Page 27 of Stolen
And just like that, my already-thin patience frays.
I cross the distance between us in two long strides, crowding her against the nearest shelf, my body braced just a breath from hers.
She startles, eyes wide, lips parting, but she doesn’t move away. Doesn’t shrink.
Good.
She shouldn’t.
She should know exactly who I am.
I tilt her chin upward with the pad of my thumb, forcing her gaze to meet mine.
Her skin is warm. Soft. Infuriatingly inviting.
“There are many things in Nightfall that can hurt a fragile human like you,Myrrin,” I say, voice low and dangerous. “Because you are under my protection, any such act will be seen as an attack on me and my person. So, unless you want to provoke a war, you will stay here. Where it’s safe. Until I come for you.”
Her breath catches, but she holds my gaze. Proud. Defiant.
I like that too much.
“Now,” I finish, “nod that you understand.”
She rolls her eyes, muttering under her breath, “Can you be any more barbaric?”
But she nods.
And she’s smiling.
Just a little. Just enough to make my control slip again.
I force myself to step back.
And she vanishes between the shelves, hips swaying slightly beneath that silk I conjured, unaware—or perhaps entirely aware—of the effect she has on me.
I watch her longer than I should.
Then, with one last lingering glance, I turn and leave her to the books.
And if I walk faster than usual down the hall toward the chamber where my brothers wait with the fate of Nightfall in a glass box, well, that's no one's business but mine.
The moment I step into the antechamber beyond the library’s threshold, I feel them.
Not just their magic, but their moods.
Eager. Anxious. Angry.
Kael. Thorne. Dagan.
They’re waiting for me beneath the vaulted ceiling of the outer hall, where moonlight bleeds in through the narrow glass teeth of the ceiling.
Ancient banners hang in silence overhead.
The weight of memory lingers here—of oaths sworn, battles fought, crowns forged.
Kael is the first to speak, lounging as if he belongs to the room.
“You found your human quickly,” he says, eyes glinting with sea-glass amusement. “What did you do, whistle?”
