Page 24 of Cursed Shadows 2

Maybe it’s that I’m freshly awoken, or maybe that I’m feeling as used as he wants me to feel.

Whatever it is, I hate him so much right now that it hurts.

A slight groan escapes him.

On my thighs, his hand tightens and his pace starts to quicken.

A sudden urgency has stolen him, and I wonder if we’re closer to the start of the Warmth than I thought, that he’s on a time crunch.

His talon-like nails grip the meat of my thigh so firmly that crimson blood beads at my flesh. I hiss at the nips of pain.

Like he doesn’t even notice, he curves over me, his hand coming down my middle to pin me in place.

He fucks into that warm space he’s made for himself, fucks it like it’s my cunt—the part of me he craves in the depths of his desire.

One hand keeps pressure on my knees, slung over his hip, keeps me in place—and his other presses down on the spacebetween my breasts, but not weighted enough to ache my ribs.

How deep that need goes… the one to hold me down and claim me, like every part of evate is begging him to. I’m almost in wonder as I lie here, watching him. The harshness of his breaths, how he leans over me, how his smouldering gaze latches onto mine.

It’s not love I see in him. It’s the need to conquer me, to dominate, to take, and to keep.

You’re mine, his eyes tell me.

This time, there’s more frenzy. An urgency to the way he takes me. It’s his desperation that makes me wonder how close to the Warmth we are, because it’s as though he fights against time itself.

There’s no pleasure in this one for me.

He makes that clear—those deep blue eyes watching me from beneath thick, long lashes and his natural kohl lines. He watches the frustrated pleasure frown my face, a pleasure he never quite fully delivers.

Cruel, wicked male.

Still, I’m tempted to do something horrid, to hook my legs, angle my hips, and impale myself on him. Then the bond would be forged, and he wouldn’t be able to kill me, unless he wants to take his own life right after. More than that, he would have to steal me away from my horrid fate, because once that bond is forged, he can’t ever let me go.

But I’ve gotten so far in our game. Look how far I’ve come before the first passage has even started.

Not to mention his rage would be brutal, would be unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. So I just force my sneer up at him—

And when he comes, and his seed spills over my middle, I give him less than a second to recover before I shove him off me.

With a groan, he drops onto the mattress.

He lands beside me, on his back, and has his dazed gaze aimed at the vined canopy of the bed. Chest rising and falling with his ragged breaths, he runs a hand over his clammy brow, and when that hand falls back to the pillow to rest, I note that afrown has formed on his face.

How he must suffer—this forever unsatisfied feeling he gets each time healmostfucks me. No matter how extraordinary his climaxes might be, that with me they are like no other he’s had before, his animal must hum in his bones for that final part, to mate with me.

As he lies here beside me and frowns up at the vines as though they did him wrong, I wonder how quick the ache for me is to bloom within him again.

A dim flare of blue illuminates the bedchamber. Lanternlight, telling us the final hour of the Quiet has passed. The Warmth has arrived, and with it the end of our bargain.

It’s all Daxeel needs before he pushes up from the bed.

I tug the crumpled sheet over my stained body.

His cum is fresh on my tummy, drops of it on my thighs, and dried streaks on my face. I roll onto my side and watch him step into his black combat trousers then fasten them.

My voice sounds faraway as he moves for the sweater, “What happened to the male I love?”

Leaning over for the dark woollen lump on the floorboards, he stills. Each muscle clamps beneath his perfect skin, and the tattoo gleams darker, as though the ink itself is reacting to me, growling at me.

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