Page 59 of Satanic Shadow

I gulp. “You tried to drown me.”

“I wouldn’t have let you actually drown. I was teaching you a lesson.”

If that’s Dane’s way of teaching someone a lesson, I fear what would happen when someone actually annoys him. I was late for a kiss and gave him a little attitude for talking crap about me, and he dragged me through a dirty lake and teleported me to the other side of the castle… naked.

He won’t last an hour in my world.

“I don’t plan on lasting an hour, mortal. It will take me seconds to obliterate your precious world, including you.”

I glare at him and slap his arm, but I might as well have slapped a wall. “You’re an asshole, do you know that? Take me back to my room.”

He laughs with no expression as he backs away from me, loosening his tie, pulling it from his neck, and dropping it on his desk. “Not yet. We have a task to finish. Unless you want to keep stopping it before the minute is up.” He pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue to stifle whatever hilarious point he’s trying to make. “Be my guest. I have nowhere to be.”

“For someone who can’t stand me and finds me disgusting, you have no issues jamming your tongue down my throat.”

He falters in his cocky charade for a second but then shrugs. “What can I say? I want to pass the assignment.”

I shake my head and walk into the middle of the room, trying not to make it obvious I’m enchanted by it. One may say that he sleeps like royalty, but then again, he is the Prince of Darknessand the heir to the Shadow Realm. It’s no wonder the place is perfect.

Dane watches me as I explore, running my fingers over the dark oak of the footboard of his bed, the candle holder made of pure gold, and the book spines, their titles in an unknown language. “Can I ask you something?”

He leans back on the desk, crossing his ankles and arms. “If I say no, will you still ask me?”

“Yes.”

He fights a smirk, eyes glued to me. “Go on.”

“And I want the truth.” He raises a brow in response, so I keep going. “Why am I here?”

Silence—deafening silence as Dane finally breaks eye contact and looks to the floor. “I have no idea. That’s why I asked you before.”

“Your mother hasn’t once mentioned why?”

He turns away from me, hands in his pockets as he pretends to look at the art on his wall. It’s a portrait of an angel surrounded by black mist, with flames and lightning and blood. “She went to extreme lengths to find you. That’s all I know.”

“Did she say why it was important for us to stay paired?”

He shakes his head, but his shoulder tense a little. “No.”

Too soon. It’s too soon.

“What’s too soon?”

He spins to scowl at me. “What?”

“You said it’s too soon. What is? And why can I hear your thoughts when I’m human? Does it have something to do with the tattoos?”

“Let’s just get this final kiss out of the way,” he says, changing the subject. “Then we never have to do it again. Don’t stop us before one minute or I’ll get the wrong idea.”

I scoff. If he thinks this conversation is done, he’s greatly mistaken.

He quirks a brow, as if to challenge me on what he said.

“It’s ridiculous that you brought me all the way over here when you could have ended it when you bombarded me in my bathroom. You kissed me then, and in the changing rooms after class. We could have finished up this task on several occasions. Instead, you dunked my head into my bath, kissed me, and then kidnapped me.”

“You were being annoying.”

“Do you usually kiss people who annoy and disgust you?”