“A great many things, if only we had more time,” the parasite said, but it did not have the effect she intended, because then Nox was upon her, pinning her by the throat.

All this felt delightfully familiar. Evander had pinned her by the throat once, and she hadn’t minded the experience.

“This is her body. Blaise’s body. Not yours. And you would have had me…” His tongue groped for words but found none.

At the same moment, he seemed to realize it was also Blaise’s throat he was crushing, because he retracted his hand with equal speed as he’d appeared next to her.

“I’m going to kill you. Do you understand that?” Nox seethed, his fangs still jutting from his gums. The parasite wondered what they would feel like scraping against her neck. Pleasant, she figured, if they had felt so delightful against her wrist. “I’m going to find a way to sever you from Blaise’s body, and then I’m going to destroy you.”

“You won’t destroy me,” the parasite said, and as soon as the words left her lips, something solid seemed to clamp onto the air between them.

Nox must have felt it too, because his cheeks went slack with horror.

“What did you do?” he whispered, and the parasite found her thoughts wandering to how his breath would feel against her ear.

“It’s not as much what I did as what we did,” the parasite said, feeling more alert now as the venom faded from her system. “You offered me your blood freely and then partook of mine. You must have met no one else of your kind, otherwise you would have been more careful about who you shared your blood with.”

“Others?” The word seemed suspended in the air between them.

“You can’t have believed you were the only one to find yourself afflicted by this condition?”

Nox blinked, the rage returning after its slight hiatus in the face of shock. “What happened when I offered you my blood?”

The parasite settled into her place on the table. “When one of your kind exchanges blood with a mortal, it is similar to entering a fae bargain. Except the conditions are not so rigid.”

Nox’s already pale face went white. “What did I agree to do?”

The parasite curled her lips. “Anything I ask.”

Nox was quick, but not quick enough. He’d made it to the door and had his hand on the handle before the parasite commanded him to stop.

He obeyed.

When she told him to come, he did.

“You won’t remember any of this in the morning. You’re going to think you dreamed of feeding on Blaise, but that is all you will think of it—a dream. Do you understand?”

Nox’s jaw clenched, his throat tightened. “You’re filth.”

The parasite bristled and determined she would change his mind about that. “Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” he said, and he looked as though he’d betrayed his oldest of friends when he said it.

“Come closer,” she said, and a thrill rattled her ribcage when he obeyed.

When she whispered to him what she wished for him to do, he shuddered.

She told him to forget this conversation, but not what he was supposed to do. Then she repeated herself one more time just to make sure.

Knowing her time for pleasure was drawing nigh, that surely the moon would be close to its apex by now, she whispered in his ear, “Now kiss me.”

Revulsion soiled his handsome features, but he did as she said, grazing her lips with a peck.

The parasite couldn’t help the cruel smile. She would have to be careful with this one.

“Now kiss me like you want to kiss Blaise.”

Nox was not so gentle this time.

CHAPTER 19

BLAISE

Nox can’t seem to stop bumping into me today.

At first, I told myself I was imagining it, reading alternate meanings into casual accidents. I have a propensity for reading into things, after all. One could argue that’s what got me imprisoned in the first place—reading simmering desire into Evander’s brotherly affection.

But this is the seventh time today Nox has either nudged me with his elbow, bumped into my hip, or brushed his fingers against my hand while he passes me a vial, and I can’t shake the notion that I am definitely not reading into this.

He can’t seem to keep his hands off me, and while I should be complaining, I’m not.

“You seem oddly…cheerful today,” I say when he scrapes his arm against my shoulder while reaching for a flask he could have easily circled around me to get.

I’m not really sure what I’m doing at the workbench with him. It’s not as if I have a clue what any of the materials that fill the vials are, but when Nox strolled into the dungeon this morning, he asked me to join him, and I did.

It’s not as if I have anything better to do.

“Is that a problem?” he asks, flashing an uncharacteristically charming grin down at me.

“I don’t suppose so,” I say, eyeing him warily.

I can’t say I mind Nox’s change in mood. I liked him just as well when he was all sulky and depressed, but there’s something about the lightness in his step that’s as disarming as it is contagious.

People always say that good moods are infectious, but as someone who’s carrying a parasite within my body, you can’t blame me if I’m suspicious of anything that sounds remotely transmittable.

I bite my lip, chewing on whether to ask him about what’s actually bothering me. There’s a part of me that can’t shake the dread that Nox’s mood has something to do with the fact that last night was the full moon.

It makes me sick to even think it, and I know Nox promised me he wouldn’t pay a visit to Cinderella, but there’s something about losing control of my body for several hours and not remembering a thing that leaves me ill.

At least I didn’t wake covered in blood this morning, though my muscles were sore and I did feel as though I’d been hit by a carriage. My pulse thuds through my wrist, knocking at a dull pain, but each time I examine it, there’s no sign of injury. I must have slept on it wrong last night after the parasite lost control of my body. If I know her, she probably curled up with my wrist at an odd angle just to torture me.

In the end, I decide the anxiety gnawing at my chest can’t be any worse than the humiliation of asking Nox what he was up to last night. “So you didn’t end up spying on my evil alter ego last night?” I ask, hardly masking the tension in my throat.

Nox creases his eyebrows and sets down the frothing flask into which he’s been measuring canary yellow powder and turns his focus on me. “Of course not. I told you I wouldn’t.”

“Right. Of course you did. I don’t mean I thought you talked to her or anything, but you didn’t even take a peek? You know, let your curiosity get the better of you? I wouldn’t really blame you if you did.”

I taste the lie as soon as it leaves my lips, but I am too embarrassed to take it back.