Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely 4)

She went up onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. A prism of energy flooded over her as he dropped whatever control he’d been using to hold his emotions at bay. Need. Regret. Awe. Hunger. Confusion. Ani let it all sink into her skin. She drew his breath and life into her body. She tensed like she was about to race something feral, like this was the only moment between her and starvation.

Despite the energy she took from him, he was steady as he held on to her. He slid an arm around her waist.

Her arms were still around his neck, and her fingers were clutching his hair. Her lips tingled. Her entire body pulsed with the energy she was stealing.

He broke the kiss. “You’re… what are you doing, Ani?”

“Kissing you.” She heard her voice as she said it. There wasn’t anything mortal in those sounds. She was the Daughter of the Hunt, and he was her quarry.

I shouldn’t.

She could hear every heartbeat in the room, feel the waves of sound pounding through the air, taste the breath of time itself escaping.

He stared at her. “This isn’t why I came here.”

“Is it reason to stay?”

When he didn’t reply, she put her hands behind her and clasped them together so she couldn’t touch him. “You can stop,” she whispered. “When you want… you can just stop… or… not….”

He took one step backward. His emotions were locked up now behind a wall she couldn’t breach. Both his touch and his emotions were denied to her.

Ani bit her lip to keep her sob inside. To be so close to the energy that swirled inside him and be stopped felt criminal. She could taste blood, feel it welling up on her bottom lip.

He reached out one finger and took the drop of blood. She felt his breath warm on her face as she stared at him. He kept his hand raised between them.

Too many faeries could track with blood. She could. All Hounds could.

Can he?

She stared at her blood on his fingertip. “It’s yours,” she said, “for one more kiss.”

He could be anyone. What am I doing?

But the wall he’d built vanished, and his emotions crashed down into her. He was excited, afraid, hungry. He leaned closer.

“Step away from her,” a voice interrupted. Someone was pulling him out of reach. “Let her go.”

“Let her go?” The faery Ani had been kissing slammed his walls back into place, denying her access to his emotions, cutting her off from the banquet again.

Ani blinked, trying to focus around the rainbows clouding her vision. Kissing him had made her hungers vanish. It made everything right.

“You need to take a walk, Ani.” Her would-be rescuer had her arm in his hand and was stepping backward, propelling her away from the yummy kissable faery.

She focused her attention on the interruption. “Seth. What are you doing?”

Seth frowned at her and then directed his words at the faery. “He needs to leave. Now.”

The faery watched the two of them with a bemused expression. “As you will.”

And he vanished into the crowd.

“You are a pain in the ass, Seth.” Ani shoved him. If it wouldn’t end up causing her far more complications than she could afford, she’d give in to the urge to bloody his nose. Instead, she pursued the pale faery across the club. She pushed her way through the crowd.

He paused at the door, and watching her as he did it, he lifted his finger to his lips.

Oh shit.

Ani froze—and he left.