24
I wake with a startled gasp in the middle of the night, my heart nearly bounding from the chest I’m certain was just caved in.
Sitting up, I press my palm to my midsection, pulling it away to see there’s no blood or wound. Beads of sweat drip from my forehead, down my cheeks, and coat my chest. My back is soaked, and so is the mattress beneath my trembling form.
There’s no thunder. No lightning coming from a vortex on the ceiling above me. There isn’t a voice yelling at me to give in or a stranger hovering over me with a worried look on his face.
Who was he?
Was I dreaming?
I rub my hand down my face, wiping some of the perspiration from it.
I’m soaked. Drenched. And not in the way that Dane had me yesterday while everyone watched as our stunt doubles danced around us.
I touch my lips gently; they’re still tingling from the kiss. He didn’t need to kiss me the way he did—or deepen it so much that I warped from the inside out and begged for more.
His shadows are nearby, and I have no idea why I can sense them. As a human, I shouldn’t be able to do a lot of things, especially delving into the mind of the heir of an entire realm and grasping at his grief like a madwoman.
Something bad happened to Dane at one point in his life. I could feel it haunting him when I was in his head.
My skin heats at the memory of the orgasm rippling through me, which is weird, considering I’m in a bed that’s not mine, in a room I’ve only seen once. I should scream or jump out the bed, or at least be a little concerned.
I study the room, letting my eyes fall over the painting on the walls, the gathering of shadows, the rug settled on the floor in front of a fireplace, the calm flames heating the room.
Dane stands at the large window, staring out of his tower at the vast ocean of nothing. His hands are in his pockets, his waistcoat discarded on the seat pulled up beside the bed I was sleeping in.
The muscles upon muscles bundle at his shoulders, pulling taut at his white shirt, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. The ink peeks out at his nape, his forearms full of designs scribed by his realm. I can see from here the veins swelling beneath his skin from how hard he’s fisting his hands.
He’s silent, even as I pull myself into a seated position and hug my knees. The walls are crowded with silhouettes, all huddling to stare at me, waiting to see what Dane’s next move will be.
The little girl who usually appears in my room is here, and I tilt my head at her as she does the same, lifting a flower she must’ve picked from her shadow garden. The corner of my lip curls into a smile. A tall figure comes up beside her, takes her hand as the flower drops from her fingers, and they vanish.
I lick my dry lips and notice I’m in his clothes again—his shirt to be exact. A gasp falls from my lungs, but not because of what I’m wearing. My hands shake as I lift them in front of me. My fingertips are stained black, with tendrils snaking around my fingers as if ink has been injected into my veins.
“It will fade soon,” Dane’s deep voice says, though he doesn’t turn around. “I had to put you to sleep to try to extract the curse, but some of it still lingers.”
“The curse?”
“That’s what I said.”
His snappy tone should irk me, but I’m too stunned by my hands to give him some sort of retort or ask what his problem is.
Curse?
My heart beats hard in my chest, my breathing uneven. “I was cursed?”
“Very much so,” he says blankly.
“By who?” I ask, confused.
“That seems to have been erased from your memory, mortal. What is the point in you being here if someone can infiltrate your mind so easily?”
Still, he doesn’t turn around. He cracks his neck to the side, shoulders tensing even more.
“Weak and useless.”
I want to slap him. “That’s unnecessary. If I’m so useless and weak, why try to remove the curse? Why not let it do its job?”
A chuckle—a deep, low vibrating laugh that makes me shiver. “I ask myself the same question, and still, I fail to find an answer.”
How did I even get here?
I remember going to my dorm last night and… I went to sleep. Right? I got into the bathtub, read a book, and slipped into bed. I remember. I have a full memory of the sequence of last night’s events.
Right after he fingered me on the floor of the ballroom.
I close my mind off in a way I didn’t know I could. He doesn’t need to know that those images keep flying through my mind. That I want to see them.
I don’t like Dane Dalton, but that doesn’t mean I can’t want him.
Frustratingly so.
As much as being in his vicinity both annoys me and livens me up, I want to go back to my room and get away from him while I’m like this.
Instead of walking over and turning him around, then sinking to my knees like I want to, I ask, “Did you kidnap me again?”
He ignores me, but his shoulders are still tense as he fists his hands in his pockets.
“You need to stop doing that, if so. As much as I’m flattered you want to spend time with me and see me in your bed, I’m not interested. So if you could rein in the creepiness and go back to pretending I’m shit on the bottom of your shoes, that’d be great.”
