Page 87 of Cursed Shadows 2

Tonight, I part my lips for his, run the sole of my foot over his leg and—

Smack!

Frowning, I throw a scowl over at the other side of the tower.

Daxeel exhales a weary sigh through his nostrils, then pushes away from me. He leans against the short wall again, his dark look on his old friend, Dare.

I push up to sit.

The other male—a hybrid of light and dark—has landed on our tower roof from the one over. I didn’t know he was over there, especially not with the halfling female he has cradled in his arms.

Gently, he sets her down. And it clicks in my mind.

Dare stole away this flushed, smiling halfling to a private tower roof, had his fun with her, and now brings her back to the safety of this tower—the one with the stairs winding down to the court.

I swerve a narrowed glare to Daxeel. “Did you know they were up here this whole time?”

I’d only a moment ago been on my back for him. How far would he have taken it with Dare so close by?

Daxeel’s eyes flash with onyx specks as he arches an eyebrow at me, then flicks his attention back to Dare, but Dare only has eyes for the halfling he has clearly just bedded, what with her rumpled dress, messy hair, and his tousled dark locks, the smears of lip paint on his neck, and the poorly fastened belt of his leather trousers.

Tucking a red curl behind her ear, the halfling asks, “Do you want to come feed fruits to the humans?”

My eyes roll to the back of my head.

I know this halfling from around. She’s in some lessons ofmine, and we’ll stand together at parties on occasion, but her humanity is strong, and it bores me terribly.

Griselda, her name is, and right now her face is as aflame as her crimson hair. She blinks those glassy eyes up at Dare who stands two heads taller than her at least.

Pinkish smears of her lip-paint glitter on his smiling lips and along his marble-toned neck, then disappear down the collar of his leathers pulled tight over his slender muscles. Slender for a dark fae, normal for a hybrid, strong for a litalf.

Silent, Daxeel and I both watch as Dare lifts his pale hand to her freckled neck.

Smiling still, he runs a finger along her throat. His golden eyes follow the movement. “Why would I do that?”

“The fruit helps their pain,” she says with a wider smile, and I think her naivety is not cut out for this realm. “Aids them through the torture of their fate.”

I lean in closer to Daxeel and whisper into his ear, “Now that’s the sort of halfling who would do better in the human realm.”

With a curt hum, he nods and mutters a word Griselda can’t hear from across the tower roof, “Weakling.”

Dare—though he can hear us as clear as a breeze rustling through trees—doesn’t acknowledge us at all. His hand drops from her neck and reaches for her wrist instead.

Her smile is as dazed as her eyes.

She watches him, enchanted.

Strands of his dark hair fall into his face as his smile turns dark. He lifts her fingers to his mouth. Over her knuckles, he ghosts a kiss that never quite takes, and he holds her gaze with his golden eyes.

I’menchanted. I watch with such intensity, breath pinned to my chest, that I’m ready to hang on any word he might utter.

“You misunderstand me,” Dare says, and the words are spoken so softly, and the way he beholds her is so loving, and the way he brushes those never-kisses over her fingers is so tender. “I had the chase. I conquered.”

Realization starts to tug at her, it frowns her brow and downturns her mouth.

Dare grins something breathtaking against her fingertips. “You gave me my prize. So why would I entertain you any longer? What more do you have offer me?”

My heart plummets for her.

---