Chapter 20

“Mama Si,”I whispered, holding onto the boat’s edge like the other girls were doing. I could see them only barely—they were far away, and I was still panicked, though my own thoughts were starting to come back to me slowly.

Mama Si slowly sat down at the tip of the boat, taking her hat off with a deep sigh. She looked exhausted like I’d never seen her before, and it bothered me, that look on her face. It bothered me even before I understood why.

“Well, now we wait. I did everything right, didn’t I? The rest is out of my control,” she said, almost like she was talking more to herself than to me.

“What…what’s out of your control, Mama Si? You didn’t tell me they’d be biting us. You didn’t tell me there’d be sirens and dragons—you didn’t tell me!” I slammed my hand onto the wood of the boat, so frustrated so suddenly my blood was boiling.

“Oh, my sweet Fall Doll. I honestly don’t know what I did to deserve you. You fell right in my lap,” she then said, throwing her head back and laughing heartily.

I sighed, knowing it was useless to be pissed off right now—it was done. The dragon had bitten me and it had flown away.

“Just help me up. I’m tired.” My legs were starting to ache, not because of exhaustion but because of how tightly that fucking siren had held me with her fishtail. I mean, how long was that thing?! Because it had felt like she’d wrapped it around me at least three times.

“Oh, no, you can’t come up here. You need to stay in the water. Fingers crossed it comes for you again!” And she crossed her gloved fingers.

I tried not to let it get to me. “Mama Si, help me up. I can barely swim,” I said through gritted teeth. “Stop joking—give me your hand!”

And I reached out my hand for her, spraying her face with water.

The way the look in her eyes changed so suddenly surprised me almost as much as those damned dragons.

The next second, she’d leaned over the boat, gripping my chin so hard her fingernails dug into my skin, and her eyes were all that I could see.

Mad eyes.

“Don’t tempt me, human,” she spit. “Or you won’t be coming back with me even if they don’t choose you.”

Oh, God.

Different face. Different eyes. Different voice—and no warmth coming from her bare hand gripping my face whatsoever.

Mama Si let go of me and settled back in the boat, looking at the Whispering Woods every few seconds while I couldn’t look away from her.

“You…you lied to me.”

And I meant about who you are. She obviously wasn’t the sweet, loving woman she’d pretended to be since I met her. She’d changed so suddenly just now.

But I was not prepared in the least for the whole truth, for the story she told me as she laughed, leaning her head back on the edge of the boat.

“You know, I wasn’t going to have an offering this year at all. The one I chose and groomed for six whole months went and fellin love right under my nose.” She suddenly sounded disgusted. “Naturally, I had to get rid of her, and I thought another year goes by, another year the Burrow doesn’t get endorsed by the Evernights. Tough pill to swallow, I’ll admit. I was having difficulty controlling my own emotions.” She flashed me a wicked grin. “And then you showed up, just like that.”

I shook my head. “I don’t…I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand? Everything you’ve thought about since setting foot in my Paradise, everything you’ve seen, everything that has been whispered in your ear was my doing, Fall Doll. I had to get you ready in a month—imagine the pressure! So much to reveal to you all at once. I was afraid you’d run away screaming, which was why I had to be careful. Why I had to spare no expense in setting the stage exactly as you needed it.”

What the fuck? “Are you serious?”

“Of course, I am. And I did a good job, didn’t I? You came here and you gave yourself to the Court willingly. A very good job, indeed.” Again, she laughed.

I turned around to look at the Whispering Woods, to look at the other girls, all of them still in the water.

This couldn’t be real. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I needed to get out of there. I needed to leave before it was too late—and to do that, I needed a boat.

What were the odds that I could flip this one over and throw Mama Si in the water?

And even if I somehow managed that, how was I going to make this boat move and take me back?

“Don’t look so panicked, Fall Doll,” Mama Si said.

No, I couldn’t make this boat move and take me back. I was fucking stuck here in the middle of the ocean surrounded by lands and creatures that were supposed to be part of someone’s fantasy, not the real world.

“Oh, cheer up, will you?! You wanted to be part of Ennaris! You wanted to be part of the magic—didn’t you? Well, if they choose you, then you will be.”

Tears in my eyes, but I was no longer afraid—what would be the point when it was all as good as done, anyway? I wasn’t even panicked, just angry. So fucking angry I saw red.

“I trusted you,” I spit, despite knowing that it would make no difference whatsoever.

