Chapter 142: It’s Not My Lust

Killian pulled her notebook toward him to read her answer again. He leaned in over it, and suddenly he was very close. Closer than he had been all day. His silver hair brushed her shoulder. She could feel the cool air coming off his skin.

Blair glanced up without thinking.

He was already looking at her.

Not at the notebook. At her. His purple eyes had drifted from the page to her face and stopped there, and for once, there was no irritation in them at all. He looked almost puzzled.

His gaze dropped to her mouth.

And heat slammed into her.

It came out of nowhere, hot and heavy, rolling through her body so fast it stole her breath. Her skin prickled. Her pulse jumped in her throat. A slow, aching warmth pooled low in her stomach, and her thighs pressed together under the table before she even knew they were moving.

No.

She knew this feeling. She had felt it with Daemus. With Jack. But she had never, ever felt it like this. This was too much, too fast, too sudden.

And she still couldn’t look away.

Killian’s lips parted. His forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air between them, and something flickered across his face. Surprise. Then something darker. He leaned in another inch, as if he didn’t realize he was doing it.

The heat inside her doubled.

Blair’s fingers dug into the edge of the table. She was trembling. Her breath was coming short and shallow, and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop any of it...

The front door banged open.

"I’m back!" Daemus called.

He stopped in the doorway of the dining room.

His nostrils flared.

Killian jerked back so fast his chair screeched against the floor. The eye contact broke, and the heat vanished instantly, leaving Blair cold and shaking and gasping like she had just surfaced from deep water.

Killian was on his feet. For the first time since Blair had met him, the Crown Prince looked rattled. His face had gone pale. He was staring at her, and then at his own hands, as if they belonged to someone else.

Daemus didn’t look at Killian.

He was looking at Blair. At her flushed cheeks, her parted lips, her white-knuckled grip on the table. His bag slid off his shoulder and hit the floor with a thud.

"Blair," he said. His voice was very quiet. "Why does it smell like that in here?"

Blair opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Because what was she supposed to say? It wasn’t me. It was him. He made me feel it? He would think she was insane.

Or worse, he would think she was lying.

The silence stretched on and on. Daemus’s silver eyes finally moved to Killian, and a low growl began to build in his chest.

Killian picked up his bag.

"The lesson," he said, his voice not quite steady, "is over."

He walked past Daemus without looking at him. Daemus didn’t stop him. He didn’t even turn his head. A moment later, the front door opened and closed, and Killian was gone.

The house was silent.

Daemus stood in the doorway for a long time. Then he walked slowly into the dining room and stopped on the other side of the table. He didn’t sit down.

"Nothing happened," Blair whispered to the table.

"I know what I smelled, Blair."

He didn’t yell. That was the worst part. Daemus yelled when he was frustrated with math. He yelled at hockey games on TV. He yelled when Kael stole the last pudding cup. But right now, his voice was quiet and flat, and it made her chest hurt.

"It wasn’t..." Blair swallowed. Her hands were twisting together in her lap. "It wasn’t me. I didn’t..."

"You didn’t what?"

I didn’t feel it. He made me feel it. It came out of his eyes and into me.

She couldn’t say it. She could hear exactly how it would sound.

"I didn’t want him," she whispered instead.

Daemus let out a short breath through his nose. It wasn’t quite a laugh.

"Your body kind of says otherwise, Bunny."

Blair flinched.

He ran a hand through his hair and looked away from her.

"Look, I’m not mad that you might want someone else," he said. "That’s normal. Beasts share. I get it." His jaw worked. "But him? Killian? I grew up with him, Blair. I know what he’s really like. I’ve seen what he does to people who make him angry. What he can make them feel." His eyes flicked toward the front door, the way Killian had gone. "People who get close to him have a way of disappearing."

Blair’s stomach dropped. Heather.

"Anyone but him," Daemus said quietly. "Anyone but the snake prince."

"I know how it looks."

"Then explain it to me."

Blair opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Daemus waited. The silence stretched until she could hear the kitchen clock ticking again. He was giving her a chance. She could feel it. Every second, he was holding the door open a little wider, waiting for her to walk through it.

She stared at her hands and said nothing.

Something in his face closed.

"Is there anyone else?" he asked quietly. "You can tell me. I won’t be mad. I just want it to be you who tells me."

Blair’s heart stopped.

She looked up at him before she could stop herself. His silver eyes were steady on hers, searching. Not angry. Just tired. And for one terrible second, she had the strangest feeling that he already knew the answer.

"N-no," Blair whispered.

Daemus looked at her for a moment longer.

Then he nodded once, picked up his bag from the floor, and walked out of the dining room. She heard him climb the stairs, slowly. She heard his bedroom door close.

Blair sat alone at the dining table. Across from her, Killian’s chair was still pushed back at an angle, exactly where he had shoved it. The late sun had moved off the armchair and onto the floor.

She pressed her hands over her face.