Page 51 of Bride of Death

His hands catch my hips when I bounce backward, my bare feet tripping over themselves and tipping me off-balance.

But I don’t fall.

Because Maliki is holding me against him.

And I’m suddenly surrounded by the scent of leather and smoke. Masculine intoxication. Strength personified.Delectable male.

I nearly nuzzle into his chest, which I now realize is bare.

So warm.I startle at the thought, my eyes blinking rapidly.Why do I feel so dazed?

“Are you all right?” Maliki asks, his lips close to my ear.

“I…” I don’t understand what just happened.

“You were about to touch Morpheus,” Maliki tells me, making me wonder if I voiced my confusion out loud. I thought I’d kept it to myself, but now I’m not sure. “The slug venom spreads.”

“S-slug venom?”

“It’s from the Creek of the Dead,” he tells me. “They live in the decaying skulls and leave behind a sludge that basically electrocutes anyone who touches it. Kind of like a poisonous caterpillar, if you’ve ever seen one of those in your home world.”

I nod.

Because I am familiar with those colorful creatures and their spiky hairs.

“Caterpillars don’t leave sludge in skulls,” I reply, frowning and tilting my head back to look up at him.

Maliki smiles. “No, but some species of them leave behind a stinging or electrifying sensation if you touch them. Slug venom is kind of like that, but on the scale of being stung by a million jellyfish.”

He releases me, just to wrap an arm around my shoulders to guide me back toward my home.

“Morpheus will recover soon. In the interim, show me what’s in the bag.” He picks up said bag before pulling me through the open entryway.

The door seems to magically close behind us. But I barely notice it because I’m replaying the last however many minutes in my head.

Maliki’s warmth slowly leaves me, and I realize he wasn’t just touching me with his hands, but with his… his whatever the fae those tattoos are called, too. I watch them unravel from my body and seep back into his skin, the thick bands of energy leaving my skin tingling in their wake.

“Do you hypnotize your victims?” I ask slowly, trying to understand what just happened. Because I still feel dazed and I don’t understand why.

“No. But I do enjoy paralyzing them.”

My eyes widen. “Is that what this was?”

His brow furrows as he stares down at me. “What what was?”

“That,” I say, gesturing to the inky smoke crawling over his skin to form new tattoos.

He glances down, his frown seeming to deepen. “You felt paralyzed by my shadows?”

“That’s what they’re called?”

“Yes. To some. To most.” He shakes his head. “You felt paralyzed by them?” he repeats.

“No, just… just out of it? Like I was hypnotized.”

He stares at me and then his arms. “I told them to soothe you. Maybe it worked too well?”

“Soothe me?”