Page 157 of Taken By Shadows

Was he trying to scare me into not going?

“You can’t protect me from everything.” I tried as my cheeks flushed. I wasn’t sure what this was to him, what it was to me. Wanting Kaed physically was undeniable but was that all this was? I wasn’t even sure any more. “You don’t have to—I’m—fine. Sapphine wasn’t trying to kill me. She was trying to scare me. And I think … to get to you.”

His eyes pulled to me. “Well, it worked,” he gritted through his teeth, now standing again across the bed from me.

“She doesn’t know this is a ruse.” I gestured between the two of us. “Of course, she thought she could get to you by hurting me.”

“She thinks I won’t kill her because she is Tymon’s wife.” He huffed a deadened laugh. “Either that, or she genuinely does not fear me, which would be disheartening. Perhaps I should try harder on that front.”

“Do you always speak about killing and tying people to your bed so casually?”

He smirked. “Not always, but they are some of my favourite things to do.”

“Well, try not to kill anyone at the celebration?”

Belatedly, I realised I was joking with him, not just flirting. Joking. When had I gone from angry at him, to flirting with him, to outright snipping jokes at him?

Kaed strode towards me. “I’d rather you don’t go. But if you are going to be insistent, fine.” His eyes darkened as he paused in front of me. “And if you give me any trouble, I will make you regret it.” His words had slowed, and they hummed with something that resonated in lower parts of me that were already very aware of his presence.

His face came closer, and his hand traced the halo of my hair but never even moved a strand. My throat ceased, and not because of the cloying tea I could feel in it still. But because Kaed had just stolen the air from around me.

My thoughts were screaming for him to touch me again. To take a fist full of my hair and kiss me hard and fast, burning his kiss into me until I could only feel him.

My breathing betrayed me. It hitched as he lowered his hand.

Not fear. But nervousness. Excitement.

The feeling actually felt an awful lot like fear. All-consuming, intoxicating. My blood rushed, my heart quickened. My breath fell shallow.

His shirt sleeves were rolled up and exposed the muscle of his arms as his finger came to rest under my chin.

My insides instantly wobbled at the touch. Everything inside me went liquid and warm, and I wanted to give in to that touch.

“Any trouble at all, peach …” Kaed leaned in until his lips grazed mine. “Do you understand me?”

My breath caught on the tip of my tongue as his words flowed over me.

His finger pushed my chin upwards. “I need to hear you say it.”

“I understand.” I sighed like I might collapse.

“Good,” he said, releasing me.

I wasn’t sure I understood anything anymore as I left his room, sheet wrapped around me like a flowing river. I was in trouble if I couldn’t think when he touched me like that.

Very. Serious. Trouble.

Chapter forty-eight

Ihad been reading a book on Auroran families in the small bay window of the drawing room in the Alabaster Palace when the doorbell chimed with a pleasant ringing. Kaed had made good on his promise to help me with my family already, but it was somewhat surreal to have what I’d always thought I needed land in my lap. So that he could “keep an eye on me,” piles of books had been delivered from the stores Kaed kept elsewhere. I wanted to protest, but the truth was, I was comfortable in the Alabaster Palace.

I smoothed the page of notes I’d been taking into the pages of the volume as a bookmark and answered the door.

The invitations from Tymon had arrived.

Without hesitation, I cracked the seal.

Beyond attending and shadowing the councillors, we didn’t really have much of a plan. We couldn’t ask them outright whether their library was being deliberately dismantled or whether faebane records were being purged from the archives. Instead, we decided a gambit was needed. Kaed would float the idea, the kernel, that there was another source of faebane. He would be cagey about the details so that whoever was desperately interested, or who was behind the library sources going missing, would have to out themselves as an interested party to get more information.