Page 172 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

“You can’t walk me all the way there,” I said. “Conrad suspects?—”

Kylo twirled me around to face him. He gripped my waist, masked and radiating blood-curdling power. “I won’t. Give me a block, angel.”

It was risky, but I didn’t fight him. Not when he was going against his own intuition to give me my freedom.

He never agreed to let me go. He’d only ceded that it wasn’t his choice to make.

With every step forward, I hurt him.

My chest was tight. My body surged with adrenaline, the kind of resolute determination that couldn’t be denied.

Fate hummed in my ears like the call of Judgement.

“I want The Sun, baby,” Kylo said.

I looked over at him as we reached the end of the block. My throat tightened. “I love when you speak magick to me.”

His lips twitched below his diagonally cut mask. “I will speak magick to you until the end of our days. In our next life and the one after.”

“I can’t wait for you to stalk me all over again.”

“If I could get hard right now, I would.”

My laugh was nervous, an inappropriate release of tension. Kylo drank the sound from my lips like a dying man, gripping me hard as he stole every last drop of my oxygen away. I ran my hands along the smooth skull structure of his mask, remembering the days I pretended not to know who’d been lurking beneath.

He pulled back from my lips, only by an inch. “I need you to walk away from me now, angel. Or I will never let you go.”

“You’re not letting me go,” I said. “We’ll still be bonded by blood and ink and shadow.” I thumbed my discreet collar, another reminder of our inseverable interconnection. His bloodmarked me. My blood fueled him. “We will never be free from each other.”

“Stop threatening me with beautiful promises and go, angel. I need you to start moving.”

I couldn’t see his eyes, only the tightness of his jaw and the downturn of his lips. The cobblestone beneath our feet vibrated.

“I love you. I’ll be right back.” I turned and, with everything in me, I left him in the shadows.

“Evie!You made it to the tea party!”

Juliette’s squeal hit me like a dagger to the eardrum.

With dread, I stepped into a small drawing room decorated in soft pastels and florals. Juliette rose from Aster’s lap. Aster, who appeared pleased to see me, was seated in an oversized club chair covered in plush velvet.

The round table in front of him was filled with far too much food and drinks for two mortals and a vampire, all artfully plated on fine dishware. An ornate tea set was in the center of the table amid an array of sweets and small sandwiches.

I’d never employed more self-restraint in my life than when I let Juliette pull me in for a hug and I managed not to impale her with shadows.

“Are you okay?” she whispered. “You look a little sad.”

Juliette coughing on her own blood. Juliette stabbed through the heart. Juliette begging for mercy and receiving as much mercy as she gave Gwendolyn, Princeton, and those hundreds of university students.

These are the soothing thoughts I meditated on as I pulled back, smiled, and said with way too much enthusiasm, “I’m great! Just hungry!”

Aster smiled as he watched us, blowing out a relieved breath. Behind Juliette’s back, he mouthed,thank you.

He had no idea what his dress-up doll had done. He thought I was actually here to give her a chance.

Fucking idiot.

“Did you see my flower arrangement? It’s spelled for harmonious gatherings,” Juliette chirped, gesturing to the colorful bouquet in a yellow ceramic vase.