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“Interesting.” His eyes drop to the pale column of my throat, and that casual arm along the sofa moves to my knees. He drapes it across them, his fingers lightly brushing the back of my thigh; gooseflesh erupts down my legs. I shift in his lap again, unable to help it. Unable tobreathe. Because this is Michal. I should fear the open hunger in his gaze, should push him away from me—should do itnow—but the fluttering in my belly doesn’t feel like fear. It feels like something else, something tight and urgent and powerful. The realization catches in my throat as I stare at him. I feelpowerful. “They’re almost finished,” Michal murmurs.

He dangled you over the sea, I remind myself fervently.He threatened to drown every sailor.

My hands still ache to touch him, however, not unlike how it felt when I drank his blood. Except I haven’t drunk his blood this time, and that—thatshould send me fleeing into the sunrise.

“How can you tell?” I ask instead.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.” Though I hesitate on the word, I realize it’s true—Idowant to know more about this strange, secret world that has been kept from me. I want to understand, I want tolearn, but most of all, I want—

No.

I dare not admit what I want, even to myself.

Because if I admit that I want Michal to keep looking at me like this, I’ll have to admit other things too, like how the name Madame Toussaint chafes against my skin. It shouldn’t, of course.Someday, it’ll be mine. Madame Célie Toussaint, devoted wife, mother, and huntswoman. A future as neat as it is pretty. As I told Michal, however, I have no intention of returning to Chasseur Tower, of pining for respect I’ve already earned. Which means...

Guilt spears the flutter in my stomach.

Would it really be so terrible to see Jean Luc again?The answer hides in the darkest part of my mind, waiting for me to look at it. To look at myself. I’ve been too scared to admit it—to lose the only place I have in this world—but here, straddling the unknown, the truth creeps out from the shadows. Ugly, yes—the ugliest thing I’ve ever done—but impossible to ignore.

I don’t want to marry Jean Luc.

My heart lifts and cracks simultaneously as I finally acknowledge the truth. “Célie?” Michal drags his gaze from my throat as I lift his hand to the feverish skin of my cheek. His fingers are cool. Lovely. The guilt twists deeper.

“This isn’t real,” I tell him. “We’re just pretending.”

It felt like a dream.

He tilts his head languorously to consider me. “Of course we are.” His thumb, however, brushes my bottom lip in the next second, parting it from the top and lingering there. Daring me, I realize, to make the next move. I should recoil from the challenge—that small, hateful voice in my head urges me to stop, stop,stop—but instead, I take his thumb into my mouth. If possible, his eyes darken further, and that same heady sense of power surges through me, washing away everything else. Without knowing why—without understanding the impulse at all—I suck gently, my tongue laving his skin with a confidence I shouldn’tfeel. He tastes cold and sweet from the juice of the apple. I suck harder. “Easy,” he says through clenched teeth.

Reluctantly, I release his thumb. “Why?”

“Because”—he presses it hard against my bottom lip—“I’ve been imagining how you taste since I met you.”

I swallow, and he tracks the movement hungrily. “I thought vampires didn’t like the taste of human blood.”

“I think I’d like the taste of yours.”

I certainly liked the taste ofhis. We stare at each other, and from his expression, we’re remembering the same thing: how I climbed up his body in the aviary, drunk on his blood and desperate to kiss him. Would he let me kiss him now? Would I let himbiteme? In a seemingly reflexive reaction, his hips jerk up at the memory, and heat stabs through me like a knife—I catch his thumb between my teeth and bite down violently.

In an instant, I know I’ve made a mistake.

His entire body clenches, and he wrenches his thumb from my mouth with preternatural speed. Ice creeps back into his voice as he says, “Never do that again.”

“Wh-What?” With that single cold command, reality crashes down upon my head, and I blink at him, confused and disoriented. The cries and grunts around us magnify as I return to the room, tomyself, and realize what I’ve done.Oh God.I glance hastily at his unblemished thumb. “Did I—did I hurt you?”

His expression softens slightly. “No.”

Abrupt pressure burns behind my eyes, but I refuse to acknowledge it. Because I don’t deserve to cry, because this is my fault—this isallmy fault—and my shoulders curl inward asthe guilt returns tenfold, twisting my insides until I can’t look at anyone or anything. We were just pretending, yes, but we still—Istill—

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him. To Jean Luc.

Jean Luc.

I bury my face in my hands.

“Célie. Look at me.” When I don’t respond, shaking all over, Michal pries my wrists apart and forces me to meet his eyes. They burn into mine, stark and brutal with unfamiliar emotion, and I don’t like it. I don’t like the way it makes mefeel—like my skin has shrunk too small, revealing the exact shape of me, and he can see every imperfection. “You cannot ever bite a vampire. Do you understand? You cannot consume my blood—oranyvampire blood—ever again. It’s too dangerous.”