“And that was your number one mistake,” Mama Si said. “I didn’t trust you at first. So perfect. Way too good to be true. No ties to the outside world, nobody who cares about you and would go asking questions, nobody you cared about that could change your mind—and that face. Doll, with that face of yours you could have conquered the fucking world if you only had the necessary brain cells.”

She actually had the audacity to look disappointed.

“So, yes—I didn’t trust you at first.” Her eyes closed slowly, and she smiled as if to say, now comes the best part. “And then I saw that look on your face at the party.” Another sigh. “A piano.”

My heart tripped all over itself because everything became so crystal clear.

The missing glass in the triangle room.

The animals in the forest. The piano in the clearing.

“The Burrow and I are one and the same…”

It had been her. It had been Mama Si all along. Nothing had been a coincidence. I hadn’t made any kind of discovery—how ridiculous it all seemed to me now.

“It was you.” And I’d fallen prey to her lies so easily.

Just like Hannah warned me.

“Yes,” Mama Si said, and it was painfully obvious how proud of herself she was. “Yes, it was. Adam and Marissa and Amber and Mr. Archer—” Another laugh. “Rather genius, don’t you think?”

I tried to dig my fingernails into the wood of the boat, but all I managed to do was hurt myself, and it felt good. The physical pain felt mighty good compared to the one inside my chest.

“But why?” I asked, feeling smaller by the second. What the hell had I gotten myself into?!

How had I so readily believed that this woman, this stranger would really treat me the way she did, care about me when she didn’t even know me, and have my best interest at heart? Had I learned nothing from being kicked in the balls by life just a month ago—or was that the reason why I’d been such easy prey?

A traumatized, naive, helpless, hopeless girl with no roof over her head and no place to go. Nobody who cares about me. Nobody I care about.

“Don’t you remember, Fall Doll? Power,” she said, straightening up on the boat again. “You wanted to pay me back, and I told you that you would. If you get chosen, my Burrow gets more power than all the other Isles for a whole year. We get more magic.”

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” Who gave her more power if I was chosen?!

“Each year, all the Isles make offerings in the form of human women to the rulers of the Evernight Court, and whichever offering they choose, they endorse that Isle with more magic and power. Does that make sense yet? No?”

My mouth opened and closed and opened and closed…

“Oh, well.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter, Fall Doll. With this attitude, you’ll be dead if they don’t choose you, and if they do…” Her eyes lit up again as she looked ahead at the Whispering Woods. “You’ll find out just how much magic costs, very, very soon.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to thrash and slam my fists on that boat over and over again, but I couldn’t. I’d drown first.

“You’re fucking rotten,” I whispered, and Mama Si actually flinched like I’d insulted her. Like she didn’t know exactly how rotten she was.

“I will do everything possible for my land and for my people, as is my duty,” she told me, raising her chin and looking down at me, as if she couldn’t see me struggling just to keep my head above water.

“You will do everything for power.” Her words no longer fooled me. I saw right through her tricks.

Turning my back to her and the boat was hard, but I was going to probably die soon anyway, so what did it matter whether I stayed alive for a few more minutes? Mama Si was going to go back to the Paradise, and she was going to leave me here in the middle of the ocean all alone. In the water.

With sirens.

The memory of the true face of Sedelis, her skin grey and the strands of her hair like wire made my stomach twist and turn. And the next second, she came out of the water barely five feet away as if she’d heard the thoughts in my head.

A small scream escaped my lips because she wasn’t the only one. Another four sirens slowly came out of the water, peeking out only half their heads, hiding their mouths, showing me just their eyes—as blue as the ocean, same as Sedelis’s.

My chest squeezed tightly as Mama Si gasped behind me.

“Oh, by the Burrow…” she whispered, and she sounded like she was crying. “By the Burrow—is it her?!”

No, no, no, no…

A loud banging sound suddenly came from the dark cloud of the Whispering Woods. Sedelis came out of the water completely, grinning at me ear to ear, and she said, “It is.”

Mama Si laughed.

People from the other boats screamed.

A dragon shot out of the darkness of the Whispering Woods for the sky just like the first time, except it was just him now. Just the small dragon that had bitten me.

And it was coming straight for me.

I turned around and tried to swim away. No way in hell was I going to just sit tight and wait for that thing to come bite me again—no way. I was going to swim until my arms fell off my body, and then I’d keep going with my legs alone.

Except my legs were no longer mine to control, it seemed. Slippery scales were wrapped around them just like before, and I couldn’t fucking move a single inch.

