Page 85 of Cursed Shadows 1

I’m not as welcoming to it this night.

My face hardens as the heat of his chest comes up to my back.

I force a practiced smile, the smile I keep for my dances and for dinners with fae I couldn’t care less about, but the ones father orchestrates schemes and alliances through.

I turn to face him.

And I almost shatter.

Daxeel’s anger is obvious. It’s in the storm of his eyes, those deep cobalt threats homed in on me, made darker by the tousled inky hair falling into them.

Don’t fall to your knees.

But then I read him closer, when he reaches me, looking down at me, and I see the twist of concern on his full mouth, the way his muscles have tensed against the rage stirring in him, and I know he fights his darker urges all to keep me unafraid of him.

Don’t you dare weep at his feet.

He still plays our game.

I can’t afford to play anymore.

The stakes are too high.

His brow knits. “I threw stones at your window.”

There’s an inflection in his tone, a light question as he tries to catch up, to read this side of me he hasn’t yet seen. Calls me a vicious female, a vicious one—but he hasn’t ever seen how vicious I can be.

I let the false smile turn bitter as I lean my weight back onto one foot, and then I run my gaze over him. I inspect him like I might do an upright, dancing worm. Mild interest, faint amusement, but seeing exactly that—it’s only a worm.

The gleam of the pearlescent court flickers over his honeyed skin. Some nights ago, I would have stroked my fingers over his smooth skin, if only to feel how firm and hard it is as though sculpted from bronzed marble.

His frown deepens.

“Yes, you did,” I say lightly, and the smile hasn’t faltered. I wear it as plainly and obviously as I wear this gown. “And I ignored them.”

Hair piled atop my head in twists and buns, only some strands fall loose around my face. I reach up and steal a lock, turning it over and over in my fingers—not nerves in the gesture, but a wicked glee.

The truth is, I didn’t hear the stones on my window. I had no idea he came to me at all, not after father found out.

The heat and chill of new eyes find me, findus. More watch, some dark and others light. They step and edge and inch closer—but father’s unyielding gaze is the one that burns hottest on my face.

Daxeel takes some moments to finally let the mask crack. His frown fades away, his lashes flutter with a stunned blink. But still, he doesn’t let rage take over.

“This… was a game to you?” he asks, the doubt in his tone matches the uncertainty in the way he tilts his head. His lashes cast shadows down his clenched jaw, deepening those dimples of his, ones that I’m sure can break hearts.

He doesn’t believe me.

And it’s not as though I can blatantly lie with so many eyes and ears on us. We’re not exactly the centre of attention, too far in the corner of the court, but we have an audience of at least two dozen fae, and most of them are dark ones.

My grin fades. I don’t break away from our locked gazes as it softens into a wicked smile, and I look up my lashes at him. “Everything in life is a game, isn’t it?”

“This isn’t you.” His sets his jaw, firm. “This is your father.”

Those fucking dimples carve into his cheeks. But I don’t let the sight of them break my resolve. I hold onto it as best as I can, because if I let myself for just a momentfeel, then I’ll crumble.

My mouth bunches with a practiced pout. The seduction glitters in my eyes, matching the purr of my voice, “Father says my fun is over. I’ll have to find another to play with.”

That does it. One way to get a dark male to loathe you is to let him love you, reject him in front of a court full of fae, then dangle the bait of another lover in front of him.

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