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Maybe I’m—
“You don’t need to fear me…” Arwan says, his words drifting off with clear invitation.
“Liliana,” I find myself answering.
“Liliana,” he purrs in response with that delicious accent of his, making a shiver run up my spine.
His movements draw my attention to his dark fingers trailing through the furs. He seems to have noticed I didn’t like him messing them up, but now he’s appreciating them and not disturbing the piles I must have made in the night.
So I appreciate him, too. His left arm is completely black, no doubt due to the dark magic he wields, but the look suits him. I watch as he disrupts the patterns with delicate strokes. Morning light glints off his rings with each caress.
I wonder what it would feel like to have that caress on my skin?
Shaking my head, I return my focus to the royal. He most certainly is more than trained in seduction arts.
He knows how to perform magic without even using words.
I can spot the glint of blue blinking in the air around him, confirming my suspicions. “Do you have to bespell every woman you want to sleep with?” I ask.
His eyes widen, then he releases a deep-throated laugh that almost sounds genuine. He leans in, completely filling up all the space around me with his presence. My throat constricts as all the oxygen seems to rush out of the room. “I don’t need magic to persuade your body. I can see you’re primed enough already. Unfortunately, that’s not why I’m here.”
When he finally leans back, I suck in a breath as stars sprinkle my vision.
My fingers immediately go to the vials on my thigh, but they aren’t there. Panic makes me completely freeze.
Arwan notices the movement, but he doesn’t remark on it. Instead, he holds out his hand. “You know nothing of this place. If you wish to survive the next fourty-eight hours, you’re going to have to trust me.”
What is it with these damn males and unearned trust?
And where the hell are my vials?
“Why do you care if I survive?” I ask bluntly as I scan the bedsheets. Maybe the strap was loose enough for me to kick the whole thing off. No one could have found it… right?
Arwan twists his palm, revealing a hand mirror that puffs into existence. Glittering blue stars sprinkle around it before fading. “See for yourself.”
Frowning, I shove away worries about my missing vials as I take the hand mirror, then hold it up.
At first, I see my own pitiful reflection and cringe.
Arwan is right. My ruffled hair and flushed cheeks make me look positively ready to be claimed. It’s not my fault that this place has insanely hot males and an imminent fear of death that makes inhibitions seem like a waste of energy.
But then the surface changes, showing me Arwan on what looks like a battlefield.
The darkness overtaking his left arm has spread to his chest, feeding dark veins up his neck and across his torso. He cringes in pain, then cries out a word, maybe a name, but I can’t make it out. The mirror only shows the image. There’s no sound.
Then the vision goes dark.
Lowering the mirror, I give Arwan a raised brow. “Am I supposed to know what that was?”
His easy smirk has vanished in favor of a clenched jaw. He relaxes before finally answering. “My death,” he says simply.
“You can see your own death?” I marvel. Growing up in the Magic Sector has allowed me to observe a lot of interesting spells, but I’ve never witnessed anyone successfully pull off one like that.
He curls his fingers, the gesture making the mirror vanish again. “It’s a simple spell,” he says as if he didn’t just break reality as I know it. “My life should be immortal, but that changed last night.”
Last night? I wonder, thinking back to what could possibly have taken away a Monster Isle Royal’s immortality.
And what that might have to do with me.
