A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire 1)

And it didn’t.

Nyktos slowly lifted his head. My hands stilled on the length of powerful, corded muscles lining his back. He stared down at me. Was he counting my freckles again? Seeing if they’d mysteriously changed? Or would he kiss me? I wanted him to kiss me.

His lashes swept down, shielding his eyes, and then he rolled off me onto his back, lying beside me on the bed.

I didn’t move. Not for several minutes. I couldn’t. It took everything in me to push the knot back down my throat, to hastily stitch up the cracks racing across my chest. Had I honestly thought he’d kiss me? After what he’d learned? He wanted me—my blood and my body. He needed that as badly as I needed to know what it felt like to have him inside me. That didn’t include kissing. Kissing felt far more…intimate and forbidden now.

Swallowing through the burn, I looked over at him. He was on his back, one arm tossed above his head, and the other resting in the space between us. He wasn’t staring at the ceiling. He was looking at me.

“How?” Nyktos demanded. “How can you be so convincing?”

I tensed, thinking at first that he was talking about what we’d just shared. But then I realized that he wasn’t looking at me. He was watching, prying into me. Reading. “You’re reading my emotions.”

“All things considered, that act doesn’t even register against what you planned,” he replied. “Does it?”

“That doesn’t make it any less rude,” I retorted.

“I suppose not, but you didn’t answer my question. How are you so convincing?” Nyktos asked. “Were you also taught that?”

A wave of prickly heat washed over me. “I was not taught how to force emotion.”

One eyebrow rose. “But weren’t you? Tell me, Sera. Would that not be a part of the seduction? Of leading me to love you? To make me believe you feel something for me?”

Guilt crowded some of the anger, but not all. “First off, we didn’t know you could read emotions. If we had, then I probably would’ve been schooled on how to feel something so deeply that even I began to believe it was real.”

His eyes flared a bright silver.

“Secondly, why would I fake anything I’m feeling now? There’d be no point. It wouldn’t save my people, even if I succeeded,” I pointed out. “And, finally, need I remind you not to tell me what I’m feeling?”

Nyktos’ jaw hardened, and a long moment passed before he turned his head away.

I stared at the harsh lines of his face, fighting the urge to yell. To just scream until my throat went raw. Somehow, I managed not to. “Did you take enough blood? Honest?”

A heartbeat passed. “More than enough.”

“Good.” Tangled hair fell over my shoulders as I sat up.

He went on alert in an instant as I looked around for something to put on. The clothing was ruined, but at least all I had to do was walk through a door. I started to scoot toward the edge of the bed—

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Stopping, I looked over my shoulder. “To my bedchamber?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Why…wouldn’t I?” My heart tumbled. “Or am I supposed to be sent somewhere else? To those cells you referenced?” I stiffened. “If so, can I at least find some clothing you didn’t ruin?”

A strange thing happened then. He seemed to relax. And a faint grin appeared, softening the angles of his features. “Yeah, I did ruin that gown.”

I stared at him, caught between disbelief and a mess of a hundred other emotions. “I’m not sure why you’re smiling about that.”

“It will be a favorite memory for years to come.”

My eyes narrowed on him. “Well, I’m glad to hear that, but it’s not like I have a lot of clothes for someone to be tearing them off me.”

His molten silver eyes shifted to me. “You weren’t complaining when I did it,” he purred. “If I recall correctly, you were quite eager to get rid of that gown yourself.”

I was, but that was beside the point. Was he teasing me? Or was he…? My pulse kicked up. He couldn’t be. I dared a quick peek below his waist, and a shock went through me. He was more than just semi-hard and that was…well, that was impressive. Was that a Primal thing? Muscles deep inside me clenched as I lifted my gaze back to his.

His eyes met mine and then lowered. “You are sitting next to me, gloriously naked, and I am intentionally staring.”

“I can see that,” I remarked acidly, annoyed by him… and myself, because I did nothing to shield myself from his stare. I did nothing to stop the fact that I enjoyed that he was staring.

One side of his mouth tipped up again as he drew his teeth—his fangs—over his lips. “My mark on your unmentionables is quite fascinating to me.”