All I could do was look at Mama Si on her boat, laughing and crying at the same time, not bothered in the least by the sight of me struggling to free myself.

Then the small dragon was right in front of me, that sound coming out of his jaws like glass breaking and tires screeching against the asphalt.

I screamed, too. I screamed at him, and if he thought he was going to bite me again, he had another think coming. I was going to tear those thin-looking wings apart with my bare fucking hands.

“Don’t!” I shouted at him at the top of my voice. “Don’t you dare come near me!”

Like I really hoped that that was going to make a difference.

It didn’t. And the small dragon didn’t come near me at all.

Another did.

I felt it when he was right over my head, roaring a heart-wrenching sound, taking away the sun and the sky completely. It was him, that SUV-sized dragon that had come for me first, before the small one snuck up under his talons and bit me.

No more fishtail wrapped around my legs. I raised my head with my mouth wide open, planning to scream, until I saw the grey belly of the giant.

Talons around my arms, and before I could blink, I was no longer in the water, but up there in the sky, going higher while the smaller dragon flew next to me. My voice came back, and I screamed at the top of my lungs. I screamed and the view in front of me changed so fast, becoming darker and darker until I couldn’t see anything anymore.

The realization cut my voice off instantly. The Whispering Woods. The dragon had taken me right into the Whispering Woods.

And two seconds later, he let me go.

The fall was brutal. I hit my head and my back and my arms and my legs in way too many places to count, and not a sound left my lips. It all happened so damn fast. Branches and leaves against my body, which meant I was surrounded by trees. That’s the only thing I knew as I fell and fell and fell, just like I’d been doing most of my life.

Then I hit the ground on my side and my body gave up on me. My mind gave up on me.

The only thing I remembered before I passed out was the sound of the small dragon flying over my head.

My eyes openedand I heard the whispers as if someone was right beside me.

But unless these trees could talk, nobody else was moving around me in the woods.

Images flashed before my eyes—of sirens and dragons and bites on the side of my neck, and ten seconds after coming to, my heart was already hammering in my ribcage because it knew how screwed I was.

Mama Si had tricked me. Mama Si had lied to me. Mama Si had manipulated me so masterfully, and I’d been too broken, too naive, too blind to see it.

Now a dragon had thrown me somewhere in the Whispering Woods, and I was all alone.

Tears in my eyes. I pushed myself up with all my strength to find that everything in my body hurt all the way to my bones. The back of my head was throbbing, and it took me a few blinks to clear the view of my surroundings, though it was really dark and there was very little to see.

Almost black trees with thin naked branches closest to the trunk, while the ones higher up were thicker and full of leaves. Through the canopy I could barely make out the darkness over us. So deep. Exactly like the dark cloud that had hidden away the Whispering Woods.

My God, I was really here.

Biting my tongue, I suppressed the urge to cry, leaning against the tree closest to me as I tried to assess my situation.

My dress was still a bit wet, the cape Mike had put on my shoulders gone, as well as that orange ribbon he’d tied around my wrist. My shoes were still on that boat with Mama Si. The dragon bite on my neck was no longer bleeding, but the spot was very tender to the touch.

Bitten by a dragon. What a fucking disaster, but at least he wasn’t here with me right now. I was alone. The shore couldn’t be too far away—the big dragon had dropped me seconds after we slipped into the darkness of the Whispering Woods.

Carried over the ocean by a dragon—yes, definitely a disaster.

I looked at my arms, expecting to find my skin a bloody mess where those curved talons had grabbed me, but they weren’t. My arms looked as pale as ever, skin unbroken, despite having fallen against these trees, too.

“Doesn’t matter,” I whispered to myself. The shore—that’s what I needed to find.

Light was coming from somewhere south. It must have still been daylight outside, so that was going to be my destination. As soon as I found the shore, I could swim away from here. I could use the branches of these trees to help me. I would figure something out just as soon as I saw the sky again. The blue sky.

Taking in a deep breath, I prayed with all my being that my body was strong enough, that my legs would be able to carry me until the end.

Then I turned south and I started to run.

My feet hurt like hell. Pieces of wood and little rocks cut my skin with each new step. There was so little light, and I went slower than I’d have liked, but my legs kept moving. Even though every part of my body hurt, I kept moving.

So dark. So fucking cold, and if I stopped to listen just for a second, I could actually hear the sound of leaves brushing against one another, as if there was wind but it only blew higher off the ground. It sounded exactly like fucking whispers, which was almost funny considering the name of this place.