I kick off the heavy blanket and get to my feet. His shirt reached my knees before, but now it’s higher up my thighs.
My brows pull together. “Why am I wearing your clothes?” I don’t ask him why I have no underwear on. My pussy is bare beneath the fabric. My breasts are free, my nipples rubbing against the material. “Why am I here?” I ask when he doesn’t respond. “Dane?”
“Don’t say my name,” he says quietly, but I can tell the words are escaping through gritting teeth. “Don’t even speak, mortal.”
I cross my arms. “What is going on?”
He’s always spoken to me like shit, but he’s acting like I cut off his balls and locked them in a jar somewhere far from him. Maybe I will, just to teach him a lesson. I’m sure there’s a witch in this school with the magic to do so.
His shirt smells of musk and spice, a combination I had no idea I’d crave when not around him, and I fasten the top two buttons to cover my cleavage. The idea that he stripped me shouldn’t heat my skin, but it does.
My feet are cold against the dark wooden flooring as I start to close the distance he’s put between us. “Hello?”
I walk into an invisible wall. “I said shut up.”
“Screw you. You can’t kidnap me and take my clothes. There are boundaries, Dane. Learn them.”
“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 you in 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 .”
I’m either going to strangle her or kiss her.
“Don’t you dare kiss me,” I say, wanting the opposite. “It’ll ruin everything. We covered that task, so we don’t need to kiss again.”
Dane glares down at me, hums, and curls a lock of hair behind my ear with a bloodstained hand. His fingertips glide against my cheek, and the touch sends shocks through my body, but I don’t show it. I swallow, gripping the dresser.
Before he can speak or do anything else, his head snaps up and directs his gaze to the door, his jaw ticking as his nostrils flare.
Dane pushes away from me and grabs his jacket. “I have an issue to attend to. Stay here. I won’t be long.”
“No, you’re staying here.” I step towards him. “I’m not a dog, Dane. Stop treating me like one. You can’t make me stay here.”
Something cold and heavy snakes around my arms, and I’m thrown onto the bed with a yelp. I look to see metal cuffs on each wrist with a chain bounding me to the headboard. “Hey! What the hell?”
“You’ll stay. If you leave, I cannot protect you.”
I tug at them and scowl at him, closing my legs so he can’t see my pussy and how annoyingly wet it is for him. “Who protects me from you?”
He rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”
“Very mature response,” I snap. “When will you return?”
“Soon. And when I do return, I want you to explain to me where you’ve been with Valin.”
I frown and stop pulling at the manacles on my wrists. “Valin? What are you talking about? I was with you yesterday during practice!”
He wets his lips and straightens his suit jacket. “That was three days ago.”
What? “I don’t understand,” I say, confused, my eyes flitting from side to side as I try to remember. “I went to my room once we finished practice and woke up in here.”
Right?
I even remember sending Poppy a text saying she’d love the cinema.
Dane tosses the duvet over my bottom half and wordlessly lights a candle. He notes the dumbfounded look on my face and huffs.
“After you failed to show up to class and your insufferable friends couldn’t find you, they came to me. I managed to track you and found you in the middle of the forest.” He doesn’t look at me, but his tone changes as he adds, “You were unconscious and have been for the last three days. I kept you in here until we got answers.”
My brows reach my hairline. “What? I’ve been asleep in your bed for three days?”
He gives me a look. “That’s what you pick up from what I said?”
“I went to my room after practice yesterday. I took a bath and read a book. Then I went to bed and texted Poppy before I fell asleep. You’re wrong.”
“I am not wrong. You were blue. Your lips and your skin were blue except for this.” He gestures to my hands without touching me. “At the time, I couldn’t do much, since your—a very intense power was attacking me for taking you. I tried to extract it, but it fought back and I only broke through it a few hours ago.”
That explains the mess of his face and clothes, the gash on his cheek that runs down his neck. I want to touch it, to reach forward and heal it. But I don’t have powers.
“I really don’t understand.” I bite my lip and try to think, but the play-by-play of me spending my night is clear. “I…” My eyes sting, frustration running wild in my head. “I…”
“You’re safe now—that’s the main thing.”
I scoff. “Like you care.”
I see the faintest smirk as he straightens away from me and turns towards the door. “You are my partner.”
My voice shakes as I speak again, stopping him in his steps. “Is there a possibility that I was… that our partnership for these tasks may be void.”
Dane glances over his shoulder at me. “You weren’t touched from what I could see or sense.”
