Fear is something I understand well. She’s alone with the brutal prince who massacred her family, tortured and slaughtered a courtier just last night, and probably—if she believes the rumors—murdered his brother. Her enemy. And here, she’s at my mercy.
The way she slightly backs off when my fingers close around her forearm pulls some strings in my black heart. The overwhelming need to reassure her that she’s safe with me, that I’d never hurt her, flushes over me. But I can’t promise her that.
“Talysse.” My hands at my sides, I realize how menacing I look, not only because of my size and my ability to summon a deadly weapon out of thin air. And just like that, she turns on her heel and darts into the thicket.
That’s a bad idea.
No Unseelie can resist a good chase.
The dormant predator in me, a remnant of times when my kind stalked the night and fought beasts over food and shelter, awakens. This might get dangerous and she’s fragile human, a tiny voice inside me warns, but it’s quickly muffled by the roar of my blood. This human isnotthat fragile.
Drawing the tip of my tongue over the sharp edges of my canines, I give chase, relishing in the thrill of the hunt.
Talysse
The cottage
Branches whip me and pull my hair as if that beautiful and cursed place is doing Aedias’s bidding.
Where was the way out of this unreal place? My flower wreath is lost somewhere, and his steps are getting closer.
I am sure that sometime during his life at the tyrannical Fae court, the prince has lost his mind. After gruesomely murdering two of his own people and putting their heads on spikes, he brings me to this secluded place, away from witnesses. He’d probably pin my disappearance on the old Dryad, who’s not clear in the head anymore.
I swiftly change directions like a mouse trying to outsmart the cat, but alas. In a blink, the prince is on me, straddling me, pinning me to the cold, damp grass. We’re both panting, our hot breaths mingling.
“Talysse,” he rasps, his eyes completely black now, a predator ready to carve out my heart, “why are you running?”
I try to free myself from his iron grasp, wiggling like a ferret. The weight of his hard, muscled body over mine stirs other very wrong sensations.
“You know very well why I’m running, you murdering monster—”
“I brought you here to make you see, Talysse.”
“Oh, and you couldn’t do that somewhere else? Was that Dryad digging my grave?” He closes his fingers around my wrists and pins them over my head while I still try to wiggle myself free, but every friction makes me crave more, and I whip my head to the side, so confused about this contradiction between body and mind.
“Don’t be silly, Talysse. Give me a chance to show you that I’m more than…a murdering monster.” He tightens his grip around my wrists and vulnerability flashes in his eyes. I cease my thrashing, searching for more of it. Searching for something that would prove him right.
There’s no denying the pull between us: it’s the dark, lethal curiosity that lures the traveler to get closer to the chasm and peek into it; the morbid fascination of the explorer making him venture deeper into the cavern maze, though he already knows that there’s no way back. My heart and my body betray me when he’s near, and when he’s so close that I feel his mad heartbeat, I cannot lie to myself.
“Are you really?”
“Elders damn you, woman.” His lips brush against my ear, sending a jolt of undeniable, guilt-loaded pleasure down my spine; a pleasure I try to fight by angling a knee and aiming at his—
“Why are you fighting? Just listen to me, Atos, take you!” he curses and, to my utter embarrassment, sees through my plan to kick him in the royal jewels and forces my legs open, settling at my center and robbing me of the possibility of hurting him. For a moment, we stay like that, staring at each other, searching our eyes.
“Will you listen?” His voice drops to a low, hoarse whisper.
“Mmmmhm—” is all that escapes my lips as I suddenly become hyper-aware of the thick hardness rubbing against my already painfully throbbing labia. He’s hard. The realization hits me like a visceral lightning bolt of need, and I arch my back into him.
“You are safe here with me, Talysse,” he murmurs, and his hot breath, combined with his scent, makes the hairs on my nape stand up.
“We’re enemies, Aeidas. Only one is to walk out of this alive.” His eyes linger on my lips when I say that. Closer. Maybe reminding us of the obvious will bring us both to our senses.
“We are. But I gave you my word that nothing would harm you under my roof. And I’ve brought you here to make you understand—” He looks away, eyes closed, and muscle trembles in his jaw as if he’s battling something. Something dark and primal.
His body tenses, and I’m trembling beneath him, reining all my willpower into not rubbing myself against his hard length. Elders, even Myrtle, would blush at this whole situation.
“Make me understand what?” I mumble, grateful I managed to form a question.
