Page 7 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

I haul her against the wall, her legs lock around my middle, and my eyes nearly roll into the back of my head.

Our clothes are still on. We haven’t done anything. But I’m close to seeing stars as I slowly drag against her.

Her eyes are wild, full of emotions I am practically choking on. Want . Unfiltered, unadulterated want. She parts her lips. Her head leans back. Her eyes flutter closed.

I fist my hand in her hair and crash her lips to mine again.

She gasps, and I use the opportunity to lick the top of her mouth. To taste her completely. To stroke against her teeth. My tongue rolls against hers, and the groan it pulls from the back of her throat is nearly my undoing. Especially when she takes my tongue between her lips and sucks .

Fuck .

My skin is on fire. I’m aching, almost trembling with want, feeling her heat right against mine, biting her bottom lip, pulling her mouth more firmly against mine, as if I could possibly taste more, as if I could imprint myself so thoroughly that she would taste me for days.

With just one kiss, she has ruined me.

Destroyed me.

Just like the world looks dull, every emotion, every touch, everything pales in comparison to her.

Suddenly, I understand the fools that take nightbane, even as it slowly kills them.

She is a drug. And I wouldn’t mind being addicted.

I could do this for hours. I could do this for days. My tongue brushes hers again, igniting a fire in my chest.

Then, all at once, everything goes still. The fire turns into something cold. Pain.

With a wave of regret, I release her lips. I look at her widened eyes, so very green . Then, I begrudgingly drop my gaze to my chest.

And the dagger sticking out of it.

She stabbed me.

She stabbed me .

Even that fact alone doesn’t make me want to stop kissing her.

But as the cold begins to spread, deteriorating any warmth, the sharp pain melts this onslaught of emotion. Reason rushes in.

She stabbed me .

Even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I release her. I catch a flash of silver strapped to her thigh.

Before I can do anything, before I can summon a single shadow or ounce of composure, she’s running from the room.

I should catch her. I should kill her. I should hunt her down.

I should feel rage.

But as soon as she’s fled, all I feel is a rush of crushing sadness more painful than any wound. Because those few moments of bliss revealed the misery I’ve been living in.

She showed me ecstasy, and then ripped it away. Her aura is gone, as if it was never here to begin with.

The only red she left behind is the blood dripping down my chest.

An hour later, once my momentary insanity passes, fury overtakes everything.

Fury for myself. For being so foolish. For being so taken in .

Fury at her .

It boils beneath my skin as I sit on my throne, shirt in tatters.

It takes five healers and a half bottle of Moonling healing liquid to stop the blood and stitch the skin back together.

With every press of their fingers to my chest, I imagine my hands around her throat.

Watching her emerald eyes bulge as I steal the breath from her. Slowly.

She kissed me.

She kissed me, and then she stabbed me .

My shadows sharpen, shredding the obsidian floor, sending everyone scattering. “Out,” I growl. “I’ll wrap it myself.”

I didn’t let the healers stay long enough to banish the scar. Good . This will be a reminder of what happened when I dared open up to my emotions for the first time in centuries. When I dared want anything.

The fortress around myself closes again. This scar will be a reminder of her.

Of how much I hate her.

I’m still thinking about her days later. My fury has not diminished at all. If anything, it’s grown.

Because it all makes sense now. The uncontrollable urges. The rush of feeling . It’s almost a relief .

The guards found the red clothing, and I knew at once. She’s a Wildling.

Of course. It was all a trick. Their temptress enchantments at play.

My fingers tremble against the hilt of my blade the way they trembled against her skin. But this time, it’s in white-hot anger. How dare she trick me?

How dare she enter my castle?

How dare she masquerade as one of my consorts?

How dare she stab a blade into my chest, while I was hard and aching, pressed against her warm—

I growl, shaking the wretched image away.

And the witch wakes up.

I sink back into the shadows. I’ve been visiting her room every night, waiting for her to reveal how she traveled into my realm. How she tricked me.

It took mere days to track her down. I started here, at the Wildling castle, and ... there she was. Training with a sword outside, her hair tied up, and wearing far more clothing than when I last saw her.

Seeing her crown in her hair was almost like a cruel joke.

She isn’t just any Wildling, no. She is their cursed ruler. I should have known. She was sent to beguile me. To kill me. I fell for her tricks.

Never again.

Only one question remained—how did she get to my lands so quickly? Even if she was able to get past our considerable defenses, travel by ship would have taken months. Yet here she is ...

Only one power exists that could have gotten her from Nightshade to the Wildling newland in a matter of moments.

Mine.

That’s when I remembered the flash of silver strapped to her thigh ... it looked familiar. Now, I know exactly what it is.

I only created a relic from my flair once—a portaling device I gave to my general. He disappeared years ago, in the search for a sword that was meant to save my people by stopping the dreks. I always figured it was destroyed with him, in the last place he was sent to look.

Somehow ... the enchantment must have ended up here.

Anyone—especially the ruler of an enemy realm—having access to my portaling power poses a risk.

That’s the only reason I haven’t already killed her. I haven’t been able to find it, in endless searches through her things. She needs to show me where she keeps it, so I can take it from her.

Then, I can kill her.

It’s been five days of this. Of learning her habits. Of studying her closely. I’ve come here every night, watching, waiting .

And the witch has only confused me further.

I expected a woman who had the gall to portal into my own realm, to try to assassinate me , to be ruling her own people with an iron hand. With fear.

Not to be locked away, like she is being ruled herself.

Her room is glass, painted over. She is hidden from the world ... locked in this orb. Why? It doesn’t make any sense.

For a moment, I remember my own childhood room.

I remember my own lock.

I quickly push thoughts of that weak boy away.

I’ve been on edge waiting for her to travel somewhere else, to reveal where she keeps the portaling relic, to show her plan. Clearly, she is plotting something, my death a crucial step of her strategy.

But all the witch has done at night is sleep.

Now, she sits up with a force that has her chest nearly spilling out of the ridiculous scrap of silk she insists on wearing to bed.

For a moment, I remember that chest against mine.

I remember that gasp in my ear—

Enough .

I blame her curse, though I can’t detect it. My nostrils flare. It’s a testament to the strength of the curse that a wicked, shameless hearteater could look so—

The temptress pulls her sheets over her chest and bare shoulders, as if she can feel the intensity of my gaze.

Can she? I watch, entranced, as the hearteater lifts a trembling hand in my direction.

Impossible. It’s impossible for her to see me, or sense me, cloaked in shadow.

Still, she leans closer. Forward. Closer .

The already low neckline of her silk dress dips as she keeps leaning, and I swallow.

Then, I tear my eyes away.

I’m no fool. I won’t ogle a temptress like some sort of idiot.

Show me how you’re traveling the realms , I practically beg . So I never have to step foot in this wretched land again. So I don’t have to sit here every night, and watch you sleep .

But the witch only buries herself beneath her blankets, cowering like a fool instead of a hearteating, chest-stabbing ruler. She looks so fragile. So naive.

She is young, compared to the rest of us ... She’s lived just over twenty years, according to records.

I shake my head, make a fist.

This relatively young ruler managed to break through all the protections I’ve formed around my realm and stab me through the chest.

I straighten at my post, swathed in my shadows. And go back to imagining my hands around her throat.