Page 108 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

I shut my eyes for a moment. A tear slid down my cheek.

“You did,” I whispered. “You did cross a boundary.”

Aster stopped walking. He held my blurry gaze, brows drawn. He cleared his throat. “You were losing a lot of blood. Venom is a healing agent. I wanted to help, not to feed. I appreciate you sayingnoto me. I only want to bring you pleasure. You’re too special for anything less.”

It wasn’t an apology. It was an excuse wrapped in a disorienting, manipulative package. If not for Kylo and my healing after dating someone like Jacob, maybe I wouldn’t havenoticed. Maybe the pretty words would’ve been enough. Maybe I would’ve brushed it off.

Instead, I kept the violation ripe in my mind as I nodded and stared up into his eyes. “I’m open to seeing you again.”

Aster smiled. His eyes faded back into warmth after I showed him my compliance.

He wanted usobedient, after all.

Aster’s thumb stroked the top of my wounded hand before he let me go. In my other hand, I carried his gift. I walked past the guards, through the grand black gate. I crossed the street, where I knew Kylo could see me from his post in an old medical library. I kept walking, all the way until I reached a side street a block over.

That was where I finally gave in.

I let the tears fall down my cheeks as I took off running. Kylo let me do it.

He let me run until I couldn’t breathe anymore.

He appeared like a prince of the underworld, birthed from a shadowed mist. In the middle of an alley, he stood, masked and cloaked in beautiful darkness.

I ran straight into his arms.

34

KYLO

Each change in Evie’s heart was maddening. I staked out on the upper level of the library, in a dusty archival room that had a clear view of Conrad’s front gate. The property itself was obscured by tall trees, but I could just make out a spire and tower.

I could be inside in three minutes, tops.

That was my only comfort as I stood in the stuffy room, listening to Evie’s heart hammer and then settle. Over and over, her fear was a palpable force, driving me to the brink of utter insanity.

Why the fuck had I let her do this?

I knew why. But it didn’t soothe me. I wouldn’t be soothed until Evie was in my lap as I read to her and inhaled her comforting, floral scent.

I let Evie do this because I loved her. And loving someone meant letting them make their own decisions, even if those decisions wrecked me.

It had been less than thirty minutes, and Evie’s heart had already communicated four different moments of increased distress.

But there was no evidence of blood loss or drugging. Her heart was within its normal range of Evie anxiety.

I hated to admit this. I downright refused to do so out loud. But if Evie were anyone else, I would’ve been on board. She was going to sit at a table with Etherdale’s greatest threats, our most prized kills in our fight to take back the city. And they were going to underestimate her, merely because she was half-human, small, pretty, and female. I hated to admit that beneath my rage and terror, I did in fact believe that the born were arrogant enough to attempt to steal Evie without force.

If she were merely a soldier, everything would be different. I might’ve even found joy and satisfaction in these power games, the idea of manipulating and employing methods of subterfuge upon the born.

I would’ve relished the idea of getting close enough to Princeton’s murderer to avenge him.

But Evie was Evie. Not only my soulmate but also the backbone of the clan. Not a single cell in my body was relaxed nor satisfied.

All I felt was the overwhelming urge to drag her back to me and away from the man who saw her as his bride.

A low rumble rattled the shelves of old books. I closed my eyes and steadied. But I couldn’t shut out the sudden erraticism of Evie’s heart.

She was still deeply traumatized. Yet she had willingly entered a castle full of monsters who would hurt her at the first opportunity. She did so merely to serve the clan, to not allow an opportunity like this to pass us by.