Page 15 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
So, I pulled my shoulders back like he was about to bestow on me a great honour. Holding his gaze, I smiled and raised my chin.
A flicker passed over his expression, but he took the collar from the cushion. He watched me as he brought it closer, gaze intent like I was a creature he stalked and he was ready for the instant I spotted the danger and ran.
Oh, I knew the danger.
And I would not run.
As he closed the last couple of inches, I lifted my chin a little higher. His gaze dipped. Did he see the pulse leaping in my throat?
The blood red leather of the collar reached my skin, soft and warm. His touch was surprisingly gentle as he lifted the hair from my neck and fastened the three small buckles. He ran the pad of his thumb over a particular spot in my neck. Yes, he’d seen my pulse and he enjoyed it.
His touch lingered, and it was another challenge—to cringe away.
So I leant in.
The way his brow and jaw tightened sent a thrill through me. It was pure delight, cutting through my deadened senses, as bright and addictive as an orgasm.
For the first time in I didn’t know how long, I smiled in a way that wasn’t ironic or stiff or a matter of politeness for someone else’s sake. I smiled forme.
Nose wrinkling, teeth baring, the prince curled his fingers around the back of my neck and yanked me closer. It spiked through me, part fear, part more of that terrible glee at displeasing him.
“I could bend you over this throne and fuck you in front of all these people you know.” He hissed the words, a dangerous whisper that I loved simply because it spelled out how damn annoyed he was. “None of them would help you. None would bat an eyelid.” His chest heaved at the open neck of his white shirt.
“Get on with it then,” I murmured back. “I have an appointment at three.”
He laughed, a vicious thing that showed his fangs and all the hard cruelty of his handsome face. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”
I smiled and bit back the reply burning on my tongue:Not as much as I will.
He wanted a game. I would give him a fucking game.
8
With that on my mind, whatever he told me to do, I did.
Starting with “Come.”
I followed him from the room. When we reached a cosy study, all warm-toned wood rather than white marble, he finally looked my way. His golden gaze trailed over me, so intense it might as well have been a caress.
“Turn.”
I did, letting him survey me from every angle.
I let him stroke his fingers over my hair. His claws caught in the strands, sending a flutter of fear through my stomach—a reminder of what he was. He gripped my chin and turned my head left and right, bending close to inspect me.
“Hmm.” At last, he nodded. “Celestine chose your outfit well.” The claw of his thumb scraped up my chin, and his slitted pupils followed. The light touch crept over my skin, a trickling sensation that wasn’t wholly unpleasant. He finished with that point resting on my lower lip.
Perhaps he wasn’t going to fuck me in front of all those people, but here in private.
It was only a decade of disciplined training that allowed me to hold still at the thought.
I wouldn’t back down. Even from that.
Maybe he thought me a typical human, easily scandalised. But travelling performers like us were a breed apart. I displayed myself night after night in skimpy outfits that would’ve got me kicked out of any other public place, but in a theatre, they were allowed.
Hells, they wereexpected.
And I’d pleased more patrons than I cared to remember in private performances.
