Page 96 of How Does It Feel?

As if I alone gave the oxygen that allowed him life.

He studied me as raw power flooded the space around him. His black wings of smoke spread so wide it felt as if the room struggled to contain them. Emotion filled the pools of sky-blue eyes studying my face. His dark brows furrowed, and his mouth was only a thin line with a look of shaken wonder on his face. I felt him tighten his grip on me as he began to walk, carrying me out of the ballroom.

Darkness fought to close the edges of my eyes again, and I prayed this was just the sedative effects of the venom and not my death.

“You are safe now, lamb. I’ve got you,” he whispered with a trembling voice.

“She will be killed in the last trial, Mendax, no matter what you say. I will not keep a human in my bloodline. I run the next trial, and she doesn’t make it out.” The queen’s cold shout echoed around us.

The sound of large doors being opened sounded at the same time as a cool breeze hit me, but my eyes had already fastened shut. Only the warm feel of Mendax’s body as he pulled me against him and the steady pace of his haggard breathing grounded me.

“I can lose everything, but not you. I can’t lose you,” he whispered so quietly I knew I wasn’t meant to hear.

Pure warmth and protection radiated through my mind like a cocoon of sweet and cozy feelings.

It was from him, and it felt like a dirty, vulnerable secret I wasn’t supposed to know.

* * *

“Get away from me,” I growled as the oversized shadow gave me a predatory stare.

I had passed out sometime after we had ridden in the carriage and slept the entire way back.

I wasn’t sure if the queen had ridden back with us, but in the few hours it took to get back to the Unseelie castle, it had become deserted. The night always seemed to be filled with shadows and smoke when I saw it, so I still had no idea what part of the day it actually was.

“Callie, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a choice. There could still be a pocket of venom in the puncture marks, and I will not risk it,” he gritted through his teeth, barely hiding his frustration.

“Funny words from the person who caused the venom,” I bit out as harshly as I could. As if my words were the snake itself striking.

I edged toward the door of the room he had taken me into. I just wanted to get away from him and his sexy amber-smelling body.

I was exhausted, but I wasn’t about to let him suck the poison out of my bite.

The bite above my breast.

He was the villain in my story.

The merciless shadow that felt nothing and cared for no one.

He had tried to kill me numerous times. He alone had caused me more pain and anguish than I had felt my entire life, and I would not forget that.

So then why did I find myself wanting more of him? Needing him?

I knew there was more to him than he let on. I’d witnessed kindness and gentleness from the horrifying umbra. After speaking to the maids, I knew he wasn’t as bad as he made himself out to be. Or maybe he was, but not to me.

I should feel terrified and frightened by his presence, but instead, I found myself only wondering what he would feel like under my fingers. He had discovered how my skin felt—tasted.

I craved to know what his Fae skin felt like under me—inside me.

I shook my head so hard my hair whipped the wall, and I silently begged my idiotic brain to right itself from these horrible, delusional thoughts.

He was the bad guy.

You didn’t care about the bad guy. You didn’t want to be near the bad guy. You didn’t want to make the bad guy smile so hard that it caused something in your gut to ache.

You didn’t fall into the bad guy’s traps, and you certainly—certainly—didn’t fall in love with him.

He ran his large hands over his face and through his silky black hair, attempting to harness his growing anger.