Page 104 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
I believed him. He hadn’t killed my sister or conspired with anyone else. And I no longer wanted him dead at my feet.
He’d given himself to me last night. He loved me. The fool. The sweet, wicked fool.
Still, it didn’t hurt to play with him a little. I looked past the dark iron of the blade reforged to my prince. “And you give this to me now when you’re so vulnerable. Aren’t you afraid I’ll cut off your cock?”
“My cock? Ha! No, you enjoy it too much.” He lifted his chin, preening and arrogant.
Then again, I wasn’t sure it counted as arrogance when it was so deserved.
He gave me a sheath and watched as I put the dagger inside, his amusement fading. “What if our plan doesn’t work? What will you do?”
I swallowed and tucked the knife away, taking my time. The full weight of my lie hit me. He was living in its illusion, thinking he’d be free of his monstrous appearance, able to mix freely with other fae back in Luminis. And he had to really believe I’d survive if he wasn’t asking me to lift the curse ahead of the performance.
“You mean, whether I’ll lift your curse?”
“Oh, that? No. I mean… It’s a good plan, but what if it doesn’t draw out the killer? What will you do?”
My jaw tightened to the point of pain as I stared at the sheathed dagger on my nightstand. “I’ll get him… or her. Even if I have to kill them all.”
When I looked up, I found him staring at me, wide-eyed, mouth open.
“Oh, don’t judge me,” I snapped, hating how the look raked me. “You killed someone for saying he’d put me out of my misery.”
He shook his head, eyebrows clenching together. “I’m not judging you, little bird. It’s…” His throat rose and fell slowly. “I can’t protect you from them all. There are too many. They’ll kill you if you try to take them all on. And I can’t…” The muscle in his jaw ticked.
“Then so be it. With a little luck, I’ll take the killer down before they get me.”
“But I want… I want you here. With me. After all that.” His hands bunched the sheets.
I tried to keep my breathing even, but the look he gave me seared my lungs like the frigid air on a winter’s day.
He wanted more than I had left.
“Sepher…” His name was sweet on my lips, but bitterness edged my tongue. “This thing between us has no future. BecauseIhave no future. Only revenge.”
He pressed his lips together. “But you could. Why not try? You could have years yet. We could—”
“I told you. This is going to kill me. I know it. And I don’t care if it does.”
He sucked in a breath.
And I realised it wasn’t entirely true. Not in the way it had been the night I first performed for him. Then, I truly hadn’t cared. I’d almost welcomed death. Part of me still did. But another part of me regretted that tonight was my last night. In the past few months, I felt more alive than I had in years.
“You don’t mean that.” He shook his head like that would persuade me.
“I do.” My eyes burned. My breaths shook with too much feeling to contain. I hated him for unlocking it in me. Because this was worse than being deadened. This feeling scouring my nerves and throat was worse than the guilt from marring his beautiful body. It was worse than my hate, worse than desire for a man I shouldn’t want, worse thananything.
It was the thing that had chased feeling from me.
A truth too horrible to let myself dwell on, so I’d always stayed adjacent to it, blaming someone else.
But it was the reason I deserved to die right alongside my sister’s killer.
I’d stayed so absorbed, first with hating him, then with planning this, I’d managed to evade it. But now it came for me, consuming and jagged.
His nostrils flared as his expression hardened. “Why?”
“I am a curse, Sepher.” I pulled my knees close, and I didn’t need to see the flickering frown on his face to know he didn’t understand.
