Gleam (The Plated Prisoner 3)

Eyes clos

ed, I breathe in Slade’s scent. I hadn’t really considered what he smelled like before, but there’s something very earthen and distinct about it. It reminds me of damp wood chips and churned soil, but something heavier and darker too, like the bitterness of chocolate.

Something in me settles, makes me remember the feel of his hips when I trapped them between my knees on the railing. I breathe in again and my pulse calms, like last night’s troubled tossing and turning is draining out of me.

As if my ribbons are taking a cue from my relaxed state, I feel them loosen and then slip down onto the bed. They start to twirl like dogs rolling around in a scent they like. I can’t even blame them though, because Slade smells delicious.

I take in one more indulgent sniff, but I lean just a little bit too close, and a trickle from the tip of my nose has my eyes snapping open.

Oh, shit.

I flinch backwards, watching in horror as a single golden droplet spreads from where I accidentally brushed up against the pillow. My gloved hands come down in a frenzy as if I can wipe the stuff off, which, of course I can’t.

“No, no, no...”

Since I’m not still touching it with my bare skin, I can’t even control it enough to stop it from turning solid, either. So instead of just infusing the fabric with gilded threads, my magic spreads until the pillow goes completely stiff, the metallic surface reflecting my panicked face.

Within seconds, the silk and feather is now completely gold, solidifying Slade’s head indentation forever, encased in my own idiotic carelessness.

I stare at it for a moment, grimacing at the way it’s now weighing down the bed so much that the mattress has flattened out beneath it, and the bed frame wails an angry creak like it’s threatening to crack.

“Maybe he won’t notice?” I muse, swiping at my nose before I make a fist and lightly knock on the pillow. The bed creaks in protest again.

Alright, yeah. He’s probably going to notice.

At a tug along my back, my attention is pulled away from the pillow statue to see that my ribbons are diving beneath Slade’s blankets like hyper kittens.

“Oh, great Divine,” I mutter as I try to shove them away. They never used to act this way before. It’s like ever since they burst out to attack Slade in the fighting circle, they’ve just taken on a life of their own.

“Get out of his bed!” I hiss, but the damn things are strong. I try to get them off, but they pull right out of my grasp again and continue doing barrel rolls. With an exasperated sigh, I lean over and shove my hands beneath the blankets, grabbing hold of the ribbons like a twenty-four stranded rope.

I start pulling on them when a deep, sensual voice stops me cold. “If I knew you had interest in tangling yourself up in my bed, I would’ve at least had the forethought to be in it already.”

Slade.

Bright side? None. Absolutely none. Because I just turned his pillow solid gold from sniffing it like a lunatic, while he watched my ribbons dive into his sheets like fish in a Slade stream.

Fantastic.

Chapter 28

AUREN

Slade is leaning up against the bedroom wall with one foot kicked up behind him, casual as can be. With his arms crossed in front of his chest and his sleeves rolled up to show off his strong forearms, he looks ridiculously sexy with his ruffled black hair and perfectly molded clothes.

Even with the shadowed light, I can see the amusement in his expression, and I’d be able to appreciate how sizzlingly gorgeous he is if it weren’t for the fact that my face is now flamed with embarrassment.

I just had to sniff the damn pillow.

“Well, I doubt that will be very comfortable to sleep on,” Slade muses.

Snapping out of the shock of being caught, my body jerks upright, and I try to act properly, like I wasn’t just clawing through his bedsheets, though mortification bleeds through my voice. “It was an accident.”

“And the rest of you was rooting around in my bed because…?”

“I was trying to get my ribbons out of your blankets,” I explain, as if that somehow makes this any better.

His eyes fall to my hands where I have the golden lengths bunched in my fists, but the ribbons immediately go limp like I made the whole thing up and they weren’t doing anything at all.