Page 45 of Heart of the Raven Prince

I know it would be wise to stop provoking him. If I’m being honest, provoking him as much as I have already is easily the stupidest thing I have ever done. I can’t help it, that burning force that builds in me in his presence pulls it out of me. The need to fight, to challenge, it grows like a weed whenever I am around him. Swallowing hard, I move to the chair he shoved me toward and reluctantly sit, gripping my hands tightly in my lap.

“She listened for once, it’s a gods-damned miracle,” he mutters under his breath, and I wonder briefly if he’s just as riled up in my presence. Moving his jacket aside, he plops down in the seat across from me. Caden leans forward, resting his arms on his legs, and dragging his hands through his hair. I’m watching his wings situate awkwardly around the chair, and I find it odd that the furniture in his own home would not be designed to accommodate them. Finally he looks up and holds me in the pitch-black gaze as he says, “I have a proposition for you.”

Once, when my father was teaching me to trap game, I caught something unexpected. I had been checking the traps I set the day before when I stumbled upon a growling wolf. It was young, most likely still a pup based on its size, but its teeth and claws were certainly big enough to take a chunk out of me. Its paw was caught in a trap, and it was jerking furiously against the rope snared around its leg, digging deep grooves in the earth with its hind legs. My father taught me well, so I approached with caution, because I knew captured did not mean powerless.

It emitted the snarling, warning call of a cornered beast as I crept into the clearing, its bright golden eyes locked on me. It continued to bark and snap its jaws at me, all while trying in vain to rip its paw from the trap. I should have been scared, especially because wolves hunt in packs, and I suspected its mother must be close. But for whatever reason, I was calm as I crept closer, pulling a dagger slowly from my boot.

Not to attack, but to free.

I sliced my blade through the ropes pulled taut by the wolf, knowing it might very well attack me. With my weapon gripped tight in my hand, I waited for the onslaught, only for the pup to take off running into the woods. As I sit across from Caden now, I can’t help but see the look of a trapped predator, desperate to be released.

“What do you feel when you’re around me?” he asks, his husky voice breaking the silent tension around us. I watch the flickering shadows of the fire dance across his face, entirely befitting of a creature from hell.

“Rage,” I answer, quiet but resolute.

“I am not asking whatever petty fucking human emotion you associate with me; I’m asking what you feel,” he scoffs.

I open my mouth to snap out a cutting response but pause. Shifting, I sit back in the chair and say, “Do you mean…” I falter, trailing off, but he perks up, waiting for me to continue. “Your magic.” He gives me an encouraging look, motioning for me to continue. “It feels like lightning, like being struck directly in the heart with it. It’s like standing in the middle of a storm of needles, hundreds of them pricking over my skin. It invades my senses until it is all I can focus on. And,” I add, “It fills me with rage.”

Did I imagine it, or did his lips just tilt into a smirk? The look is there and gone before I can truly study it.

“Do you feel it in others?” he asks, and I nod. His gaze is so intense it’s hard to hold, but I do not allow myself to look away.

“The general,” I say. “Lochlan, and the queen, and of course any number of the fae—er, vampires,” I quickly correct myself.

“They’re not all vampires, Oisín. They’re not all fae either, for that matter. But they’re easy to tell apart,” he says, tapping the side of his face, indicating his black gaze.

“Lochlan is a vampire, as is the queen.” After a beat, I add, “And you.” It’s not a question, but he nods, nonetheless. I study his deep black gaze and say, “But your eyes—”

“Yes, Oisín, I am a vampire. But I wasn’t always. I was born fae.”

“The queen is your mother,” I say, quirking a brow in disbelief. Caden merely shrugs.

“She is the mother of the monster she created, but she is not my mother.”

I groan, rubbing my temples which are beginning to pound. “Can you just…can you start from the beginning?” I ask. I thought perhaps Caden was going to provide me with answers, but so far, I’m only more confused.

That confusion switches quickly to annoyance when he says simply, “No.”

“What?”

“I’m not starting from the beginning. There is too much to tell, and besides I don’t particularly trust you enough to divulge that.”

The gods-damned audacity of this man.

“You don’t trust me?” I ask, my mouth gaping open before I all but screech, “You kidnapped me. You enslaved me. You attacked my home, you murdered my peo—family.” I stumble over the last word. I nearly referenced my people. He’s got me so flustered I’m tripping up, making simple mistakes and forgetting myself. Forgetting to hide, even from this man who seems determined to find me.

“I didn’t do any of those things willingly, Oisín.”

“Bullshit,” I shout, planting my hands on the arm of the chair and moving to stand. I don’t know what cruel cat and mouse game he has planned for us, but I want no part of it.

Before I can get on my feet, he is towering over me and caging me in. His hands close over my wrists, pinning them to the armrests as he crowds into my space. The dark scent of him surrounds me—intoxicating and suffocating all at once. Accompanied by the stifling feel of his power, I press against the back of the chair, trying to get as much space between us as possible. That only makes him lean in closer, my body tingling at his proximity. The sizzling sparks of his power roam up and down my arms, ghosting over my thighs, and circling my throat.

“Do I need to remind you of the beast the queen turned me into?” His voice sounds like the shadows of a graveyard, my breath catching at the resonating tone.

He picks up a hand, and I’m too stunned to move as he trails a finger deliberately up my arm, before tracing a circle around the slowly clotting wound on my neck. I shiver, cold fear dripping down my spine as I remember the feel of his lips on my neck, as he fed off me.

“Did I look particularly in control to you?” His voice drops to a whisper when his eyes train on the puncture wounds on my neck before he asks, “Or did I look possessed?”