He grits his teeth loudly, his fists clenching on top of the desk.
“You haven’t deserved my courtesy as of late.”
It’s meant as a slap in the face, but I’m already too numb to feel its sting.
“Oh, get over yourself already, you arrogant asshole! This is about the war, not about us.”
“There is no us,” he says in a rough voice.
“Don’t I know it!” I snort in disdain.
I don’t need a reminder.
“You’re such an insufferable pain in my ass. What the fuck have you been doing training all this time if you can’t even shadow travel?”
The more he spews bullshit from his sinful mouth, the more I see red. No way am I letting him pin this on me, when all I’ve done is prepare for the upcoming conflict, while he’s been sulking in the shadows doing Gods know what.
“Call me whatever you want, Killian. I’m not the one incapable of having an adult conversation. I’ve been working on my strength and my stamina, actually learning how to hold my own in battle against the onpyrs. Don’t blame me for not knowing something you could have told me if only you weren’t such a thousand-year-old baby.”
“Watch your mouth,” he growls in such a way that would probably intimidate anyone else but me.
“Fuck you, Vampire King. You’re not the big bad wolf you think you are!”
I feel more and more wound up, and my shadows hiss against my skin, dying to break from my flesh’s confinement.
“Oh, but I am, you deceitful little girl. I might have been a fool before and mistaken you for something you’re not, but I see your true colors now, Aimee. You might pose as a victim, but you’re just as much a villain as everybody else.”
Little girl? Did he just fucking belittle me again?
“I. Am. Not. A. Little. Girl.” I seethe as I punctuate each word with a step closer until I reach the other side of his desk.
“But you admit you’re a deceitful creature, don’t you?” he says triumphantly, giving me a smug once-over.
That obnoxious vampire jerk! My frail restraint snaps at last, and I slam my hands on the surface of the writing table, scattering papers every which way.
“I fucking hate you, asshole!”
He parts his lips to return the scornful sentiment when my shadows explode from my skin with a dizzying violence. I sway on the spot for an instant, my vision turning dark and blurry, and I blink to chase the haziness away, only to find my shadowy double, stark naked, facing Killian on top of the workstation.
What the…
I can do that too? Why the fuck is she—am I—naked, though?
Killian’s pupils dilate promptly, and his own crimson shadows jump from his skin, forming his wicked shadow self.
Also naked.
A heartbeat of stillness passes, as if time itself is holding its breath, before chaos erupts.
Both Shadow Killian and Shadow me leap at each other’s throats at the same time, and I prepare for the imminent collision, only to be taken aback when they consume each other with fervent voracity.
Their kiss is a total annihilation of the senses, and my lips burn as if I am the one enthralled in carnal madness. I am too shocked to react, and I watch dazed as Shadow Killian pushes my double on top of the remaining parchments, scorching a path of bites and kisses down her throat, that I can feel deep in my bones, before he enters her with a sharp thrust.
I gasp, a traitorous moan slipping past my lips as I look past the fornicating shadows and meet Killian’s intense stare.
He’s frozen in place just like I am, the only thing giving him away being his smoldering eyes and the tic in his jaw. He’s as much affected by this raw display of unwanted rapture from our shadows as I am.
“Truce?” he rasps in a gravel-like voice, drinking me in with ravenous pitch-black irises.