“Stay. You can’t leave me here.”
He stares at me. “I’ll try to explain later. You’re safe here. It’s important for you to rest. My shadows will watch over you while I’m gone.”
“Wait.” I study the blood and gashes on him. “Why haven’t you healed yourself?”
“That’s none of your concern,” he says. “Sleep, mortal. Only then will you be strong enough to go back to your dormitory.”
Dane opens the drawer of his dresser and places a pile of clean clothes on the chair at the far end of the room. “Your clothes were covered in blood, so you need to wear mine.”
I look down at my body, at the long white shirt already on me, not seeing any wounds.
“It wasn’t your blood.”
I feel my expression dropping. “Whose blood then?”
He vanishes from the room without answering me, and I lie here in annoyance for the next three hours. The sun is due to come up, my skin itches from the cuffs, and his shirt has ridden up my thighs. My head lolls as I fall asleep, but I jump as the door swings open—then slams shut with an abrupt bang.
Dane stands there, breathing heavily, leaning his back against the wood and dropping his head back as his eyes close. “Fuck,” he mutters, green eyes looking at me as he opens them again. “Can you be any more of a fucking headache?”
“What have I apparently done now?”
“Doesn’t matter.” The cuffs around my wrists vanish, and the clean clothes appear in my lap. “Go bathe, mortal. I need to take you back to your dormitory before you get caught.”
“Why would I get caught?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Because by the time the sun appears on the horizon, I’ll be apprehended for murder, and I don’t want you anywhere near me when I do.”
My eyes widen, but something close to excitement shoots through me when it shouldn’t. “You killed someone?”
Dane narrows his eyes. Either he felt what I did, or he’s annoyed by the question. “Would that really surprise you?” he asks, walking into the middle of the room and removing his suit jacket and tie, then unfastening the buttons of the blood-stained shirt. “I am a monster to you after all.”
Monster.
A monster.
Why does that word make me shiver?
“Should I be worried about my own safety?” I ask him, hugging myself.
Dane takes a deep breath and stops undressing, staring at the painting on his wall before he lowers his head and drags his finger back and forth on the dresser, exactly where I had traced earlier. “No.”
I hiss as a burning sensation rips at my skin then, and the tendrils start to join together, like they’re stitching up my wrists. I stare at them with wide eyes.
Dane appears in front of me, taking both my hands. “This will hurt.”
“What will?”
I scream as pain ripples from my elbows to my fingertips, my eyes pinging open wide to stare at Dane, then down at my hands, where the black stains and tendrils slowly crawl onto him, sinking into his skin like they belong there. He closes his eyes, and his entire body tenses, his teeth clenched.
He’s taking the pain from me. Releasing my hands, he falls back, trying to catch his breath as tendrils stitch together at his face, the veins in his neck injected with black. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths until they bleed into his body, vanishing into nothing.
I stare at him. “What did you do?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he says. “How do you feel?”
“Fine. I feel fine.” I lower to his level, kneeling as I cup his face. “Did you just take that from me?”
“No, I can only take small amounts, or it will kill us both.” He sighs, not pulling my hand away. “As I said, you’re a headache, little mortal.”
We stare at each other, and my eyes drop to his mouth, the urge to close the distance almost unbearable, but instead, Dane stands, my hand falling from his face.
I watch him walk into his bathroom then hear him run water into his bathtub.
Walking in with my arms crossed, his shirt riding up my thighs, I stare at the golden tub in awe. His is huge compared to mine. It could fit five of us within it. Maybe it’s the magic, but it fills within seconds, and Dane turns the tap off.
He comes towards me, still panting from taking some of the curse. He reaches for the buttons of the shirt on my body and starts to unfasten them from the top.
“What are you doing?” I ask, breathing out the question without stopping him.
Having him so close to me has my nerve ending on fire, my muscles tingling, and my core pulsing. He smells so good, even if he’s covered in blood. It doesn’t mask his scent at all.
“Did you get shorter?”
“No,” he replies.
My brows pinch together as I look down at my body. “Did I get taller? Can the curse do that?”
Dane doesn’t answer me as he keeps unbuttoning the shirt. His eyes clash with mine, and I hold his stare, even as the shirt slides from my shoulders and pools at my feet. He doesn’t look down and doesn’t break eye contact as I take shallow breaths.
“Get in,” he orders, his eyes flickering to a bright silver, back to green, then to silver. “I’ll make sure no one is in your room.”
I glance at the bath and then back to him. “Can you stay?”
