough bark of a tree. “I understand that you are blind to what’s right in front of you.”

She glares at me, breath hitching as my grip tightens. “Let me go.”

My claws curl lightly against her skin, not enough to hurt. Just enough to remind her,I hold her now. Just like I have since the moment she stepped into my world, since she tried to kill me, since she nearlydied.

“Say you trust them.”

“I do.”

I lean in, my lips a whisper from her ear. “Say it again.”

Her breathing turns erratic, fingers twitching against my chest as if she wants to push me away but can’t quite force herself to move.

I inhale her scent, rich and deep, magic lying dormant beneath her skin, taunting me with its absence.

I press my forehead against hers. “Say it and mean it.”

Her hands tremble. Her pulse is erratic. She is losing this fight, the truth bleeding out from the cracks.

“You bastard,” she breathes.

My lips brush her jaw, teasing, not quite kissing. Just enough to make her feel the weight of my control.

“Say it, Eryss.”

Before she can respond, the sky trembles with the sound of wings.

I release her instantly, my body twisting toward the sound, my claws extending. Eryss barely has time to catch her breath before I push her behind me, my wings flaring despite the ache in my muscles.

Shadows descend through the trees, massive shapes cutting through the canopy, fast and precise. My body coils, prepared to fight, but then.

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