Had these people named all the Isles literally?

Eventually, angry tears began to spill down my cheeks. Eventually, my legs slowed down even more and my muscles screamed in protest and my head throbbed harder.

I must have run for at least an hour, if my sense of time could be trusted in these conditions, and the light wasn’t getting closer even though I’d been moving in its direction. On the contrary—it seemed to have moved farther away as if to spite me. To laugh in my face.

Releasing a long breath, I sat on the ground and closed my eyes for a second, wiped my cheeks. I was no longer cold, and my dress didn’t feel wet anymore, either. My feet were bleeding in several places, but they were numb so I didn’t feel the pain, but I was fed up. So fucking donewith all of this that for a moment, I considered sitting here until I passed out again just so I could catch a break.

But who knew what lived in this place—besides those dragons? Who knew how long I had until I was found?

No, I couldn’t sit here and wait. I wouldn’t.

Off I went again, this time walking to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and didn’t hurt myself even more. Why had that light gone farther away from me when it should have been much closer? I was determined to figure it out, but…

Ten minutes later, I felt eyes on the back of my head like a physical touch.

I stopped in my tracks instantly, my body shutting down for a second.

Heart in my throat, I turned around, expecting to find a dragon or Mama Si or a fucking siren coming to devour me.

There was nobody there.

Chills ran up and down my body as I continued to walk, but the feeling never faded away. It just became more prominent. With each new step I took I was painfully aware of someone watching me, and it made me sick to my stomach.

Then, I began to hear it, too. Twigs snapping. Footsteps. A whooshing sound, different from the whispering leaves at the top of the trees. Somebody was there with me, and they were taunting me, playing with my fucking sanity, and I’d already had enough of being played. I’d already had enough of everything.

So, I stopped in front of a tree and I rested a hand against it for support. Then I took in a deep breath, and shouted as loudly as I could, “What the hell do you want?!”

No idea whom I was talking to, whether it was a dragon that was following or an actual human being.

Scratch that—an Enchanted because I was in their land now. I was in Ennaris.

Just yesterday, this had been my dream, but now? It had turned into a fucking nightmare.

No response. No sound of footsteps. No nothing, just those whispers coming from over my head. My shoulders shook as I squeezed my eyes shut, though I wasn’t exactly sure whether I was laughing or crying. Neither would surprise me.

“Just where do you think you’re going, human?”

Once more, I froze in place and waited a good minute to see if I’d really heard the voice of a man or if it was all in my head. Then I turned around slowly, eyes wide and unblinking, searching, every inch of my skin covered in goose bumps.

Was he invisible? Because I sure as hell couldn’t see anyone around me, until…

“Up here.”

I followed the sound of him and our eyes locked the next second.

A man was sitting comfortably on one of the thicker branches up a tree not five feet away to my side. A young man, possibly close to my age, with dark hair and dark eyes and dark clothes and dark everything. The contrast with his pale skin should have made him look scary—like a ghost or worse. Instead, it made him look like he was carved out of marble, possibly the most beautiful piece in the world.

“Well? Are you going to answer me, human?”

That voice again, just like the dark cloud hiding this place away from the world. Like the whispering leaves on these trees.

Then he jumped, so easily and with such grace that it shouldn’t have been possible from fifty feet up. He straightened his shoulders, running a hand through his dark hair, and he slowly began to approach me.

Fuck. I almost asked him if I could take his damn picture.

Good thing I still had some common sense left, so I stepped back because he was already closer than I was comfortable with.

He was taller than me by at least a few inches, definitely over six feet. Not exactly muscled, but the short sleeves of his black shirt showed his curvy biceps just fine. He must have been toned as all hell underneath.

Chills ran down my back and I just about started running, when something moved fast from our side, so incredibly fast it was like he materialized out of the air.

The dragon.

The small fucking dragon that had bitten the side of my neck was here, and he stopped on this man’s shoulder, and he wrapped his long tail twice around the man’s neck, watching me calmly. Curiously.

“Answer me, human. I won’t ask again,” the man said. I was so caught between his face and that dragon sitting on him that I thought I might lose my fucking mind.

Too terrifying. Way too beautiful—the both of them, so unreal. A man with a dragon on his shoulder, arms crossed and at ease, genuinely waiting for me to speak.

I did.

“If he bites me again, I will hurt him,” I blurted, moving farther back to put more distance between us.

The man smiled, just half a smile on those big lips, possibly the only color on him. His skin was fair, very pale, but his lips were so red you’d think he was wearing lipstick.

