Eyes glazed with lust, he explores my neck in the same manner I do a rock before I swirl paint across the perfect, unspoiled surface. If I live to paint another, it’ll be jagged and split, full of holes for heavy truths to burrow from the light. I’ll use nothing but the grayslades and their varying shades of silver and ash.
Don’t cry—
“Where, petal? Where shall I bite this pretty neck of yours?”
Run!
Swallowing a whimper, I push my hair back from the right side of my neck and arch for Cainon. A flower that thrives in shadow tipping toward the scorching sun. “Here,” I whisper, and tap my thumping carotid, ripping the weeds of self-disgust blooming inside my chest.
Stuffing them beneath a dome.
His eyes ignite, his throat working, and I know I’ve pleased him with my rotten answer, building another dome for a thorny vine of shame that won’t stop pricking all my tender places.
Cainon rumbles low, dragging his thumb back and forth across the sensitive skin, and I close my eyes—hide somewhere happy. Picture a coil of stairs and cold, black stone.
The taste of honey buns.
The rich smells of the kitchen. Frost nipping at fertile soil, and a tapestry of fresh, vibrant shoots that often threaded above the surface a season before they were due. Destined to die.
I think ofhim.
Rhordyn.
Think of how his gaze sliced across my skin, making my heart lurch, like it was trying to leap from my chest to his. Think of how it felt to have his mighty weight upon my body, crushing me into the mattress.
Making me feelsafe.
I can almost feel his icy breath pouring upon me with each rumbling exhale. Can almost hear his voice—a guttural grate that told me not to cry.
Don’t cry …
“Fucking perfection,” Cainon mutters, warm lips coasting my pebbled flesh, ripping a hole in the illusion like a punch to the face.
Suddenly, all I can smell is salt and citrus, those whispers inside me surging to savage life, a soft wail cleaving through the messy chatter …
Run, Serren!
My knees shake, a sick, squirming sensation wiggling through my chest, up my throat.
A deluge of dense, flourishingfear.
Too much.
Scrambling through my insides, I scavenge unripe grains of luster, like a litter of sparkly sand I crush,smooth—
He strikes, latching onto the taut stretch of muscle and flesh, and I rupture in a blunt blaze of crippling pain that rips through my jaw and spears across my shoulder. I shudder, the half-finished dome falling forgotten as I wrestle the yearn to curl my spine. To tuck into a small, protected ball while I pour free of the raw wound in a hot, bubbling rush.
He claws at my body, my hair, ripping my head so far back my neck feels like it’s going to snap, his thick, throaty moans curdling my blood. My mouth falls open, a scream bludgeoning up my throat, but my sound won’t come.
The only sound is that of himswallowing—again.
Again.
Again.
Panic flares, kicking, clawing at my ribs. It loses fight like a spent breath.
The world falls away, leaving nothing but paralyzing pain and the unyielding, gluttonous tug at my skin. Itchy bulbs pop across my shoulder, my clavicle, and I picture the fresh flush of blooms unfurling as my lungs fill with a heaviness that feels like liquid ice.
