The Hidden (Shadowed Wings #1)(57)

Zeph smashes his lips to mine, and I get lost in the feel of his brutal kiss for way too long before I boob punch myself and come to my senses. I try to push Zeph away, but he’s not having any of it. He grabs my ass and tries to pull me up to straddle him. I fight to keep my feet on the ground, my head clear, and my senses free of Zeph and the molten effect he has on me.

“Zeph, stop.” My protest is swallowed by his lips as he tries to coax me to open up to him.

Fuck, I want to. Maybe just one more night of orgasms, and then I can leave tomorrow. As that thought flashes through my mind, anger surges through me. The fucker’s doing this on purpose. I bite his lip hard, and Zeph pulls back with a hiss.

“Stop,” I demand, ignoring the fire and want in his eyes.

He leans forward, hell bent on ignoring my command.

“Tamod, Zeph!” I shout in his face. “I’m not trying to set up another round of catch-me-if-you-can rough sex. I’m serious. I can’t fucking think with you kissing me and rubbing up on me,” I scold, exasperated.

I register the frozen look on Zeph’s face, and confusion flickers through me for a moment. I pale, and my blood runs cold as I realize that I just let that word fly out of my mouth like it’s something I say every day. Zeph morphs from shocked to enraged, and I watch as all the affection he just had for me evaporates into nothing. His features shutter and harden, and I panic.

“Fuck, Zeph, I didn’t mean…” I trail off and reach up to cup his face, needing him to feel in my touch as well as see in my face that I didn’t mean to let that word slip out. My stomach drops when he flinches away.

What the fuck were you thinking, Falon? What the hell did you just do?





20





I stare into Zeph’s betrayed gaze, and I instantly wish I could snatch that word out of the air, light it on fire, and eradicate its existence. I have no fucking clue why I said it. Maybe it was the echo of the dream I had this morning fucking with my good sense, but as I watch Zeph’s eyes go from shocked to furious, I know this is a fuck up of epic proportions.

“How in all of the stars do you know that rutting word?” Zeph demands, his voice low and measured as he slaps my hands away from his face.

“How the fuck do you not know the meaning of stop and no?” I snap back, defensive.

“You like to fight me and then fuck me, Falon. I thought it was just more of the same.” There’s a deadly calm to him now that sets every hair on my body on end with alarm. He takes a menacing step toward me, his stare filled with fury and betrayal.

I want to deny what he just said, but I can’t. It’s true.

“Who are you?” he snarls at me, grabbing me by the arms and shaking me like he thinks if he does it hard enough, the truth will fall out at his feet.

“You’re hurting me,” I protest on a growl and try to shove him away.

“Good,” he snaps at me, his eyes narrowed and filled with promises of more pain.

“How do you know that word?”

“My dad taught me,” I confess on a shout, and his glare turns even more bitter.

“How sweet, your Ouphe father taught his little girl how to enslave and control the masses. What fun you two must have had.”

“Fuck you, Zeph! I haven’t said that word since I was little. You wouldn’t stop—”

“So you thought you’d make me? Is that it?” Zeph accuses, cutting me off.

“No,” I insist, but Zeph dismisses it with a hate-filled look.

“You forget, little sparrow, that I’m not Avowed. There’s no magic running through my blood that would force me to obey you.”

“I wasn’t trying to force you,” I defend, but the statement tastes bad in my mouth.

Was I?

“It just slipped out,” I offer weakly, not even sure if I believe myself.

“It just slipped out,” Zeph repeats, his hands shaking with the rage that suddenly surges through him.

“They used that word on my mother to keep her from moving while a group of guards forced themselves on her. They used that word on my father and older brother so they would have to stand still and watch. I was too young for the vow and the mark, too young to understand what was going on, but the screaming...” He trails off, his voice dripping with pain and buried emotion. “My mother was screaming, and they wouldn’t let me go to her.”

I’m horrified by what he’s telling me, and I watch as the mountain of a gryphon in front of me melts away and leaves a traumatized little boy in his place. His eyes grow distant, and I fucking hate the memory that must be replaying in his mind right now. I want to rip it out of his mind and then rip the vocal cords from my throat so I can never speak another word that could ever conjure any remnants of what happened to him again.

“I’m sorry,” I lament, and I step into him to try and offer comfort. I want him to feel the apology in every fiber of my body, and I want to rescue him from the brutal shadows that are haunting him right now.

He flinches back from my touch and rounds on me.

“Are you?” he challenges, and the question feels like a slap across my face. “Are you sorry that they cut her throat and then his? All because he spoke out against the vow and the highborn leaders who were abusing it. Are you sorry that my brother’s mind broke, that he never came back from that night? That he wasted away to nothing and then died in my arms? Are you rutting sorry as you spew that word out so casually, as if my pain and my body are yours to command?” I flinch back as Zeph bellows the last sentence into my face, his pain and trauma like a punch through my chest.