He has pinned me. You can see it in his death-black eyes: he thinks he has all but won. Except... he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who I was when the Sand Man made me into the Monster I am today.
I lock eyes with him. The darkness within me rears up. It sears right through me with shaking power.
The air in his lungs can’t escape. Oxygen can’t get in either. Which is strange. Because to the viewers around us, he’s breathing fine. Not a single thing has changed between he and I. Unless you count the cryptic thoughts that keep flashing into his mind. They’re scratching in like fingernails digging into his brain. I’m gripping hold of his every thought as I force in the image of me climbing on top of him. He lies flat beneath me with his hands held high on either side of his pretty, terror-ridden face.
As for me, I sit straddled over him rather lazily. I cross my legs to get comfortable. I pick at my clean nails. Not a muscle twitches through his hard body while I don’t lift a single one of mine.
And yet, I paralyze him with fear.
“My magic is that of a sleep demon. I trained for a year to master their darkness. People like me, we send our victims into a state of paralysis,” I tell the sexy man as I sit atop his useless body, weighting him down in a crippling pain of immobility. “I like you like this, Syn. You’re cute like this. Maybe you should stay like this.Forever.”
The crippling fear of his new life I’ve gifted him has faded away the darkness that shifted his features into a Monster. His lips turn full and human again. Only his curved black horns remain.
The threat he tormented me with last night circles my mind, and a smile parts my lips as I lean in sweetly. My cheek brushes his, and I whisper into his ear.
“Just know, no other woman will ever terrify you the way I have. No one will ever make you feel as weak as I have. I fucking own you, Synder Steel.”
An empty breath shudders from his lungs, coming out jagged across his dry lips.
And then I cut the trance.
He falls off of me, curling up at my side as he fights desperately to get a full breath. The crowd parts for us, giving the man space and eyeing the woman who never lifted a finger against him. Murmurs start to spiral through the room.
“How did she do that?”
“Who is she?”
“Is she a Chosen?”
Actual worry crawls in as I sit up slowly...
Shit.
I was supposed to stay under the radar.
My lashes lift, and when they do, Ruin is staring right at me. And so is Ivy.
And so is Leavon.
Chapter Seventeen
I rush through the courtyard,never once looking back. The red glow of the will-o’-wisps feels like an omen when their blood-red light casts across my face. The clouds above rumble with rain that hasn’t yet fallen. It shakes through my chest like my own feeble heartbeat. The doors of the castle are just up ahead, but the more my mind races, the more I realize, I can’t go back. As much as I want to be as close to Ivy as I possibly can to protect her, it’s not safe for either of us if I go back there.
I won’t leave her either though. Especially knowing that the festivities begin tonight.
My steps stagger as I run out the gold gates and find myself on the cobblestone streets of Carnal City. Every person I pass makes me wonder if they know. The more I’m seen, the more the king will have intel on me.
How do I know I’m not being followed right now?
I resist the urge to fully spin in a fucking circle like a crazed ballerina to ensure I’m safe. Instead, I peer tactfully over my right shoulder.
No one’s there. Yet.
Or are they?
Jesus fuck! This city has made me insane!
Someone jars into my shoulder, and that’s all that’s needed to set me into a full state of panic. At the first door I come to, I fling it open and close it quickly behind me. The little cottage is identical to the one Ruiner shared with me the first night I came to Carnal.