Completely ignoring him, I closed the distance between us and planted my palm over his on that nasty device. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

He froze.

Our eyes locked.

The way he stared at me—as if he wanted to kill me and kiss me all at once. The way his teeth ground together and chest rose and fell beneath my hand.

For a moment, the world felt far, far too small.

Just him and me and nothing else.

But then he slid his hand from beneath mine and pushed me back.

Something wrenched inside me, but I didn’t fight him.

Awkwardness fell as he cleared his throat. “I feel better.”

I didn’t know if it was from me touching him or if his pulse had calmed far quicker than mine, but I’d already asked far too much of my stress-phobic system to tolerate.

I grew a little dizzy.

Meagre sunlight came through the windows, glinting on a faint scar across his chin. I latched onto it, doing my best to stay upright.

“How did you get that scar?”

His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

I blushed and dropped my gaze. “Sorry, I-I wasn’t studying you. I just...I’m feeling a little unstable and trying to distract myself.”

He didn’t move for the longest time before he cleared his throat and ran his finger over the silvery line. “I think it was from one of the first times the vitalsync core knocked me out. I bashed into a table on the way down.”

My heart fisted that he’d given me a tiny piece of his past. “Was anyone there to patch you up?”

“What do you think?”

I think he’d lived an incredibly lonely, tragically horrible life and even with all the blood staining his hands, I couldn’t find it in me to judge.

“How old were you?”

“Who cares?” He shrugged and broke into a walk. I accepted that was the end of his willingness, but he added quietly, “Ten, eleven? It’s not important. Come. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.”

I followed him, full of pity for the young boy he’d been and the savage man he’d become.

“What do you need me to clean today?”

“You’re not cleaning.”

“I’m not?”

He didn’t reply.

“Where are we going?” I went despite my questions, rather well trained at this point to fulfil his commands.

He didn’t speak until he’d led me into his bedroom and turned to face me. “It’s time for another lesson.”

My stomach dropped. “What lesson?”

Crossing his arms, he ignored me. “Did you bring the knife I gave you?”

My temples throbbed with sharper pain. “No.”

“Where is it?”

“Back in my—” I cut myself off. “In the pavilion I used to live in.”

“Ah.” He nodded, both of us remembering the corpses and blood.

I braced myself for him to tell me to go collect it. To step over the bodies and bring back a dagger I had no intention of using, but he merely reached into his back waistband and pulled out the very knife he’d used to kill yesterday.

White noise roared in my ears.

Holding it flat on his palm, he offered it to me. “Take it.”

I backed up instead. “I’m good. Thanks.”

He exhaled, slow and frustrated. “I said, take it.”

“Why?”

“Because I told you to.”

“But...” I swallowed hard as my anxiety ramped up. “You’ve already shown me where the best places are to strike someone. That’s enough.”

His hand shook a little, offering up the dagger. “Once is not enough. I doubt you’ve obeyed me and practiced so...you’re practicing. Right now.”

“But—”

He shot forward, grabbed my wrist, and slapped the wooden hilt into my grip. His large, hot hand wrapped around mine, folding my fingers tight around it, not letting go.

His closeness, his harshness—it made the air spark and blood burn.

I shivered, unable to hide my reaction.

“Stop shaking,” he growled, his voice slipping beneath the black dress I’d borrowed from Evelyn’s wardrobe.

Goosebumps shot down my spine because apparently, I was crazy and infected with need I could no longer control.

Trying to get free, I forced a laugh. “I get it. I get it. I know how to hold a knife.”

His jaw clenched as he held me tighter.

I held my breath, needing him to let me go before I did something stupid.

With a soft groan, he moved before I could react.

His other hand landed on my hipbone, pivoting me and yanking me back so my spine slammed to his front. The spin left the world lopsided—his body steadying mine as firmly as a brick wall.

Lydia flashed into my head.

This was how he’d grabbed her yesterday. How he’d held her as he killed her.

“W-Wait—” I strained in his hold as his arm snaked around my middle, jerking me harder against him, ensuring I felt every inch of him. Every powerful, masculine, hard as rock inch.

I went absolutely still.

He...was affected.

Same as me.

I wasn’t alone in this madness.

Wasn’t drowning in a sea of need alone.

His chest moved against my back, his nose dropping to nuzzle my hair, and his hips...they twitched against my lower back, pressing unmistakable arousal against me.

My heart went berserk.

My pulse drenched my sensitive system with nervousness and need and pain.

I needed to run.

To get far, far away from him before I either collapsed or did something that would probably get me killed.

His hand flexed around mine on the knife as his hips rocked again, his arm slipping down my waist to lock at the base of my belly, holding me rigid. His fingers spread over my hipbone, trapping me as if he couldn’t bear the thought of letting me go.

A soft moan escaped me as his nose pushed my loose hair aside, grazing along my neck.

His bicep bunched against the side of my breast as he pulled me even tighter, fusing us together. The closeness knocked the air from my lungs. His breath on my skin, tattered and shallow.

My knees went weak as Whisper suddenly appeared through the door. The panther froze mid-step, his ears flattening as he glowered at both of us plastered into one. Prowling forward, he sniffed us, sneezed at whatever pheromones we were releasing, then stalked to Lucien’s bed and flopped down.

His arrival helped break the spell just enough for me to squeak. “W-What are you doing?”

Lucien’s fingers wrapped tighter over mine, bruising my palm on the dagger’s hilt.

“Teaching you valuable life lessons,” he breathed, rough and guttural.

Lessons in carnal pleasures?

Yes, please.

My mind exploded with images of him slamming me against a wall and spinning me around. Of him pressing his hips against my front instead of my back. Of him hoisting me up so I could wrap my legs around him and rock against that impressive—

“I told you the other day,” he groaned, his voice rough and intimate in my ear. “If you’re going to kill someone...the throat is the easiest and most certain.” His mouth slid across the shell of my ear, sending an electrical shock right down my spine.

Guiding the knife and my hand, he pressed the tip against my larynx.

I shuddered, ridiculously turned on considering the subject matter.

“You don’t need much strength. You can cause enough damage for them to bleed out even if you don’t manage to kill them outright.” His body curved over mine, his hips pressing against my back again.

The quick hitch of his inhale made his lips brush my ear. The scent of him—clean and sharp, faintly citrus and that lingering bite of metal.

A recipe that shouldn’t affect me yet filled me with impossible longing.

His voice turned thick as he guided my hand and the dagger down the hollow of my throat, down and down, following the swell of my left breast.

The tip pressed against the fabric of my dress but didn’t puncture it. Didn’t do anything apart from deliver the softest, wickedest kiss, following the rapid rise and fall of my breath.