Page 15 of Cursed Shadows 2

Can’t stop the sudden twitch or my upper lip, ready to snarl, but I battle it back—and slip on a glower instead.

His hair is always tousled and messy, and with that fresh ink, he has something about him, an effortless look, a casual ruggedness.

I fool myself at times. I think of the Daxeel under thewillow trees. I forget in the halls of the garrison that he’s dark male, tall and strong, utterly vicious, a born warrior with a black heart—and a brutal animalism lurking beneath his honeyed-marble skin.

And even as we watch each other in this patient Quiet, I see the ghosts of bloodshed that stir darkness in his eyes, the gleam of ink that lashes up the side of his neck from beneath the wool of his sweater, and it reminds me of how much time has passed.

I was young when we met, nineteen, just at maturity, but he was older. He’s older still, a half-century at least. And I feel very much the silly newly mature female he amused with shiny baubles.

That is who I was and who I am now.

Spoilt, he once called me.

You want to be the only one… the darling, he once said. A side-stepped way of calling me what everyone else does. A brat.

He wasn’t wrong. It’s a part of me. But only one layer, and I have so many. It cuts me deep—the realization, the understanding that spears into my gut like a knife. He only ever saw me that way, he didn’t see the rest of me.

But he should see it now.

I use another side of me, one just as sincere, as I lean back against the side of the desk.

Gazes locked, my fingers thread through the knot of my tied robe.

I tug.

‘The question is why would I help you, vicious one?’

That string holding the robe together yanks out of its loosely fastened tie, and it falls open.

Motionless, his eyes are what betray him—they gleam through the dark, cauldrons of deep blue poisons. He stiffens but doesn’t move.

The satin of the robe slips down my shoulders. I don’t help it slide off my body. It just does, slow and intentional—and he watches as my body is bared under the smoky light of the candles and lanterns. For the most flattering light, I made sureto shove most of the jarred glowworms and fireflies in the wardrobe. I only kept enough out for a dim dusting of dusky light.

His gaze hangs on the one thing that shields my breasts and core from him. The only thing I wear as the satin robe crumples to the floor.

His gaze sears through the blue lace lingerie moulded to my shape. A colour so deep, it matches his eyes.

On the edge of the desk, I lift myself up until I’m perched, then lean my weight back on my flattened palms. My bare feet dangle above the satin robe discarded on the floor.

But he only seems to notice me.

Like he hasn’t seen my body on the imposter so many times before, he drinks me in like a wild male who has never seen a female in his life.

His eyes wander and linger for what feels like an eternity. Over the shine of my lotioned legs, the indent of my clavicle, the faint definition of my arms, the pinch of my waist, the width of my hips; even my feet that I let relax to keep a lazy but seductive posture.

For a moment, he lifts his eyes to mine. And the stir of his anger flickers over the blue like shadows.

It’s a brief moment, cut short by the sudden shift in his attention when he lands his gaze on my breasts, pushed up into round, full shapes by the bodice.

I’m pinned by the intensity of his look as he inspects me. Those black flecks of anger flicker in his eyes each time he’s obstructed by the one-piece lingerie that shields his view of my body.

Daxeel doesn’t hide how blatantly he takes me in, drinking me in from head to toe, over and over.

But he might as well throw a dagger across the room and into my heart when he growls out the words, “You threatened the whore.”

It takes every ounce of strength within me to battle the flare of my nostrils, the ache of my hands needing to ball into fists.

Don’t you dare think about her.

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