Page 78 of Satanic Shadow
“Boundaries.” He scoffs and shakes his head, still with his back to me. “You know nothing of boundaries.”
Don’t look at her.
Don’t fucking look at her.
Instead of pointing out that his mind is very open to me, and I can hear his desperate thoughts, I sigh and lean against his dresser, dragging my cursed fingers over the surface. I stare at my hands as the black tendrils slowly crawl beneath my skin. It burns. But not as much as the need for him to look at me.
I have no idea why I feel this way, but everything in me begs for Dane to turn around, to tell me why I’m here, to admit to himself that he wants me as I do him.
Where do these thoughts even come from?
The only reason we’re tolerating each other is for these assignments. The classes we’re forced to be paired up for. If it weren’t for them, he’d be knocking me over in the corridor, calling me names like a school bully, and making my stay here absolute hell.
“Can I at least leave? I have class in the morning, and I don’t fancy showing up in an heir’s clothes.”
He removes his hand from his pocket and gathers a cloud of darkness in his palm, turning his head ever so slightly to study it, showing me his perfect side profile. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I need a mental cold shower because all I can feel is the need for him to be worshiping my body. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
I should demand answers about the curse staining my skin, but all I care about is having him look at me.
The orb in his palm grows, a spark of lightning and snakes of fire twirling around it. “Sit down or I’ll make you.”
He’s still standing with his back to me, showing off that he’s powerful and I’m a mere mortal. I grab one of the pillows and throw it at him, hitting his back—apparently that shield he threw up only keeps me out.
I need this to end. The push and pull are haunting me.
“I want to finish all the tasks, right now.” I have no idea why I just said that, but I mean it. As soon as they’re done, so are we. “We have the rest of task four, and another six. Do them now.”
Dane glances over his shoulder, enough for me to see the shadow the moon drops over his face. “What?”
“Once we finish task ten, I only need to suffer sitting beside you in class.”
He chuckles, making me want to sink into the mattress and hold another pillow to my chest, but I stand here, a breeze away from showing off how naked I am underneath his shirt. “You wouldn’t be able to handle the rest of the tasks in one night.”
“You have no idea what I can handle. You don’t know me. You don’t have the first clue who the fuck I am.”
With that, Dane turns to me with a furious expression, and I nearly faint. “I know more than enough!”
I’m not registering his words; my eyes are on his face and clothes. My hand lifts to my mouth as I gasp, and I straighten from the dresser, stepping back, as if the splattered blood down his front and slashed skin down the side of his face may hurt me. “What happened to you?”
“Don’t change the subject,” he snaps, aggressively shoving his hands back into his pockets. “You think I don’t know you? I’m fucking haunted by you. Do you think I want to be here? That I want to wake up every morning and have to spend time with youin this castle? In these fucking classes? It’s childish and beneath us both.”
I tip my chin. “Then finish the tasks and be done with it.”
“You have no idea what you’re asking me, Seraphine.”
My cheeks warm at the way my name caresses his tongue, the way it slips off and sounds like music to my ears. “Since when do you call me by my name?”
He freezes, realizing his mistake, then stalks towards me, eating up the space between us. As he draws closer, I not only note that my head now reaches higher up his chest than before, but I also see how deep the wound on his face is.
Blood soaks his collar and down his front, and as he pulls his hands slowly from his pockets with each stride, I see he has blood all over them too. His shoes are an inch from my toes as he looks down at me. I shouldn’t pay any attention to the different colors of green flecks surrounded by a deep red, or to how dark and long his eyelashes are against the harshness.
“I know what I’m asking,” I say, trying to be confident as I press the palms of my hands to the dresser behind me. “Finish the tasks, Dane.”
Blood drips from the open wound on his face. “Don’t say my name.”
I challenge him as I drag out his name. “Dane.”
