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“Think?” he snarls. “Iknowyou bedded him.”

“I have bedded Affay many times.” I sniff and jut my chin. My hair rustles on the pillow. “But not that night.”

The lie is smooth sounding but it prickles my tongue the way a bell ringing prickles my bones.

Daxeel looks at me for a moment.

He blinks, then considers me, silent.

A frown carves into his honeyed skin. “Say that again.”

I arch an eyebrow. “That your assumptions and guesses and paranoias have led to so much pain? Affay did not lay with me that night. I laid with no one.”

His nostrils flare. A long inhale, a breath deep enough to swell his chest. But it’s the blaze of his cerulean eyes, the same shade as the painted ceiling, that curls my toes.

“You lie,” words hushed out in a rushed whisper.

My heart bolts to my ribs.

His lashes flutter.

Daxeel shoves from me as if burned. “You can lie.”

I sit up, words pinned to my throat, damp hair wild around my stunned face. My lips are parted around silence.

And Daxeel falls back onto his feet, a stagger before he stills—and his hands fist at his sides.

We just stare at each other.

A tentative step closer, as though the roles have shifted, an imbalance shifted my way and mademethe predator he’s cautious to approach. “All this time…”

I shake my head, a flurry of panic in my chest. “It is no lie. I cannot lie, Daxeel—”

Blue eyes flare with unspoken threats. He advances a step, a single determined step that silences me instantly.

My hands fist in the furs.

I draw my knees closer to my middle.

Daxeel utters a shuddered breath.

His gaze drops to my chest… and there, it stays. “Lie to me again.”

I scramble to sit on my folded legs. “I didn’t lie!” My words come wrapped in a hushed whine, the utter desperation for him to believe me.

But he doesn’t.

He knows the truth.

He knows I’m lying—and he hears the faint skip in my heartbeat. All the confirmation he needs before the inky blackness of his pupils spread into his irises, turning his stare as dark as his shadows.

Instinct has my shoulders tucking inwards, and I shrink back from his primal stare—pure rage stirring inside of him.

The air thickens between us.

Panic has my breath glued to my chest. The fear is too great to break the silence just for a fresh inhale of air, so I stay rigid.

Then he snaps.