Lahat ng Kabanata ng IN BED WITH THE DEVIL AS HIS SURROGATE : Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

KATHLEENThe moment his eyes found me, something in them softened. His grip around the Queen’s throat loosened just enough for her to drop. She nearly crumpled to the floor — only her sisters rushing in kept her upright.Then he crossed the room in three long strides and crushed his mouth against mine.I heard the Queen’s breath catch behind us, a sound like something breaking open.When I glanced past his shoulder, her hand was clamped over her own mouth. Tears streamed freely down her face as her sisters folded around her, holding her up. The look in her eyes was pure devastation mixed with raw jealousy. She had just watched her husband choose another woman over her without a second of hesitation.Guilt hit me instantly, sharp and unwelcome.But what was I supposed to do? Push him off in front of her and risk him turning violent again? I never asked for any of this. I never wanted to be the reason a woman who’d just woken from a coma had to watch her husband’s mouth on someone

LYCAN KING SEBASTIANI woke up feeling wrong in my own skin. My Lycan energy was draining out of me fast, faster than it should have.But I knew why.I had stepped outside that room. I had broken one of the only rules this curse had ever given me. And the worst part was, my body hadn't minded at all.After I'd eaten last night, something in me had been pushed past every limit I thought I had. I'd felt the pull toward her before — that quiet urge to keep her close, to have her near me even when I couldn't stand to have anyone else in the room. But never like this. Never enough to drag me clean through a wall I'd respected for seven straight years.The moment I had her in my arms, though, something in me simply went still.The calm that settled over my chest was unlike anything I could remember feeling. The deeper I sank into her, the more it felt like I was chasing my own sanity and, for once, actually catching it. She quieted something in me I didn't have words for.And that pull —

KATHLEENI gave him a nervous smile, shook my head, and reached up to touch the fur along his jaw.Goddess, help me. What am I doing?My hand hovered there a second too long before I let it land, dread prickling through me the moment my palm actually made contact with all that fur and heat and barely-contained danger. Touching him like this still felt like reaching into a cage I had no business opening.The most beautiful pair of eyes I had ever seen stared back at me, waiting.He didn't move. He just watched me, strangely still for a man built entirely out of claws and rage, like my answer actually mattered to him."How could you even ask me that, Big King?" I held his chin lightly, tilting it side to side, teasing him, wondering the whole time where I'd found the nerve to do it.Let's be honest, though. Handsome? The man currently had fangs and a snout where his face used to be. There was absolutely nothing handsome about any of that, and I knew it even as the words were about to

KATHLEENI heard his footsteps the second he entered, and I held my breath, praying the dark and the edge of the bed would be enough to keep him from finding me.What is he doing here? I thought he wasn't supposed to come back. Is he here for another girl this time?He crossed the room slowly, stopping just inches from the bed. Even from where I crouched, his aura pressed against me like a hand closing around my throat, threatening to drag me out into the open before he'd even known I was there."Ohh, brother." Mockery dripped from every syllable. "Do you still think you're powerful?"A laugh burst out of him, loud and delighted. "You actually stepped outside this room. For what, exactly?"The King didn't answer. I knew why — he was still barely conscious, drifting somewhere between sleep and the fever the doctor had warned us about.I heard Casper inhale, slow and deliberate, sniffing the air like he was savoring something. "You're so weak right now, Sebastian." His voice dropped, ic

LYCAN KING SEBASTIANWhen she told me I had the prettiest eyes, the softest lips, something in me folded quietly inward.Her eyes were full of warmth, full of something close enough to admiration that I almost let myself believe it. The way she'd called me handsome, I knew it for the lie it was. A man buried under fur and claws like this couldn't be anywhere near handsome. No one with eyes in their head could mistake me for that.But the way she'd said it, the way she'd touched my face without a trace of fear in her hands, that was what actually undid me. She wasn't performing calmly. She was relaxed, genuinely, like she already understood something about me that even I wasn't sure of anymore.Like she knew, somehow, that I wouldn't hurt her.Then the backlash hit.I'd known it was coming. There was no outrunning the price of stepping outside that room. I'd known that the moment I crossed the threshold. But I never imagined it would take me down in front of her.I never wanted any