Page 78 of Tempt

He’s pretty in a way that I’m not. Delicate, kind of femme in his crop tops and the way he poses with his leg up and his hip out. He seems happy in every single one of the images. There’s one of him with people at the beach—I recognize the wooden fencing at the lake near the spot my friends and I always used to go to drink when my parents thought I was at a sleepover.

There are a couple of him hiking, one of him outside a club which is blurry, but his smile is easy to see from miles away.

He looked like he had a full, rich life, and I can’t help but wonder how he got into this. And when.

Was he stolen?

Was he in trouble, forced into this like I was, in order to protect his life?

A jolt hits me in the center of my chest, and it takes a moment to realize it’s anger. And it isn’t mine. It’s Eissa’s. When I turn my head, I realize he’s standing in the doorway. His eyes are blazing, ears pulled back, and his claws are elongated further than I’ve ever seen them.

I swear they slice into his skin when he lifts his hands to sign, ‘This room is not for you.’

A part of me is scared. His fangs are long and digging into his lower lip, and I’m keenly aware that he could rip into my neck and I’d bleed out, and no one would ever find out the truth.

He must read that thought because suddenly he looks smaller. His shoulders hunch, and I see him swallow thickly. ‘I would never hurt you.’

I feel his pain—that I’d ever assume he’d hurt me. Not after everything he’s risked to bring me here and keep me safe. But it’s another moment of profound realization that we are different.

He’s a Vyastil.

I am not.

‘Who?’ I ask, holding up the photo.

Eissa hesitates, then crosses the room. I feel the heavy thud of his clawed feet as he moves toward me, and his fingers gently pluck the photo from my hands. He stares down at it for a long time, then his arm reaches past me and drops it back into the trunk.

It closes with a thud I can feel in my chest, and I watch as he locks it up, takes the other trunk full of clothes, and sets it on top. It’s almost like he’s trying to keep the memories trapped.

When he makes no move to explain, I grab his arm, and he jolts. The contact between us is intense. Heat and want roll through me, coming from my own desire, but also from his.

I expect him to rip himself away and put distance between us, but all he does is stare at my hand.

After a short forever, I take pity on him and let go, but only to ask, ‘You’re not going to tell me, are you?’

His hands lift, then fall to his sides, then lift again. His fingers aren’t trembling, but I can see the effort it takes him to reply. ‘Not today.’

And then he turns and walks away, leaving me in the room with the knowledge that while he has me here in his space, I’m not welcome everywhere.

sixteen

LUCA

It bothers me more than I can articulate—the feeling of being present and yet unwelcome. It lingers in my bones, making an itch form under my skin, sinking deep into my muscles.

I want to work out, go to the gym, chat with Deaf friends, but I’m alone in this other world. Isolated.

It makes me angry. With Zane for being a shit, with Dante for giving in so easily, with Eissa for suggesting this as a solution in the first place.

But most of all, I’m angry with myself. For not minding my own business, for once again getting involved in something that never concerned me in the first place. And now here I am. In a strange world with a…creature who wants me and yet will never have me. Who watches me and yet never touches.

It’s infuriating.

My mind goes to the human I met while wandering around Eissa’s place. How open he was, how alive. I want to meet with him again, to find a friend here on Erethar. But I don’t know if that’s possible. The way that Vyastil curled his tail around Lucie’s thigh, pulling him into his body…possessing him, owning him.

Eissa has done that once or twice, but always pulled away after. He’s made it known that taking my body, sucking my cock, isn’t what he really wants, despite me feeling his yearning when I walk into a room, or when I merely look his way.

But he never does anything more than spy, prodding into those places in my skull that make me ache for more.