She immediately puts her hands in her lap, and it almost makes me smile. “No.”
“Liar. I’ve watched you do it on no less than three occasions.”
It’s true. I don’t know if I’ve even been aware of how much I’ve noticed.
Her pretty eyes narrow at me. I feel special, being the object of her study, even if it’s in distaste. Without breaking my gaze, she crawls toward me on the bed, and does she have any idea what she’s doing to me? I swallow.
“Here I was thinking that you couldn’t even bear to look at me, and you’ve apparently been studying me quite carefully,” she says, her voice different. Raspier.
You have no idea.
I keep my expression steady. “You are my enemy. Of course I study you carefully.” Anyone outside of my realm is my enemy. It’s the way it’s always been.
She doesn’t look convinced. “Right. Tell me, Nightshade,” she says, and I’m watching her lips with far too much interest. “What doyoudo when you’re uncomfortable?”
“I rarely am.”
She looks smug. “You seemed pretty uncomfortable when I stabbed you in the chest.”
The reminder of that doesn’t have my desire cooling as much as it should. “I’m used to being stabbed.”
“By someone you were trying to bed?”
My jaw tenses. I remember that day. The day when, for the first time, I felt aching, otherworldly want, and it ended with her trying tokill me. “You tricked me. Had I known who you were, I never would have touched you.” If only that was true. I know who she is now, and here I am, hard as steel, barely able to keep myself from telling her every single thing I want to do to her right now.
She scoffs, and it does nothing to temper my want. If anything, I want hermore.
“HadIknown what was about to occur, I never would have joined that line.”
“Why were you there, then?” I snap. If only she had never appeared in my palace. If only she hadn’t cursed me with this unrelenting want, with these thoughts that are like blades, meticulously slicing at my self-control.
She recoils, shocked by my tone.Good. Get far away from me, I want to tell her.I will only bring you pain. Her voice is small. “I accidentally portaled there with the starstick. It wouldn’t work, and I was chased by your idiotic group of guards. The head woman grabbed me, and the next thing I knew, I was in that line.”
Ah.
Then it wasn’t a part of a wretched plan. It was an accident. I shake my head and cross my arms in front of me. “I should take that thing away from you. It’s bringing you closer to death.”
It’s bringing you closer tome.
“You could try,” she says, her voice threatening. Good. I like it when she threatens me. I like it when she knows her own strength.
“So. You have a harem?” she asks. Her tone is casual, but her emotions are confusing. Is she ... angry?
“No.”
She laughs, but there isn’t any amusement in it at all. I realize I’ve never heard her laugh out of joy.
I have the strange desire to hear it. To hear her happy.
“So, women just line up to sleep with you? They volunteer for the honor?”
I glare at her.
“Who would want to sleep with you?” she says, very clearly trying to get under my skin.
It works.
That’s it. I slowly rise and approach until I’m towering above her. I watch her swallow. A typical sign of fear. I await the expected, stabbing cloud of it. It never arrives. No ... she’s feeling something else entirely. I can feel it as if my lips are running along her pulse, as if my tongue is laving against it.
