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“What?”
There isn’t an explanation before he jumps clean off the side of the landing. I squeeze my eyes closed and scream as air rushes past us, and I cling to him for dear life. A strange sensation of weightlessness takes hold. My vision tunnels, and my blood roars in my ears. This is death, I think, just as everything turns black.
CHAPTER 18
• King Kylian •
ONE HEARTBEAT, SHE’S screaming, the next, she is gasping as the wind tears past us.
Her body goes limp in my arms, her head rolls back against my shoulder, and her hands fall away. My hold tightens, and I curse under my breath, hoisting her higher so that I can take the brunt of the impact when we drop onto the rocky terrain below.
I haul her across the rocks with me, her body a dead weight, her face pale beneath the falling moon. A sheet of ash-blonde hair cascades over my arm, silken strands catching the silvery light. Her scent fills my nostrils with every breath. The hunger that rips through me is immediate and savage.
For a single, vicious moment, something feral claws up my spine, an instinct so violent it nearly tears free of my control. She is mine, and there is something dangerously intoxicating and ruinous about her like this, so unguarded, breakable, utterly unaware of the monster clutching her. I could end her now, slit her throat to drain her, and no one would stop me or care. The thought crashes through me with terrifying clarity.
The curse that runs through my body whispers to me, urging me to take what is mine by right. The only being in existence with the power to break the chains that bind me to this cursed life.
Does she even know what she truly is? What she is capable of?
I tighten my hold, feeling her soft skin beneath my fingers. So fragile. So mortal. So utterly mine. My fingers twitch with the urge to wake her, to see those defiant eyes flash with fear and anger again. To watch the emotions play across her face as I tell her exactly what she is to me. As I make her understand that from the moment my fangs pierced her flesh, she became mine in ways that can never be undone.
The thought alone is intoxicating. I trace the line of her jaw with one finger, marveling at how perfectly she fits against me, as if crafted specifically for my arms.
She is mine.
Eagan clears his throat loudly, drawing my attention to him as he waits expectantly. “So are you planning on sunbathing, or do you want to get on the ship?” he asks, and I peer down at her in my arms. “Sunscreen won’t do much for you, my king.”
I swallow thickly, horrified at how this one tiny woman could so easily destroy me by merely existing. I’m becoming lost in the feeling of her warmth. The depths of my reaction to her terrify me in ways I have never felt before.
I am King Kylian of Sangremere, feared across all five kingdoms, yet this slip of a girl has reduced me to a creature of base instinct with nothing but her unconscious presence.
“Your Majesty?” Eagan prompts again, and I can sense his curiosity. His dark red eyes flick to the woman in my arms, then away quickly when he catches my warning glare.
“I heard you the first time,” I snap, more harshly than intended.
Shaking my dark thoughts away, I stride toward the waiting ship and climb up onto the deck. “Were you able to find who I asked for?”
“Yes. She is secured in the cargo hold,” Eagan answers.
“Alive?”
“Yes, sire, but I must ask, why this woman in particular? She’s not your usual type.”
“My type?” I ask, pausing mid-step, and his gaze slips to Alessia in my arms.
“For a concubine, of course. I’ve never seen you take a human woman before. I also worry how Alessia will take this information when she finds out . . .” He glances around nervously before finishing his words using the telepathic link. “How Alessia will take the knowledge of you keeping such a woman when she learns she is your bonded, my king.”
“That woman is not for me. Nor is that the purpose for her,” I answer aloud.
Eagan looks relieved.
“Do you think so little of me, Eagan, that I would entertain such an idea now that I have Alessia?”
Eagan’s brows furrow. “No, of course not, sire. That’s why I asked. It seemed out of character for you, and I wasn’t expecting to be passed a secret note sending me on a late-night quest to hunt a woman down. I figured you were trying to keep it from your bond.”
“She doesn’t need to know about her, not until we arrive home.”
He opens his mouth again, but a flurry of movement stops him.
