“You,” I breathe.
“Me,” he agrees.
He looks more solid than last night. More real. I can make out actual features now instead of just shadows and suggestions. Sharp cheekbones. A strong jaw. Full lips curved into a smirk. Hair that falls in thick, dark waves to his shoulders. He is wearing what looks like a black shirt and dark trousers with knee-high boots, though the edges of him still blur into shadow. Like smoke caught mid-swirl.
And he is unfairly, impossibly attractive.
My heart is hammering against my ribs. My hands are shaking. I’m still on my knees on the floor like an idiot, staring up at him. My mouth has gone completely dry.
“You’re here,” I say stupidly.
“Very observant.” Hex tilts his head. The movement is too fluid. Too graceful. “Are you going to stay down there?”
I scramble to my feet and back up until I hit the wall. The blanket is still tangled around one of my legs. I kick it off. My backpresses against the cold plaster, and I wish I could sink through it. Disappear into the wallpaper.
“What do you want?” I demand. My voice comes out higher than I’d like. Breathless and panicked.
Hex’s smirk widens. His gaze tracks slowly, appreciatively, all the way down my body, and then lasciviously all the way back up to my eyes.
“You,” he rumbles in a deep voice that somehow feels like a caress.
Heat floods my face. My stomach does a weird swooping thing. The kind of feeling you get at the top of a rollercoaster, right before the drop. I press my back harder against the wall. As if I can make myself smaller. Less visible.
“That’s not an answer,” I manage. My fingers curl against the wall behind me.
“It’s the only answer that matters.” He grins. His voice is like honey, rich and decadent.
Oh my god. Is he always this intense? This is too much. I can’t handle this. My brain is short-circuiting. All higher functions have ceased. I’m just a mess of adrenaline and confused attraction and bone-deep panic.
“Why?” I squeak.
Hex stands up in one fluid motion. He doesn’t walk towards me. He just sort of appears closer. As if he skipped the distance between us. One moment he is on the sofa. The next he is halfway across the room. Shadows curl around his feet like living things.
I yelp again and flatten myself even further against the wall. There is nowhere to go. My living room suddenly feels far too small.
“We’ve been bound since childhood,” Hex says. His voice is low and smooth. Definitely like honey. Or melted chocolate. Or whatever other cliché thing that sounds good. “When you were young, you were terrified of me. That fear was delicious. It sustained me for years.”
The words hit me like ice water. Cold and shocking. I stare at him, trying to process what he just said.
“You fed on my fear?”
“Yes.”
“That’s horrible!”
Hex shrugs. The gesture is casual. Unconcerned. “You were a child. Children are afraid of everything. I didn’t hurt you.”
“You traumatised me!”
“Hardly. You grew out of it, didn’t you?”
I want to argue. But he has a point. I did grow out of it. I stopped being scared. I forgot about him entirely. And I turned out fine. Mostly fine. Reasonably functional, at least. I mean, I didn’t require therapy until Hex started popping up uninvited.
Suddenly, Felix’s warning echoes in my head.Shadow beings are tricky. If one of them is interested in you, it’s not going to just go away.
If this isn’t insanity, I need to focus. I need to figure this out.
“So you’ve been feeding on me this whole time?” I ask. My voice is steadier now. The initial shock is wearing off, replaced by my desperate need to understand what the hell is happening.
