Page 88 of Cursed Shadows 2

And hers does, too. I see it in the hurt flashing through her eyes. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, she yanks her hand out of his tender hold.

His grin fades to a satisfied smile and I have a horrible thought, that this—this part here, with the rejection and the hurt—is a fragment of his fun, that the pleasure doesn’t end with his orgasm, it ends with this.

I throw a look at Daxeel, but he just shakes his head, a weary ‘do not get involved’ that I read too easily.

I roll my tongue over the inside of my cheek.

Then—

“Oh!” I slap my hands to my mouth.

Daxeel stiffens beside me and throws out his arm to shove against my middle, like a barrier between me and the other side of the tower.

GriseldaslapsDare. She strikes out at him, and it happens so fast that I’m stunned at her speed and her sheer foolery.

But then… No, the slap didn’t connect.

Before her palm could touch his glistening ivory cheek, before the slap could turn his complexion purple and red and angry, he caught her wrist.

All that humour and those lying looks of love and adoration, it’s all vanished from Dare now. Those eyes, once welcoming pools of gold, are now daggers, hard and cold like gilt steel.

He looksthroughher.

His whisper is a promise of spilled blood to come, “Try that again, and I will bite your lovely fingers clean off your hand.” His grip on her wrist tightens enough that Griselda winces, then—with a fresh smile—he releases her.

She staggers back, her rumpled skirt catching between her legs. “Beast,” she spits at him, then runs for the archway.

I watch her go.

We all do.

And once she’s disappeared down the staircase, Dare turns to us. His grin is wide for me and comes with a wink, but now I’m not so sure I can read Dare at all. All those smiles and grins and winks and even the times he’s shared nectarquills with me or just sat with Daxeel and me in lessons—I thought I was reading his friendliness towards me well enough.

But now, I pity any female who knows him.

Bedder.

Worse than a bedder, he likes the hurt of the abandonment too. His litalf side, surely. The thrill of torment. But the dokkalf side makes him so much more ruthless. A dangerous combination.

Those golden eyes are pools again, and they land on the empty bottles of wine. With a sigh, he takes a step back and says, “I’ll steal us some more.”

He moves for the archway—and I’ve suddenly forgotten all that earlier compassion for Griselda.

“Get fruit, too!” I shout, because in just some steps, he’s already at the entrance to the stairs. “And cake!”

Dare throws a look over his shoulder at me, one with a raised eyebrow and a smile dancing on his lips. “Anything else,darling?”

My face turns hot instantly.

Daxeel snorts a near-silent laugh beside me.

‘Darling.’

So Dare very much heard our little talk about me, me being the baby of my family—and how I want that still. I do not want to know which part of his bedding of Griselda he was at when he started to eavesdrop.

“Yes,” I mutter, then sniff as though I can sniff away my shame. I meet his glittering eyes dead on. “And valerian.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Dare winks, then he’s gone to loot from the court.

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