Page 163 of Taken By Shadows

That made him smile, wide and playful. “You like it?”

Why did that make me blush?

“Who am I to judge?” I said, holding up my arm. The sheer fabric sleeve slipped back to reveal the white scar that curved along the fine bones of my wrist.

Kaed captured my wrist in his hand. Shadows reached out to caress the sensitive skin. His thumb traced the scar up and down, heat buzzing where his thumb scorched me that had nothing to do with the heat of the hothouse.

“I like it.” He echoed my words with a dip of his head.

My entire body shuddered as though it were pleading with the forgotten gods for him to kiss me again. Touching him felt like fire in my veins. But kissing him felt like fireworks.

Instead, he turned my hand over in his and slid something cool onto my finger.

“I want you to wear this.” His voice was seductive as it played with the words. “It might help us play this little game.” He chuckled.

I gasped. Encircling my finger was a silver band with a pale blue diamond. The faceted raindrop glinted in the fae lights as I held up my hand.

But that scorching heat that had been taking over me suddenly went out, doused with cold water.

Eryk’s warning cut through me.

Game. This was a game to him.

This feeling. The touch of him under my hands, his hands on me. The heat in my blood.

All a game.

This wasn’t real. How could it be? The falsehood of my presence in a place like this, of being with someone like Kaed …

Just a game …

This ring was only a visual reminder of that. We might have moved past prisoner and jailor, but where did that leave us?

“A wife-to-be should have a ring.” He hadn’t seemed to notice the sting I felt from wearing it. And I was wringing out the confusion in me over that. It was just a ring. But the sentiment of a false engagement now felt different as I held the weight of it on my finger.

I tried to pull it off and give it back, but his hand closed over mine.

“Please,” he said, “wear it. For me.”

There was no pain in this for him. This was all a game, a stratagem.

I gave a tight nod, my voice thick as I said, “Of course.”

He smiled, and the beauty of it hurt me differently now.

I realised that this was as close to Kaed as I would get. Eryk had said there would be a price. And I was certain, the price this time was my own pain.

It would always be a game to him. A means to an end. He might seem like he enjoyed tasting me or touching me, but that was it. And it terrified me to realise that was no longer enough for me. In just a few short days, my body had moved through a thousand different emotions for Kaed. Hatred, disdain, obligation, lust and now … something so much more captivating than all of those. I wanted him for more than his body. And only when I’d seen the physical representation of our false roles in this city on my finger, did I realise it fully.

Chapter fifty-one

Not wanting to be pressed up against the male who had captured me, in every sense of the word, I led him from our hiding place back out into the floral jungle of the glasshouse.

His hand never left mine, and his fingers toyed with the pear-shaped rock on my hand.

My mind wanted to shut off the feeling of him still touching me. Not because I didn’t want it. But because I did.

And it felt more like boiling water now rather than something I wanted to melt into the touch of.