Page 113 of The Villain We Tempt

I mean, I get why he does it.Iwear a blonde wig to obscure my own identity in my videos. But the reason I’m looking is because I want to know which ones are fake and which ones are real. Because if I’m right, and The Ghost Princeisa Knightsblood student, it means I can look for those real tattoos on my male classmates and figure out who he is.

The guy I just came for, eagerly.

The guy I wanted…still want…to kiss.

By three in the morning, I’ve got a few more potential fakes spotted on both his arms. It’s still not enough to be able to identify him, but it’s a start.

But as I finally slip into bed and close my eyes, my body still tingling from his touch, I find myself asking:doI want to know who he is?

There's something intoxicating aboutnotknowing. There’s a thrill that comes with the idea that he exists only in the dark, nameless, without a daylight version of himself that might disappoint me or complicate things.

If I find out who he is, he becomesreal.

And “real” comes with consequences.

But then again, I already know what his skin tastes like. I already know the sounds he makes when he loses control. I’ve already felt his fingers inside me and shattered against his tongue.

The fantasy ship, I think it’s safe to say, has fucking sailed.

So maybe the question now isn't whether I want to know who he is.

It's whether I'm ready for the fantasy to become reality.

18

LOCHLAN

Shit.

I stare at the laptop open on my knees as I sit up in bed in Kingsward Hall.

On one half of the screen, I watch via the spy camera hidden in the smoke alarm in her room as Galina peers at her laptop and types something furiously before sitting back, a frown on her face. On the other side, I have a window open showing me everything currently happeningonthat laptop screen of hers.

Which isnot fucking good.

She's figured out the fake tats.

I guess in hindsight, I should have expected that would happen at some point as the two of us got more physical. I mean they’re meant to be looked at, not moaned into, writhed against, or fucking scratched like a goddamn tigress.

I glance down at my bare torso and the marks on my hips from Galina’s nails, and a grin spreads over my face as I survey the raw, red lines where she clawed at my skin.

I get that it’s mostly just involuntary muscle spasms as her body seized and clenched, and that it stems from our dumb monkey brains flooding themselves with random chemicals and hormones, not “the throes of passion”.

Still, I’dliketo think she raked her nails over my skin as a way of marking me. Branding me ashers.

That’s almost certainly not the case. But a guy can dream, right?

In any case, Galina figuring out that some of my tattoos aren’t real isn’t a big deal in and of itself. We're talking about a girl whoalsowears a mask to hide her identity from her hordes of fans. She even dons a blonde wig to hide her red hair.

My fake tats essentially do the same thing. Sure, I’m wearing a mask that completely covers my face and even my hair. But I also have pretty distinctrealink running down both arms.

I mean, the Kildare family crest on my bicep?Bitof a giveaway.

So as Ghost, I cover those with random skull imagery, ravens, other gothy shit, even a few over-the-top slogans like the “Ride fast, live hard” on my chest.

…I mean, I’ve ridden a motorcycle a total ofonce, when my cousin Bella and my uncle Hades peer pressured me into hopping onto the back of some souped-up widow-maker they’d thrown together in the garage, which resulted in me almost putting myself through a brick wall.

But I digress.