Page 94 of Shattered & Returned

Why would my nightmares give him hope?

“Did you see who killed them?” he asked, too carefully.

“No.” I bit my lip. That was the strangest part: the killers’ faces were always just out of reach, a shadow at the edge of every dream.

And the other truth I couldn’t voice:You were there. Every time. Watching me die.

His thumb brushed my cheek, the tenderness of it near unbearable. The air between us hummed with something old as the stars, inevitable. Like we’d stood here before. Like we’d always circle back to this.

“You’re trembling,” he observed, his voice dropping to that rough timbre that always undid me.

“I’m not,” I said just as another shiver wracked me.

“Little liar.” His mouth brushed the frantic pulse at my throat. “Your heart is racing like a captured bird.”

I gasped, my hands flying to his shoulders—whether to push him away or pull him closer, I didn’t know. “We shouldn’t?—”

“Shouldn’t what?” His lips moved against my skin as he spoke, each word a caress. “Shouldn’t give in to what we both want? Shouldn’t acknowledge this thing between us that defies logic and reason?”

“You’re still a professor,” I managed to say, though my resolve was crumbling like sand.

He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes, his gaze fierce and possessive. “Fuck the rules. Even the Fates can’t stop us.”

He’d mentioned the Fates twice, as if he held a personal grudge against the three sisters. But did they even exist?

When his mouth crashed onto mine, I leaned into him.

For the first time, I might just let myself fall.

His lips claimedmine with urgent possessiveness, sending liquid fire along my thighs. I trembled from the sheer intensity of it, the way his breath became my breath, his oxygen my lifeline.

Untamed pleasure unfurled inside me.

His tongue swept against the roof of my mouth, and a shock of sensation arced through me, head to toe. I moaned, and the sound seemed to unleash something in him, a growl rumbling from his chest. His dominance should have infuriated me. Instead, it snapped the last thread of my resistance.

All my anger, hurt, and desperate longing transformed into primal instinct as old as the starlight.

When his tongue danced with mine, I bit down.

The taste of his spiced, rich blood flooded my mouth. Power surged through me, dark and electric, but instead of overwhelming me, itsettledinside me, as if my body had been waiting for it.

A revelation speared through my mind.Every time I touched him, I grew stronger.It was like he was a conduit to me, his darkness feeding my Weaver power.

He broke the kiss, his winter-green eyes flashing, but not with pain. Not surprise.

But pride.

I’d made him bleed, and he looked at me like I’d given him a gift.

A rough groan of pleasure departed his sensual lips before he laughed against my lips.

“There she is.” His voice was a dark caress.“My fierce Bloom. Thorns and all.”

I raked my nails down his chest, tracing the edges of his wound before pressing just hard enough to make him hiss.“You like pain, too, don’t you, Professor?”

“I like everything with you.”He caught my wrists and pinned them above my head. “Your pleasure, your pain, your fury, even your revenge—I’ll take it all.”

I twisted in his grip, not to break free but to feel the unshakable strength of him. When he didn’t relent, I did the only thing left: I sank my teeth into the side of his throat, right where his pulse hammered.

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