“He won’t bite you unless I ask him to. And I don’t use my pet to hunt for me,” the man said.

Hunt.

“Pet? That’s your pet?!” Who in the world had dragons for pets?!

His head turned slightly to the side, his eyes scrolling down the length of me. He took another step forward, then stopped when he noticed that I took another back. He seemed so curious about me, and I was begging my eyes to move away from that face. Still wasn’t working.

“He is, yes.”

I raised my finger at the black dragon. “Well, then you should learn to control your pet better because he already bitme.” And I pushed my hair back to show him.

As if caught by surprise, the man smiled even wider. Damn. As soon as more light fell on his face, all his imperfections would surely be visible because such perfection couldn’t exist.

“Yes, that’s how the ritual goes,” he said.

The ritual.

Mama Si had tricked me, had brought me here with false promises, had held me in the water while the dragon had bittenme—and the whole thing had a name: the ritual.

“This was a mistake,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t be here. I was tricked into coming to your Isle—do you understand? I was tricked, and I need to go back!”

He took a half step forward, forcing me back once again—then another, and waited for me to move, like he was amused by my panic. Like he was enjoying terrifying me like he was doing. We went like that for another four steps, him coming closer and me backing away—until my back hit a tree trunk.

“Did you not hear me? I was tricked! This was a mistake. I can’t?—”

“Blood doesn’t make mistakes, and neither do dragons,” he cut me off, so dangerously close now that I could see all of him, even in the dark.

“Except this time,” I forced myself to say, my voice dry, my mouth drier. “It made a mistake this time.”

“I don’t make mistakes,” he then whispered, his eyes falling on my lips, and he was waiting. He was daring me with that look to defy him.

So, I swallowed hard and said, “This time, you did.”

The corners of his lips turned up. “I am Valentine Evernight, ruler of the Evernight Court…” He leaned closer and closer, unblinking eyes holding mine captive, and I wanted to become one with the tree behind me, but I was too paralyzed by his proximity to move away.

“…and you dare call me a liar?”

His words were a whisper, caressing my skin, falling on me like Mama Si’s magic had and I’d never noticed before—except this was more powerful. So fucking intense my knees were shaking, and it took all of my willpower to just close my eyes, to call to my mind, to fake bravery I didn’t have.

“Your heart beats so fast,” he then said, looking down at my chest like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Like he really could hear the urgency with which my heart slammed against my ribcage with every beat. “Your fear smells delicious, human.”

I dug my fingernails in my palms until it hurt.

“Mama Si lied to me,” I said. “She liedto me about the offering. You have to understand—she lied to me.”

No matter what the ritual was or if dragons and blood could make mistakes, he had to see that it hadn’t been a fair offering. I only got in that water because she’d lied to me.

“Ah, I see,” the man said, leaning away a bit so that I could see more than just his face. So I could see the small dragon on his shoulder as well, and risk passing out even more.

Fuck!

“Mamayka Sionne,” he said, looking down at the ground for a moment. “The filthiest serpent in all the lands—the deadly kind. You were her offering.”

“Yes,” I said, praying with all my being that I could somehow get through to this man, and that I could ignore that dragon watching me so intently while I did. “Yes, I was. But she lied to me. She told me I’d simply become an Enchanted if Ennaris accepted me—she didn’t even mention dragons and sirens and biting and?—”

“And you believed her?” he cut me off, eyes slightly squinting.

“Well, yes.” She’d orchestrated everything so fucking well that I genuinely thought I’d stumbled upon the Burrow by myself, that the Burrow had invited me.

“Have you no instincts, then? To believe someone of her kind. The succubi feed on lust. They manipulate. They know how to play feelings. That is why you don’t trust a word coming out of their mouths.”

My brows narrowed. “Succubi?” I knew that word. I’d read about it in my fantasy novels many times.

“Succubi,” the man said with a nod. “You do not trust the succubi. Especially not the first one of their kind. The original seductress herself.”

Those words—the original seductress. Just like I’d read in that notebook under Mama Si’s picture, which she’d planted for me herself, no doubt. She’d awakened my curiosity, had dipped herself into mystery so masterfully—and I hadn’t noticed a damn thing.

“I didn’t know,” I said, feeling more pathetic than ever. “I didn’t know her. I just met her a month ago—I didn’t know!”

“You didn’t know, and you accepted a stranger’s promise to dive into a completely different world?”

