Page 63 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
I must’ve slipped into a kind of dozing unconsciousness as he carried me, because the next thing I was aware of was him lowering me onto the bed.
Now he was going to fuck me. When I couldn’t enjoy it. Yes, that was just the kind of thing he would do. Maybe he’d try to shame me by coming on my face or something like that. I didn’t have the strength to stop him… but he’d stopped when I’d asked, so maybe he wouldn’t fuck me if I told him no.
But rather than peeling the towel away, he wrapped it tighter around me, circled his arms around that, and sat against the headboard with me in his lap. A faint hum like a purr rumbled from his chest into my trembling body. It soothed me, easing my breaths, stopping my shaking. He stroked my hair and my cheeks, my closed eyelids.
His touch wasn’t too much now. It coaxed me back from the brink. I didn’t even know when I’d stopped crying, but he smoothed the tears from my skin and kissed my brow.
Inside, the ache of wanting was nothing but a memory. The ache of too much also faded, and in its place, my body hummed in contentment. I could feel my pulse at my throat, my heart in my chest. I was acutely aware of the softness of the towel, the bright sparks of thought flashing through my mind.
Something deep and smooth settled in me. A kind of peace.
Because I was alive. And I’d never felt it so keenly.
That was what he’d brought out in me from the start. Fearing he was about to execute me was the most alive I’d ever felt until that point. His challenge, his punishments, the gauntlet he threw at my feet—they’d only made me feel it even more.
Hating him. Fearing him. Refusing to back down from him. All of it had shot through me with the raw intensity of a decade of lost emotions. A decade of living death. A decade of grief denied. A decade where I’d lived on obsession and nothing else.
And now I felt.
Fuck, how I felt.
It burned. It tore. It cradled and consumed. It was bright fire and even brighter ice. It hurt and pleased and froze me and drove me.
And he, the fae who had murdered my sister, had unlocked it all.
“I hate you.” I didn’t know how long had passed since we’d reached the bed, but I had enough control over my body again to speak. I did it now, glaring up at him with all the vicious intensity I’d nursed.
My peace evaporated on my heaving breaths. “I fucking hate you.”
His eyebrows clenched together, and he narrowed his eyes, as though he was trying to work out what he was looking at. “I’m only trying to look after you. Why does that bother you so much?”
“Why?” I laughed and fought against his hold and the tightly wrapped towel.
He’d forgotten. How many humans had he killed that he could so easily dismiss the memory?
I would make him remember.
“Because you killed my sister, you piece of shit.”
The creases between his eyebrows deepened like he was confused.
Confused because he didn’t remember. Didn’t care. Didn’t give a flying fuck about Zinnia, about the life he’d taken or about the one he’d left ruined.
I flailed my way free from the towel, lungs searing as I rolled to my knees, facing him, not caring that I was naked.
“Ten years ago. Luminis.” Tears burned my eyes, spittle flecked my words. “The Gilded Suns performed for Dawn Court, then Zinnia the Delectable gave you and your friends a private performance.”
The creases had faded, and now his eyebrows inched up. Oh, yes, it was all coming back to him now.
Nowhe fucking remembered.
“You must not have enjoyed her much—or maybe too much—because you left her in the alleyway outside. You’d crushed the life from her throat and left her lying there like a broken toy.” The trembling was back now, but for a vastly different reason. Rage seized my muscles, even though they were weak from all he’d done to me in the bath. “You thought you’d got away with it. Of course you did—you’re a fucking prince. Untouchable. Above the law.”
I laughed, bitter and biting, teeth bared. More monstrous than human, like his beast man form. “But I saw. I saw you.” I pointed at him, like I did when I unleashed my curses.
My hand shook. My heart thundered. My throat scorched with each word.
The slumbering magic in me stirred, like smoke curling from the embers of a fire thought extinguished.
