17

A t midnight on the dot, I’m doing as Mel said and lounging in the bathtub, soaking in the lavender-scented bubbles with the window open. There’s a breeze that has goosebumps on my skin, but despite the slight tingling coldness, it’s relaxing. The mix of the rain and wind, the heat from the water, has me in a comfortable daze.

As soon as I got back from the food hall, I found an acceptable outfit that wasn’t my uniform. To be fair, the dress is Poppy’s, but it’s better than a short pleated skirt and a shirt Dane can rip apart without even looking at me. But as soon as I put it on, I decided against going to his room.

A part of me had wanted to, that insidious side of me that wanted his mouth and hands on my body. But the semi-sane part of me had overridden that urge and given me a kick up the ass.

So now, I lie amongst strongly fragranced bubbles and wait. Because Dane, in all his controlling and demanding ways, will be banging on my door by ten minutes past midnight at the latest. He’s going to warp his way into my room and speak to me like shit. Then he’ll make me feel infinitesimally smaller than everyone else in the academy and call me a weak human, in the same breath as accusing me of being someone else and kissing me.

Makes sense.

I check my phone beside the bathtub. It’s four minutes to midnight. I have a message from Mel, a picture of all the cuts covering Orsen’s body while she sits on his back. They’re both naked. I have no idea if she’s aware, but this is not the way humans act. Well, not most humans. They’ve just had sex, she’s torn his back apart, and is sending me the evidence? On a normal person, the gashes from her nails would be life threatening. He should be rushing to the medical wing for stitches.

But he’s grinning, puncture holes in his ass cheeks, with his thumb up.

I grimace and shut off my screen, then toss my phone onto the ground. Usually in this situation, I’d be scrolling through social media, watching a few funny cat videos, and talking to my dog, who’d be curled up in a ball on the bathmat. Now all I can do is lie here and listen to the haunted castle walls creak and the drip of each drop of water from the tap.

I sink into the tub until only my face is above the surface. My ears fill with water, and I’m met with silence, the dull thump of my heartbeat, and the warmth cocooning me.

I pretend I’m lying in my bed back home, listening to music, drawing on my sketchpad. I’d be doodling myself, dramatizing my cheekbones and lips like a caricature before drifting off to sleep. Then I’d be getting up to start the day and head to work. I’d serve my usual customers, clean up after them, then come back to the apartment to take Toodles for a walk.

I wouldn’t be in any sort of trouble, except financially.

I wonder why everything in my life keeps going wrong. I’ve always felt out of place, trying to fit in and be the same as everyone around me, yet as soon as I got here, something in me awoke, and the Seraphine who badly wanted to be seen died an instant, painless death.

You’re late. The voice is so clear, so deep, I almost gasp. I don’t like to be kept waiting, mortal.

The water turns cold, and I sit up in a panic, instantly chittering. I go to pull myself out of the tub when a wind gathers around me, the air shifting, and a firm, invisible hand forces me back into the water. Its grip on my shoulder reminds me of the hold Dane’s shadow hands had on my thighs after our mortal studies class, when he pinned me to the chair and demanded I leave the island.

The other hand wraps around my ankle, and before I can scream or fight my way out of the restraints of his power, I’m yanked beneath the surface. Ice cold encases me, and I’m dragged further. I go down, down, down into the darkness, until I realize I’m no longer in the bathtub, weeds and aquatic animals rubbing on my skin as I try to swim back up.

I desperately swim to try to break the surface, to reach the canopy of trees in sight.

But something tugs inside me, dizziness strikes, and the world shifts around me. The glow from the moon swirls, the coldness close to giving me hypothermia warms, and I silently scream in the water until I’m back in the bathtub and Dane is yanking me up by the chin and slamming his lips down on mine.

He pulls away just as fast, stepping back as I lie breathlessly confused in the water.

I splash his perfectly pressed suit. “What the hell, Dane?”

“You were late.”

I narrow my eyes, keeping my breasts covered in bubbles as Dane stares at me. “So you try to drown me?”

“No. I simply materialized you into the castle’s lake, left you for a minute to think about your actions, then brought you back.” He leans against the sink, crossing his arms. “I said midnight.”

I purse my lips. “I’m trying to take a bath. Get out.”

“No.” He glances at the discarded dress on the floor, the boots and tights. “We had an arrangement, which you failed to show up for.”

“You arranged it in your warped little mind,” I reply, swooping more bubbles to my chest to hide my nakedness. “I don’t remember agreeing.”

“Were you just going to fail task three?”

I shrug one shoulder, and his eye twitches in annoyance. I love pushing his buttons. Not only does it bring me joy to see him pissed off, admittedly, but he’s hot when he’s mad.

“Stand up and kiss me. We need to finish this before morning.”

“I’m in the bath, Dane,” I say, pointing out the obvious.

“And?”

“I’m naked!”

“I still don’t see the issue. I’m not going to look at you, mortal.” He straightens the cuffs of his crisp white shirt. “A body is a body. I already had my arms wrapped around yours to throw you into the lake.”

I sigh, slouching into the bath and making the water surge over the lip of the tub and splash his shoes. His eyes lower, and I hope his socks are wet.

“You’re doing the whiplash thing again. Are you going to go back to calling me a slut and making my life hell once this task is done?”

“Do you want me to?”

I frown. “Why would I want that?”

“I think you enjoy it.” He pushes from the sink, hands fisting in his pockets. “In fact, I know you do. The day we were in mortal studies and I had you pinned to the chair, you were soaked. I could smell it, could fucking feel it on my fingers even though I hadn’t touched you.”

“If you’re only going to state the obvious, you can leave.” I roll my eyes. “I’m trying to relax, and you’re ruining my mood.”

A large hand shoves my head underwater, holding me there by the hair. I know you can hear me. Drop the fucking attitude, stand the fuck up, and kiss me like a good little human.

I struggle against the burn in my lungs. My own worst enemy as I say in my head, Bite me.

Dane pulls me up, and as I gasp for air, he shoves his mouth against mine and claims all the oxygen from my lungs in a punishing kiss, sinking his teeth into my bottom lip.

I accidentally moan as he sucks where he just bit me.

Call me masochistic, but my pussy throbs from his rough touch, the way his mouth devours me, how he’s holding me up by fisting my hair.

He doesn’t kiss me for the full minute—he pulls away, yanks my head back, and sinks his teeth into my throat, then sucks the reddening skin, reaching down to grab me by the waist.

I yelp as he lifts me out of the bathtub and flips me so my legs bracket his sides. Both hands on my hips, he turns us and slams my back into the door just as his mouth crashes down on mine again.

“When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it,” he says, hissing as my nails drag up his nape to his hair. “So when I say to be in my room by midnight…”

I scream as the room warps into a smash of colors swirling around us, until they turn black and my back is pressed to a hard surface in a bedroom I don’t recognize.

“You’ll be in my room at fucking midnight.”