Page 58 of Cruelly Bitten

“I asked her a few questions, my liege. After foiling her escape attempt. It was an appropriate reaction to her actions.”

My jaw clenched, but I didn’t bother correcting him again. Michael knew I hadn’t been trying to escape. He’d just wanted to lord his immortality over me.

“Then I suppose we’ll see if yourreactionwas justified,” Cam replied, his attention returning to me as his hand moved frommy nape to my throat. Violence danced in his sapphire gaze, making me swallow against his palm.

He fully expected to find something embedded inside me.

I could see it in the way he studied me so intently, like he couldn’t wait to wring my neck for defying him.

This was a side of Cam I’d never witnessed before—the true predator beneath the skin. He’d typically hidden that part of himself away, choosing his human mask over his vampiric side.

Now he appeared more feral. In touch with his hunger. No longer caring that the mortals around him might fear his true nature. Demanding all those beneath him tobow.

Somewhere inside you ismyCam, I thought at him, my gaze boldly holding his.I will find a way to bring him back to life. I vow it.

His lips curled as though intrigued by my mental promise, but I knew he couldn’t hear me. A barrier existed between our minds—one he controlled, not me.

However, I’d know if he took down the wall because I would be able to hear the words feeding that dangerous look on his too-handsome face.

Which meant that block between us was still very much in play.

“A swan, hmm?” he mused, his thumb brushing my pulse as he referred to the nickname I’d mentioned. “That’s interesting. I suppose it fits your more delicate traits.” He glanced over me. “But your eyes are much more feline than avian right now.”

He squeezed my throat, preventing me from replying—not that I knew what to say—and abruptly released me.

“Pull your hair up,” he commanded, his thumb switching on the scanner. “I’m starting with your neck.”

I gathered my errant strands up into a ponytail, myfelinegaze holding his.

Since when am I feline?I wondered.Cam always saw me as a swan.

“So fragile, yet beautiful,”he’d often said.

Never once had he described me asfeline.

Nor had he ever called me amouse.

Hearing those endearments—orinsults, maybe—from his mouth almost made it seem as though this male was possessed.

Or that I never knew Cam at all.

But that wasn’t true. We’d been together for a thousand years before his capture. I knew him better than anyone else.

Yet this version…I thought as he placed the scanner against my throat.This version I don’t recognize at all.

His pupils flared as he focused on the device sliding across my skin, the low hum of electricity the only sound between us.

He moved slowly, thoroughly checking every inch of my neck before shifting the item upward along my nape and into my hair.

I held my ponytail in a single fist, frozen beneath his ministrations. He worked around my hand, checking the top of my head and the sides before saying, “Let go and press both palms to your thighs.”

I obeyed while studying his still-dark expression as he continued his path along the back of my skull.

The electric hum vibrated my ears, sending a shiver down my spine. Then he started on my face.

I refused to close my eyes, not that he’d asked me to. He held my gaze for a long moment, that twitch in his lips happening once more before he shifted focus to my shoulders and upper back.

He used one hand to pull me forward by my nape, his chest pressing against my bare arm as his opposite hand scanned my spine all the way down to the top of my ass.