Page 28 of Cursed Shadows 1

“I don’t know,” I confess and frown up at him. The pout of my bunched lips snares his attention for only a heartbeat, but then… he’s looking at me again, and our gazes are hooked.

A silent moment passes. His mind churns and calculates behind azurite eyes. Mine is blank, I feel what I feel, and that is all.

Then he speaks as though making confessions of his own, not once looking away, “It could be my bloodline that helps me… enjoy that work.”

I think of his father. Not a male I have met, but certainly one whose reputation as a war general is so ruthless and brutal that it reaches all over Licht and to the vines of the High Court.

Anyone smarter than me would recoil now, make an excuse to leave, or just plain run.

Fool, fool, fool.

I stay right where I am.

I stay for so many reasons. My heart sings for him. My body aches for him. My flesh yearns for his touch.

“Are you afraid?” he asks, and it’s so blunt that I should flinch or frown, but I only look at him, my lashes low over mud-brown eyes.

Are you afraid ofme?

That’s what he’s asking me.

That’s why he didn’t quite want to remind me of his bloodline, of his heritage, of his father. He’s concerned I’ll be flung into reality.

I prefer to live in this dream.

A small smile, maybe a little seductive, slips onto my lips.

I shake my head slightly, never breaking our locked stares, and my voice is soft, “Only a little.”

He frowns and tilts his head, studying me. Locks of inky hair fall into his eyes, and his jaw tightens some. Those fucking dimples, I want to bite them, lick them, kiss them.

“But youareafraid,” he decides.

“I know you won’t hurt me,” I say and exhale something long and cautious, something that betrays how carefully I choose my words. “But my body recognizes that you’re a predator. I feel the fear… but I don’t accept it.”

And gods if it doesn’t arouse me more. That bud of fear that’s eternal around him, the one that lives deep in my belly, the one that trickles arousal down to my core.

I ache to rub my legs together, as though it’ll soothe my song for him. But instead, I keep my thighs just that bit apart, and let a blush creep over my chest.

His voice deepens in something husky, “What are you thinking?”

My mouth parts around unspoken thoughts. To bend the truth, to lie, to be silent—any of those options. Instead, I whisper a truth so fucking delicate that my face is aflame before I speak the first word, and my heart is hammering between my breasts that he can see through the cotton of my chemise—

“I want you to not pretend.”

Raw energy pulses between us.

His hand fists for a tense heartbeat; my core tightens.

Slowly, he moves for the first time since we sat down under the willow tree. He doesn’t like to spook me, and if he stays utterly still then I might relax more. But now, he peels off a glove, his gaze stuck to mine. Then he leans forward, just a bit, enough to reach out his tanned hand for my face.

My lashes flutter as his fingertips near my cheek.

He traces his gentle touch over my cheekbone.

I loosen a harsh breath, and my lashes lower on my view on him.

That huskiness still clings to his voice, “Pretend that I don’t see this blush?”

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