He turned swiftly. The movement sent a surge of featherlight air to skim along my body. A gentle sting flared across my scalp as he tugged sharply on the end of my hair, and I stilled, waiting to see what he would do. My heart kicked into a faster pace, and my breathing became uneven as he stepped right behind me. It was a dangerous game I was playing, fraught with quicksand.
It was impossible not to arch my neck to allow him to draw a single calloused fingertip slowly along the delicate column, all the way down to the curve of my exposed shoulder where the dress’s sleeve hung loose on my upper arm. That touch and the line of delicious heat it created narrowed my entire focus. A moment later I sucked in a sharp breath as his stubble-dustedcheek prickled my flesh. I felt a rake of teeth against my throat before he nudged his nose through my hair, and this time it was his lips that teased my sensitive ear. “Is Silas blond? Like your kind of blond?” he whispered, the low vibration of his gravelly voice arrowing lust right to my inner core. Beneath the thin dress, my thighs clenched helplessly, and I bit down hard on my bottom lip to stop the moan from escaping.
Holy Skalki…
I swallowed thickly, nodded, and turned around to face him as he straightened. I steeled myself against the thrall of the tamer, and let him play with the lock of hair, winding it around his finger as he asked in a more serious tone, “Is he about six foot high?” Silas was lean, more of a wiry build, and obviously not as tall as Graysen either, who towered above me at 6-foot-4. “Bright blue eyes? Like fucking bright-bright blue eyes.”
His question doused the flames of desire instantly. “Yes.” I frowned at his description because Graysen had obviously spotted Silas too. “You’ve seen him? Met him?”
“Kinda,” he said, rubbing the lock of hair between the tips of his fingers and thumb. His gaze sharpened on me. “Silas was there with…” His nostrils flared and a muscle ticked in his jaw. We both knew who he was referring to. He shrugged casually, but there was nothing casual in his bitter tone. “When I roughedhimup outside the engagement marquee. Told him to keep away from you.”
I blinked, and a small part of me softened. “You did?”
“Fuck yes.”
A sliver of me felt grateful that he’d done that. It hadn’t worked though.
“I thought Silas was his bodyguard,” he murmured.
“Guess not.”
His jaw flexed darkly before he agreed quietly, “Yeah, I guess not.”
I remained silent, and he took it as I’d intended. An invitation to ask another question. “How did Silas bind your wyrm?”
The Crowthers had to use physical force and Zrenyth’s wyrm-taming tools. But all Silas used was magical dust. My gaze slid sideways as I tapped my mouth with a fingertip, pretending to think on it.
Interesting question.
My hand settled on my hip. “Some sort of dust I inhaled in. I don’t know what it was. It trapped the wyrm, or rather, my wyrm had to shield itself from its dark magic.” And then I casually dropped, “I couldn’t breathe either.”
His gaze narrowed sharply. “You couldn’t breathe?”
“I thought I was going to suffocate to death,” I whispered, wide-eyed.
Shock barreled across his features, anger too. “How—”
“How did I manage to breathe again?”
I drifted idly toward the kitchen. My movement gently rippled my dress, and the soft fabric contoured to my figure. I didn’t need to see him to know that Graysen was blatantly staring. The intensity of his gaze sliding over my body blazed hotter than summer sunshine. But I caught the way his throat bobbed when I turned back toward him. Resting a hand on the kitchen counter, I smiled slyly. “Silas kissed me.”
A flare of silver, like a ribbon of lightning, erupted through the black of his irises. His entire body went rigid. “He did what?”
“He. Kissed. Me.”
Graysen strode right toward me, and I took a couple of quick steps backward. “And I liked it a lot,” I said, taunting him with a cruel smirk. “He’s a really good kisser.Reallygood.”
Graysen was almost upon me when he froze and keenly studied me.
A cold thread of unease slid through me the moment his shoulders relaxed and his eyes lit up with glee.
His feet skimmed the soft carpet as he widened his stance and hooked his thumbs through the jeans’ belt loops. Black hair slid sideways as he tilted his head and purposely ran his tongue over his teeth.
Your lies taste sweet like honey.
Fuck him!
I bared my teeth and hissed, flipping him off.