“That’s not a good idea. Do you forget I’m about to be apprehended?” The silver of his eyes brightens a touch as he tuts and pushes hair behind my ear again, stepping forward until my naked breasts press against his blood-soaked shirt. “There isn’t enough time for us to finish the rest of the tasks.”
“We could finish task four.”
He tilts his head ever so slightly.
I gulp, pushing aside my nerves as I reach for his belt, tugging it free from the loops. Dane watches me carefully as I throw it aside and quickly unbutton his pants, dipping my hand under the waistband and grabbing his hard cock.
Although I already knew it was thick and long from him dry-fucking me in my bed, I gulp harshly at how my fingers barely touch as I wrap them around the thickness of him.
The low, deep groan from his throat has me wanting him even more. His cock is warm, soft, thick and long, and I wonder if I could fit it into my mouth without dying.
My palm traces the veins as I pump him in my hand, watching him slowly lose control as I walk him back until he hits the sink.
I use my free hand to push his pants down while I stroke the length of him, from base to tip, and watch as his lips part.
Fuck .
I twist my wrist when I reach the swollen head, leaking with precum, and he tenses all over as I swipe it with my thumb and smear it over the head of his cock. He drops his head back, dried blood and black veins all over. I want to lick the skin and suck it between my teeth, to mark him for others to see.
His hand flies up to my throat, not cutting my air supply off but showing that even though I’m stroking him with my hand, he’s in control. He keeps his fingers around my throat while I pump him harder, tightening my grip, more precum leaking over my fingers.
Dane thrusts into my hand, his grip on my throat loosening as he lets out a fuck and a groan.
I want to sink to my knees and suck him into my mouth. I want to drain him of every drop of cum and make him admit that he’s mine. I want to dominate him, for him to praise me but also degrade me. I want all of it as I feel something twisting at my core, my spine tingling as warmth gathers between my legs.
A faint echo of an intense high has me moaning as Dane lowers his forehead to the top of my head and groans so deep, I feel it everywhere. He orgasms from my touch, and his hips freeze, no longer thrusting into my palm as he releases up my arm and down my leg.
Instead of pushing himself away from me, Dane captures the cum trailing down my thigh, his other hand flexing on my throat as he shoves his fingers deep inside me. I gasp, whimpering as he pushes another thick finger inside and fucks me with them until I find my own release.
As mine smashes into me, it bleeds into Dane, and we both let out gasps as we fall against each other. More cum drips from his cock as I pulse around his fingers, throbbing, strangling him as his second orgasm vibrates against me, and I scream as I gush around his fingers.
I want all your firsts, my love. Your firsts and lasts and forever.
You can take it.
Does it hurt?
I’ll stop.
You have me until you no longer need me.
Marry me, not him.
I’m not sure how long or how many times, but each time one releases, the other follows—a back and forth that has us dropping to the floor and panting in our mess. He covers my mouth with his palm just as he presses his thumb to my clit and rubs, easing more of his cum inside me with his fingers, stretching me as his length swells in my hand.
“Should we skip straight to our most awaited task? Should I fuck you into oblivion and keep you trapped there?”
I nod and squeeze his cock in my hand. There is so much cum from us both that I have no idea how we have the energy to keep going, but I know we can.
“Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.” I wince as he pulls his fingers from me, gathers his cum from my thigh, and drives his fingers between my lips, shoving them into my throat as his knuckles hit my teeth.
Dane hums. “Such a good little human.”
I gag around them, tasting the mixture of his cum and mine as he drags them back out against my tongue with dilated pupils.
He rubs his thumb across my bottom lip, a mass of shadows gathering above him as they urge us on.
Dane’s voice is deep as he says, “Part your thighs so I can fuck you.”
I don’t think about protection or birth control, though I really should.
I widen my legs, and he shifts so he’s above me, my back to the tiles. He strokes himself once, my eyes zoning into the glowing tattoo on the underside of his cock.
I want to ask him what the tattoo is, but all I can focus on is having it inside me.
“Remember, you asked for this. I warned you before what could happen if I fucked you.”
“Don’t make me hate you even more,” I reply, panting. “Hurry up.”
“This changes nothing between us.”
“Agreed,” I fire back.
A smile breaks out across my face, and his silver eyes flash with his own smile as he lowers his body onto mine.
“Take a deep breath,” he whispers, his nose nudging mine as he lines his cock up to my entrance.
Before he can crash his mouth down on mine or thrust his cock inside me, his room door is blasted open, and the castle guards storm in.