His gaze darkens, and taking advantage of my momentary weakness, he swoops down and captures my lips with his.
The deep, drugging kiss incinerates every atom in my body. Soft lips, the briefest graze of tongue. The sultry spice of his taste—whiskey and something more. An addictive groan rumbles from his chest.
It’s over as quickly as it begins.
He sets me back and I’m breathless, my thighs clenching, core aching, the darkest impulse to pull him back to me to continue what we started.
“May I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Elias Kent,” the priest announces.
A camera hovers by my side, knocking me back into reality.
I’m married.
Married to the monster. The Shadow King.
Chapter 15: POSSESSION
I trace the feminineswirls on the marriage certificate, my finger trembling. A cold gust scrapes over my skin as I stand alone in the garden after the ceremony.
Lana Elise Farrah Anderson Kent.
Her scent lingers—roses, invisible here but burned into my memory.
Once, I couldn’t even read these words. I never imagined they’d be tied to my name.
“Lana Elise,” I whisper, grazing the elegant loops of her signature.
She’smine.
And God help the world if it tries to take her away from me.
Chapter 16: INTERLUDE—LETTERS ON THE LAKE
Kian
Past: Chicago, Twenty Years Ago
Once upon a time,her name had only existed as letters traced on my palm while our feet dangled in the freezing lake. Little did I know, her name would be permanently embedded in my heart.
“Aren’t you worried you’ll get in trouble? You ditched your class again,” I had asked her, my legs dipping into the icy water of Lake Michigan.
“I told them I was sick and would sleep in. No one questioned it.” Elise scrunched her nose. She met me again three days after I was caught shoplifting at the antique store. “It’s boring. Museums and stuff. I’ve seen them all. If they took me to a library, that’d be a different story.”
“Books?”
I must’ve made a face because she laughed. “What, you don’t like to read?”
Shame flamed my face. Those damn letters swirled in my vision. “Hate it. I’m dyslexic.”
“I’ll teach you.” She smiled, and I shrugged, not knowing what to say.
“No time. And I wouldn’t get it, anyway.”
A frown appeared on her lips. She stared at the bruises on my knees and the bandages on my fingertips from the needle pricks at the sweatshop.
Elise’s soft fingers grazed the wounds, and I shuddered. A breeze from the lake ruffledmy hair.
She traced anEon my palm. “Feel it.” Then the other letters.LISE.“Slow and steady.”
