Page 22 of Cursed Shadows 2

Father stands in the moonlight, two trees down, and just some steps from the path I always take to this field. And he looks right at me—he sees me like this, a dark male curved over me with a need to protect me, but knelt between my legs,and my scent in the air…

The shame has my gaze cutting down. It lands onhim…

Knife, the little brownie demon, is tucked behind father’s legs, peering around them with a sneer so twisted that his metallic teeth glint ferociously.

My mind flies to my impatient tapping on the floor of my bedchamber as I waited for Daxeel to toss stones at my window. He didn’t, and I waited two hours, making all the impatient noise on that floor—right above Knife’s closet.

The brownie must have followed me… then went back to tell father.

If Daxeel wasn’t here, I have no doubt Knife would be hissing and gnashing at me. But he’s smarter than that, so he just sneers, silent.

And father stares right through me… like he died. No, likeIdied.

I swallow my heart that seems to have lodged itself in my throat.

Under the fierce gaze glittering amber in the moonlight, the shame has my face the shade of a ripe plum.

My mouth opens, then shuts, opens, then shuts—

I find no words under the silent glare of my father.

Not when I lie here, my legs stretched up and feet resting on the pecs of the dark male knelt at my wet and licked core.

Daxeel’s hand is still firm on my middle. He doesn’t want to let go, letmego, and he makes no move to do the proper thing. He should rise and greet my father, explain away our position, declare intentions and love for me—

But father’s order cuts any of that short before it can even come to be. “Home.Now.”

I utter no words to Daxeel before I scoot back on the blanket.

His hand slips from my middle, and still I’m quiet as Daxeel’s doubtful and stirred eyes swerve to me.

He looks to me for answers.

The heat on my face is answer enough, so I don’t meet his calculating gaze.Please don’t say anything, I beg of him witha single shake of the head before I snatch the basket of trinkets, grab my sandals, then rush out from under the leafy curtains to meet father.

Before I reach him and the brownie, silent tears have already started falling down my cheeks.

That was the last time I saw Daxeel before I broke him.

7

††††††

Dreams of baubles and trinkets are snatched from my foggy mind as I wake with a start.

A dark, powerful figure moves over me.

A drowsy sound draws from between my bared teeth, nature tugging it out of my throat. My back arches off the bed to hiss at the shadow, sleep peeling away from me.

Slowly, my sight adjusts to the dimly lit bedchamber.

The shadow pushes down on me with a deep, chest-rumbling growl, savage enough to silence me instantly.

Takes another blink of the eyes before I come to. Then the grogginess is yanked from me, and I’m suddenly aware of it all.

Daxeel, in my bed, our bargain, one he can collect on until the start of the Warmth—and he’s collecting on it again near the end of the Quiet.

One hand pressed into the mattress at the side of my head, he leans over me, but not lovingly. He keeps distance between our naked bodies, only brings his face to mine for one thing.

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