Page 143 of Taken By Shadows

“That once I tasted you, I wouldn’t be able to stop. And I didn’t want to taste something I could never have again. I didn’t want to force you. I didn’t want you to think you had to please me to save yourself.”

Oh.

I had given myself to Eryk to save Kaed.

Somehow, that was different. Somehow, that was a reasonable price.

“You’ve tasted me now …” I was free to go if I chose it. That’s what he’d said. I didn’t know if that was what I wanted. “Do you think you can let me go now? Did you taste enough? Maybe I wasn’t what you thought.” He was a lord. A prince.

In response, he backed me up against the wall of a building. Heat rushed to my throat and my lashes fluttered at the instant intrusion into my space. It was like having a beast finally let you know you had been cornered. It ignited something in me. Something primal. Something like coals awakening to set a blaze inside of me.

My palms flattened against the … glass? There was smooth glass behind me. Warm lights poured out onto the lawn and painted Kaed’s face in a golden balm.

His hips met mine. Fireworks sparked through my skin where his body pressed into me, testing, finding where it fit.

“What do you think?” he said, low and delicious in my ear, his hand punishing as it gripped my hip.

A broken tumble of air was my only answer. It wasn’t an answer. But I couldn’t think. I was desperate to taste his lips again.

But I couldn’t just give that to him. He already had enough power over me, over my body. The traitorous little clenches that gripped me, even now as I fought them, betrayed me.

How was I supposed to endure this with him pinned to me?

My hand fell to a round knob behind me.

With a quick turn, I pushed, and I slipped inside the glass door of the greenhouse and backed away from Kaed, a smile playing with my lips.

The look in his eyes as he followed me was predatory.

I liked it.

The tropical heat inside was stifling. My blood warmed, and my skin pricked with beads of sweat.

The building was an ornate glasshouse with a rounded roof. Ironwork arms were painted white and curved like vines as they held up the structure.

Nestled behind ferns and palms sat dozens of exotic plants I would never be able to name despite the hours of botanical books I’d been reading. Amongst the foliage, a spiral staircase curved up to a high walkway overlooking the entire enclosure. Palm trees with heavy fronds burst onto the paths and over the ironwork. Ferns provided a soft green blanket for the flower beds. There was a stillness as the greenery breathed and slept in the cosy quiet.

Kaed’s footsteps clanked behind me, echoing on the metal irrigation grates that lined the floors as he stalked closer.

Butterfly wings beat in my stomach. More like bat wings. Fierce. Frantic.

But I resisted the urge to panic, to flit away with their beats.

“Peeeach.” His voice echoed through the glass building, and I bit down on my lip to stifle a cry. I had tried to run from him before. But this felt different. Like a game we were both playing.

“Going to catch me?” I let my tongue play with the words as I drew each out from behind the draped greenery.

I slipped behind a dense curtain of trailing ivy, watching him scent me between the chorus of blooms and frondescence.

“You can run if you want to, peach. It doesn’t matter. I’m faster.” His eyes darkened as he approached me. Blood rushed to my legs as I tried to dart away, my stomach went cold and hollowed out and my pulse hammered in my ears.

Kaed closed the gap between us before the next beat of my heart sounded.

His fingers pulled back the veil of ivy. “Not going to run?” he taunted.

I stood up on the tips of my toes and let my mouth come close to his. “I think you’d enjoy that too much,” I whispered.

Kaed’s breath was heavy as he regarded me.