Page 141 of Cursed Shadows 3

He drops the head. It thuds to the floor.

Then the decapitated body crumbles.

Dare turns his back on the grisly scene and stalks off.

“That’ll teach anyone to knock into moody dokkalves,” Affay’s familiar purr snakes around me. The cool, crisp mint of his breath tickles the curve of my neck.

‘He’s hybrid’, I want to say.

But I say nothing.

I doubt Dare tore the head off a human because the music of the dance stumbled him. Happens all the time.

That glare he cut me with—

It was for me.

The violence was a warning.

Afuck you.

And the only reaction it lures from me in this painted, practiced mask I wear tonight, is a disinterested hum as I melt back, into the chest and waiting arms of Prince Affay.

For a while, we move with the music.

We sway.

At my feet, the head and corpse of a man in the wrong place at the wrong moment. A man whose death was little more than redirected rage.

I pity only me.

I marinate in it, self-woes, until a glint catches me: green eyes like fresh cuts of emeralds.

I double-take until I home in on the sharp stare aimed at me.

Across the High Court, Taroh watches me. His hands are firm on the white stone barrier of a low balcony.

Pride steals his face, it lifts his angular jaw, finesses his fine nose, and he looks down at me. Downonme.

“Two jaded males,” Affay purrs at my ear, and the peppermint on his breath is cool against my skin.

It takes everything in me—every thread of self-power through the daze of brewing sobs and the haze of all the fruits I have eaten—to not yank out of his soft embrace.

I hear the grin in his tone as he says, “Will I be your third victim?”

Before I can answer, he spins me around and pulls me against his chest. The firmness of his ceremonial brown leathers creaks between our bodies.

He tilts his head.

The silver crown sits crooked on his head of dark, ruffled hair, winking at me in cruel, mocking glitters.

I look up at him, distant death in my eyes. “One day, prince, you will meet a female who will bring you to your knees.”

He flashes me a wide, hungry grin. “I’ll get on my knees for you, Nari.”

My throat tightens.

The nail in Daxeel’s coffin.

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