“Remember it,” he said, voice dipping low. “It’ll be the onlyname your sweet mouth is ever allowed to scream in these halls.”
I gasped, heat rising in my cheeks. The audacity of his words left me stunned, my body betraying me with the way it tingled from the inside out. Why was I reacting this way toward him?
Xavier’s gaze lingered on me, amused and intense. He must have noticed his effect on me. Then, without another word, he turned and left the room, taking Maverick with him.
Only when the door closed behind him did I finally exhale. My gaze trailed down the bathtub as I began slowly sliding off my clothes, letting them fall to the floor. The warmth of the water wrapped around me like a blanket, my limbs growing heavier with every passing second. I didn’t mean to close my eyes; I just needed a moment to rest. If I concentrated hard enough, I could still picture him standing there, watching me with quiet amusement, knowing something about me that I wasn’t aware of.
And suddenly… I was no longer alone.
I found myself back in the Lake of the Sirens again. The water was impossibly still, reflecting the night sky like a mirror. Their voices made me sleepy. I was about to drown and no one saved me. No dragon, no one. Panic surged through my body, and I couldn’t breathe as my lungs began to fill with water. My chest ached, and out of panic I took a huge breath, knowing it would mean my death.
But there was no death, it was Xavier that shook my entire body until I came back to my senses.
“Youaresafe.”
My pulse pounded in my ears as I realized it had only been a nightmare.
“You are with me, Gwendolyn. It’s all fine. No one and nothing will hurt you.”
He took my face between his hands, forcing me to look at him as his thumb kept brushing over my cheek in calming motions.I could barely focus on anything but the green eyes in front of me. The air around him seemed to hum with energy, shadows curling at the edges of his form.
Was this real, or still the remnants of my nightmare?
My heart pounded in my chest. Then I looked down. The water only reached just above my breasts. My nipples had been exposed the entire time. He had seen them. I expected some snarky comment, but he didn’t say a single word. Instead, he quickly handed me a towel, which I hastily took and held over my chest. I tried to wrap it around myself, but my mind was still foggy from the nightmare. Without any kind of warning, he threw it around me, making sure I was completely covered before grabbing my hips and lifting me out of the tub.
The idea of him helping me right now, the images he was causing in my brain—this must be madness. I couldn’t explain it otherwise. This man ignited such a curiosity in me, it was almost terrifying how much my body reacted toward every single thing he did.
Abruptly, Xavier’s green eyes were turning red… It happened so fast, I almost thought I had imagined it. But no. His irises burned crimson, a hunger simmering beneath the surface.
Something primal. Something dangerous.
Something that was definitelynothuman.
Chapter 5
The way her shoulders shifted slightly in the bath, and she let out a sweet moan as she sank into the water. How she leaned her beautiful head back against the edge of the tub, her throat exposed to me in the flickering candlelight. Her pulse was there… the sound of it was hypnotic to me. I could hear it. I couldfeelit. It was like every thrum of her blood running inside her veins was meant for me.
I swallowed hard as I kept watching her. Her alluring scent stirring instincts inside me—instincts I had buried so long ago in the depths of my soul. Even when she was brushing away a strand of wet hair behind her ear, my eyes seemed to follow every one of her movements. Somehow, I was afraid that if I left, I’d miss something sacred of her which solely belonged to my eyes.
Gwendolyn didn’t know how close I was to losing control. She had no idea what red eyes meant in my nature. I watched her in silence, the smirk on my lips barely concealing the tension coiled inside me from seeing her bare, dewy skin still flushed from the bath steam. Skin I couldn’t wait to mark with my own hands. Every droplet of water that slid down her collarbone was somecruel act of divine temptation. This sweet little treasure didn’t even know how fucked up I was, how she was offering herself to my undoing in the quietest of ways.
My gaze traced her movements, how she adjusted her posture, the slight shift of her hips beneath the water. While her mind was almost absent in the water, all I could think about was how my fingertips would brush along her thighs. The worst part of it all, was that she didn’t even try to tease me. This wasn’t some calculated seduction. She was justexisting.And it almost destroyed me.
The hunger flared up inside me. Hunger I’ve never felt in my existence. A slow, burning feeling curling like smoke through my chest.
I felt it before I saw it.
The pulse behind my eyes, the heat inside my veins that surged like bloodlust because that’s what it was.
Lust.
But not the kind she’d recognize. Not yet.
The moment my vision blurred crimson red. I knew I was about to lose myself in her. She would see what I was.
“Your eyes…” The sweetness of her voice brought my mind to focus again. I noticed how her chest tightened, her breaths were getting heavier. She was afraid, afraid of me.
“Why are your eyes red?” she asked again.