Laughter burst out of me. It was raw and unhinged—exactly like my feelings toward myself at the moment. My God, this guy nailed it. He fucking nailed it word for word because that’s exactly what I’d done. So desperate was I to escape my life that I hadn’t asked questions. I hadn’t wanted to see the whole picture—a glimpse had sufficed simply because it had given me hope. Just a tiny bit of hope.

He stepped back a bit and watched me curiously as I laughed my heart out, and his dragon jumped off his shoulder as well, flying almost soundlessly around me and the tree at my back, as if he were analyzing me. As if he were measuring me.

“Yes, actually. That was exactlyit. Couldn’t have said it better myself. So, I guess I had all of this coming.”

The man—Valentine—didn’t smile or laugh or even roll his eyes, only watched me like he was trying to figure me out. Like he was as suspicious of me as I should have been of Mama Si—of everyone at the Paradise.

That name was so damn ironic. That place should have been called theHell instead.

“How much do you know about the Seven Isles?” he then asked me, no longer amused, and when the dragon sat on his shoulder again, wrapping that long tail around his neck, he turned to him and kind of nudged him with his nose a bit, like a secret sign or something.

“I know there’s a curse. I know the names of the Isles. I know that you’re having trouble reproducing. That’s why the Isles offer humans to Ennaris, so they can be turned into Enchanted and bring more magic to the Isles.” My voice was shaking as the memories returned to me.

And wasn’t it sad that those nights in the forest playing the piano with the animals as my audience was still the best memory of my whole life?

“Lies, most of them. Or rather…half-truths,” said Valentine, shaking his head, eyes wide as the realization hit him. “You have indeed been tricked.”

My heart skipped a long beat. “Exactly. I have been—exactly!” A tiny glimmer of hope suddenly shone down on me. “So, you see, I have to go back. I have to?—”

“Your blood, however, proves that you were meant to be here anyway, even if you were tricked,” he cut me off, and there went that stupid hope again, crashing and burning within the second.

“My blood proves that I was meant to be out there, far away from the Paradise to begin with,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Believe me, I’ve tasted you and I know, you were meant?—”

“Then you’re wrong!” I shouted. “You’re wrong—I wasn’t. You. Are. Wrong!”

The way he looked at me like I’d just slapped the shit out of him, and the dragon roared that awful sound before flying off his shoulder again, like he knew.

He knew that his owner was about to grab me by the fucking neck the next second.

My breath caught in my throat at the touch of his hand. Valentine came closer, his nose practically pressed to my cheek when I turned my head to the side, trying to get into that tree trunk altogether. He wasn’t squeezing me—on the contrary, his hand on my neck caressed me, his fingers running down my skin and to the spot where his dragon had bitten me, the blood now dried. He touched me so damn gently that every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps, and then his head lowered a bit and he was sniffing me. He was inhaling deeply, his thumb right over the dip of my collarbone.

“Look at me,” he finally whispered, and I’d never been more terrified in my life than when I did. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips parted, though he wasn’t breathing heavily. He was so, so close, the tips of our noses almost touching, his body practically holding me captive between him and the trunk.

“Your blood is mine, human,” he told me. “Your body belongs to me now.”

Oh, God. My knees were shaking so badly. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

If I only had the strength to push him off me…

“Oh, but you do,” he said, one corner of his lips turning up as his eyes fell on mine, and he looked hungry. He looked starved. “And your heart will be mine soon, too.”

He couldn’t be serious. “I will never belong to you,” I said, just in case he didn’t hear me the first time.

“Then I’ll just have to prove it until you believe me.”

Suddenly, his hand squeezed around my neck and his lips touched the spot right below my ear where my pulse was going fucking crazy. And he growled.

The man growled like a damn animal, so much more dangerous than that dragon on his shoulder. He didn’t kiss me, simply pressed those lips to me like he really did think he owned me.

My hands were somehow on his chest and I pushed him away with all my strength, but when he moved back and I saw his face again, saw the fangs slipping out his upper lip, my legs gave up on me.

Reality no longer made any sense. My legs let go but he was right there, and his arm was around my waist and he pulled me flush against his body, holding me up like I weighed nothing.

Vampire, my mind screamed. Vampire, vampire, vampire!

I’d seen movies. I’d read so many books. He had fangs—he was a goddamn vampire.

“Do you believe me yet?” he whispered, lips pressed to my cheek as he spoke, but my eyes were already closed. My mind was already shutting down.

I was gone within the minute, certain that I was never going to wake up again.