If Krave stayed in the Torch, who would he be? I bet he’d have women, a few of them pawing all over him. Friends—I know he’d have friends. I’ve met Phoenix and the others, and I know they would take care of him. But instead, he’s had a life of servitude. A life of cruelty.
“Why did you come here to the fae realm, Krave?” When the words gasp out of my mouth like a whispered accusation, his brows pull together as if it’s the most obvious thing in all the realms.
My heart’s pounding hard as if it, too, knows, and I’m the only stupid fool left wondering.
His head dips low, his smooth cheek brushing along mine before his mouth grazes over the outer shell of my ear in the most intimate way.
“Because my soul knew that my mate was here.”
A shiver slides down my spine so fast, it takes over my entire body in a hard tremble that I can’t hide.
My chin lifts, and he meets my searching gaze with a look of pure sincerity.
Long black fingers leave from my hip, and soon, he’s tracing the curve of my jaw. And more shivers follow in the wake of that sweet, igniting touch.
“I came wandering into this little fae castle to find what my heart knew belonged to it. And I found your dear old daddy instead. The King beat me with a fire poker for breaking into his ill-guarded home. I told him he needed better security on the west wing, but did he listen to me?” His head shakes slightly with a roll of his big eyes. Before a seriousness overtakes his hauntingly handsome features. “He broke my hand.” His fingers shake just slightly along my cheek. “I refused to leave, though. And the moment he said your name, the moment he whispered the sweetest words I’d never heard, I knew.” The intent way his eyes are locked on mine demands me to be closer. My chest is pressed hard against his, and I have absolutely no idea how he’s still leading us around the shining ballroom with how little space I’m giving him. “He lifted the metal rod high above his head, and I didn’t flinch as the wordsAries Sinclaireechoed through my brain over and over again.” Smoke slips from his fingertip, and just faintly, the furious face of my father can be seen in the sheer inky colors of his magic.
My palm lifts, and I take his trembling hand in mine. He stares at our hands interlocked for a long moment, before a heavy breath pushes from his lungs, and he shakes the serious look away.
He covers it with a wide, fake smile that hurts my heart to look at.
“Why didn’t he kill you, Krave?” It’s my turn to brush my fingers beneath the metal piercing at the center of his lower lip. It shines beneath the golden light as his eyes dim with a memory I don’t know if I want to hear or not.
“Because I said your sweet name right back to him. I said it over and over and over again. My mind was obsessed with the sound of your name. And then my magic was, too. Clouds of smoke drew every angle of your alluring features. The bow of your lip. The curve of your delicate neck. The warmth of your smile. It glittered around us, and I locked eyes with a woman I’d never met before. Someone my heart knew even if my mind never did. I remember thinking—” he swallows hard, shifting his attention away from me to the other dancers swirling around us. He pauses on my father standing at the back of the room, and the incubus’s smile softens with genuine amusement. “I remember thinking, this intoxicatingly beautiful woman is going to get me killed someday.”
My heart dips without a solid beat to support it.
My father knew Krave was my mate. He knew that he loved me. And he used that love against us.
Krave bound himself to a man who hated him, just to be near me. Soon, I hated the demon, too, for it. It never made him change his feelings about me, though. He never once stopped wanting me.
My arms cling tighter around his lithe frame, so tight he stops swaying through the crowd. We stand there, my face tucked into the crook of his neck as he just holds me. Gentle music carries on without us. Laughter and whispers surround us. None of it breaks through to the two of us. He simply holds me, and I hope he never ever lets me go.
“I love you, Krave.” My voice cuts out with an uneven breath against his skin.
Long fingers slide beneath my chin until I’m looking up at the lost look in his eyes. His attention sweeps over the rawness of my features, the raggedness of the breaths parting my lips.
“And I have loved you since the moment I locked eyes with the smoky shadows of my own magic. It seems that, sometimes, the shadows love us back.”
Sometimes the shadows love us back.
My heart breaks for him and pounds for him all at the same time. There’s darkness between us. It’ll always be there. We can’t change that. But I love him more because of that darkness.
My heels angle forward, and I lift against him until my mouth almost brushes his. A sweet smile is against his lips as his head dips down to meet me halfway.
Then a booming voice cuts through the veil we’ve created around us.
“Friends, friends,” my father calls out to his loyal subjects.
Krave pulls back from me just slightly, his eyes closing slowly.
Dear old daddy is still pushing us apart, it seems.
My head falls with my forehead resting against Krave’s pressed black button-down.Can this night just be over? Can we be done? What else is there to show off to these people that he hasn’t already shown off before?
“Have I forgotten to tell you about the main event?” My father asks, his voice carrying through the room of excited murmurs. I glance over to him, and his long silver hair shifts around him as he looks out at his people. Oddly, his gaze settles on me. “Tonight, we’ll be having a battle. Right here. Among us. We will smell the sweat and taste the blood as if the fight is our own.”
What. The. Fuck.
