Page 42 of Cursed Shadows 1

Older than me, but still, he was young when we met, only in his fifth decade. How old were the scars then? Were they created when he was a boy? Did they happen at his home, or in training? Or did he break the laws and suffer the consequences at the hands of the enforcers?

There are so many of them—too many to be something small, like being whipped by a superior for getting into a fight with someone. His back is smeared with the scars.

With the lashes… and his sister, I’m starting to think I didn’t know him at all. Daxeel showed me asideof himself, just a small piece, but kept the rest of himself hidden.

I shake my head like an idiot. Too many folk around me, but no one notices that I storm through the courtyard and towards the garrison. They don’t notice that my face is set, that my eyes are scrunched, and my fingernails cut into the meat of my palms.

So no one notices once I’m walking the small bridge that connects to the quarters and that before I reach the arched entrance, I’m snatched by the arm and thrown down a narrow corridor.

I stagger into the dark shadows.

Hands out at my sides, I balance myself and stare into nothing. Whoever threw me down here is behind me now, and they knew that the torchlight doesn’t reach down this corridor, one I think must be for servants to move around and keep out of the halls.

The moment my boots stop stumbling over the stone ground, I spin around and take a discreet backstep, as if ready to propel myself deeper into the shadows to escape. But with that backstep, all I find is the cold touch of an iron door against my spine.

A hiss crawls up my throat at the sudden itch of the door against my skin.Iron. Allergic, like all litalves, I shove forward, away from the rash that the door will give me if I let it touch me a second longer—and I stagger into a hard, slender body.

I look up.

Taroh’s eyes gleam like emeralds as he looks down his fine nose at me.

My lashes lower on him, my lips curls—and I think of the small pinkie-sized knife I have tucked into my right boot.

Silence steals us.

Neither of us breaths too loud, growls or snarls, or asks any questions. It’s a thick, tense silence that—with most of the residents of the garrison down in the courtyard or at the battle blocks—isn’t interrupted by even a single fae walking down the corridor.

He has me alone.

Neither of us need to speak. I have no questions.

I already know the answer.

For so long he let me be; for so long I avoided wandering off too far from the High Court without an escort; and for so long, while I knew he’d never forget what happened, the perceived slight, he just gave up on it.

Now, it’s different.

Betrothed again.

My dark one is here, but he hates me now—and Taroh must know this. How he learned of the extent of Daxeel’s hatred of me, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, not right now, not with him towering over me, nothing but a cruel heat in his eyes.

This isn’t about desire.

It wasneverabout desire.

One night, on the bad wine, he decided he was entitled to me, and so he tried to take me. It sparked something, slights and shames and revenge schemes. And now that I’m unprotected, he thinks he can take me just to spite me.

I don’t move yet. I haven’t decided what to do.

If I let him, I suspect it will not be so bad. Maybe it will be just this once, and he’ll feel satiated in his revenge. It might be worse if I fight, he might do it again and again. Even into our marriage.

My voice breaks the quiet with a hiss, “Such a fine husband you were meant to be. But here you are, a beast in a lordson’s clothing.”

“Our marriage will be a fine one without harm,” Taroh says, but the cruelty in his eyes hasn’t softened, “once you recognize your place,halfling.”

He spits out my breed like its poison.

Suppose in a way, to me, it is. I would be treated better if I was fullblood. That’s the wounding part of it all—a female fullblood would never experience this moment at the hands of her fiancé, and never with a husband.

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