“I want to see your eyelashes.”
“Why?”
“I want to know if they’re also white, like your hair.”
He squeezes my hand. “Pity. That is not pertinent information where it concerns my question.”
“I don’t want to answer your question.”
He presses my knuckles to his lips. “Are you hesitant to admit you enjoy my perusal?”
“Either that or I’m afraid of what you’ll do if I reject you.”
His breath coasts across my skin. “Fair enough. I don’t mope graciously like Xios.”
“How do youmope?” I ask, removing the last drop of wine from my glass.
Castor frees my hand and stands, crossing the murky room. His footsteps clear the fog bathing the maroon rug beneath the cherrywood coffee table as he passes, and I remember that this room is full of deep burgundys and charcoal grays. It’s a lovely room, smaller than many of the others I’ve seen in his palace. Cozy.
He retrieves an ornate bottle of wine and returns to me while I’m trying to sit up, testing whether or not I still can.
I’m floating, like Zahra, adrift in an ocean of heat.
The couch dips when Castor sits beside me, and I nearly topple into his lap, managing to catch myself against his chest at the last second. I look up at him, dazed, just in time for him to pop the bottle’s stopper, lift the narrow spout, and down heavy gulps.
Freeing a breath, he collapses against the cushions and runs the backs of his fingers up the curve of my neck. “I throw knives at things when Imope, love.”
“Living things?”
He smiles, sharp, fangs on display. “Not usually.”
“How…comforting?” There’s a high chance I’m leaning into his caress. A higher chance it’s because I’m hopelessly tipsy and off balance. It certainly wouldn’t be because I like the way his cool touch feels against my blazing skin.
“Are you going to answer me, or am I going to mope?” he murmurs.
“I am curious about your aim…all things considered.” My head lands pitifully on his shoulder, too weighted to hold up any longer. My skull’s made of stone and my neck of straw.
Carefully, he pulls my legs over his, arranging me on his lap. One strong arm cages me in as he downs another sip of the sweet liquor.
“More?” I mumble, tucking my hands beneath my neck.
“You’re very—” He curses. “—at handling aphrodisiacs. Are you sure you want more?”
Alcohol isn’t exactly on my mother’s diet plan for me. Maybe I just want it because I’m rebelling. At the ripe old age of twenty-three, I’m finally running away from home and grasping any bad decision I can find.
When I do little more than wrap my hand around the neck of the bottle, over top of Castor’s fingers, he presses a kiss to my head. “Close your eyes for me.”
I do as I’m told, stifling a yawn as my lashes flutter closed. Castor’s fingers comb through my hair as my consciousness fades, and he rocks me in his arms once he’s moved the bottle of wine out of my reach.
As I curl into him—a perfect, powerful, dangerous stranger—the weight of my starvation crushes the air from my lungs. I am desperate for affection.Desperate.
Hugging Zahra earlier…was so nice.
Frelsi has been a balm for this marrow-deep loneliness, but she is too small to tuck me in her arms. She can’t cradle me against the erratic beat of her heart and hold tight.
So tight.
Tighter, even.
