6. Katalina
KATALINA
I was a succubus… a siren, if you will. I’d had a lot of sex in my lifetime.
I’d never experienced whatever that just was. My brain was trying to make sense of it.
Then suddenly—metal snapped around my wrists.
Stunned, I jerked back. Too late. Warded cuffs. “What the fuck?”
The magic burned against my skin like icy, cold fire.
Gideon lifted me off him and stood up. He stepped away, breathing hard. “Thought you were the only one allowed to set traps?” he murmured with a wicked grin.
Anger flaring, I tested the restraints. They didn’t budge. Eyes narrowing, I smiled in return. “So that’s how you want to play.”
He picked up my discarded knife from the pile of my clothes beside the door. “Now,” he said calmly as he turned it in his fingers, studying the details, “we’re going to talk.”
“Get up,” he ordered.
It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse. Yet, I was at a supreme disadvantage. Whoever had warded these cuffs knew exactly what they were doing.
“Let me guess. Your cage?” I asked with a single arched brow. I lifted both arms to push my hair out of my face. When I did, I caught a whiff of his scent on the cuffs.
Was this a sanctuary for him? Or a prison?
“My insurance policy.” He opened the door and motioned me inside. “Can’t have you trying to kill me now that the night is over.”
I snorted. He wasn’t wrong.
Moonlight filtered through the trees as he shut the door behind me. I turned to face him, wrists still bound.
“So what now, Gideon?” I asked as I stared at him through the bars etched with the same markings and more as the cuffs.
His eyes flashed molten gold. “I told you… no one calls me that.”
I tilted my head slightly, feeling a taunting grin breaking through. “I do.”
For the first time since we met in the swamp… I saw the control in him crack. Just a little.
And that made me smile.