Igniting Cinder (The Lost Girls, #3)

by Holly Roberds

Romance is real. Never settle.

You can take the girl out of Midnight, but she’ll still have a weird affinity for Tim Burton aesthetics the rest of her life.

I can’t believe it’s really her, and a strange rush of relief sweeps through me.

She’s like a beautiful graveyard of secrets. Fuck, when did I get so poetic?

My dark princess isn’t afraid of the Midnight court and meets my father’s gaze with her head held high. My princess. . .

I’ve always been drawn to Cinder, when we were young and when I saw her across the ballroom, but it’s only now that I feel I’m looking at the fullest expression of her. Before me is a spooky goth babe, a creature from another world. With each step, she draws me up into her hypnotic spell. Invisible shackles close around my ankles, wrists, and not too surprisingly, my dick.

Bad prince. I’m not here to get her out of her pants. I’m here to get her in on my plan. My cock sticks its proverbial fingers in its invisible ears and starts yelling lalala! very loudly, unwilling to hear my command as it swells further against my zipper.

Everywhere I go I command the attention of the room, whether I’m a prince or simply a man who exudes sexual confidence and power. But at this human girl's boots, I’m nothing. I’m no one. And she is everything. All that matters.

A whoosh of air flows over my face. Once, then twice. I turn to find the hot librarian chick fanning me with her book. “Thought you could use a cool down after that.”

In the Common World, Prince Charming shows up as a different persona, and seeing this side of him rocks me to my core. And my core gives an involuntary clench having suddenly become very hot, wet, and wanty. Traitorous bitch.

The prince’s eyes lock on mine and the world fades into blurry watercolors around me again, like it did that first time. He has the power to make me feel like the only person in the room, the only one who matters in the entire world.

I’ve decided to call my neither region “Iron Maiden” because it’s metal as fuck, and I'm sure it will remind me that I’m foreboding and untouchable.

“You’re perfect.”

His stage smile turns into a genuine grin that makes butterflies take flight in my belly. Except all the butterflies are on fire.

I need her. For my plan, of course.

She’s so mean. I’m obsessed.

If I were her, I’d hate me too. Well, not me particularly. I’m charming, after all.

“Worried, my little spooky babe?” “The hell did you call me?” He pushes off from the door frame and saunters into my room. “Would you prefer goth girl? Gloom cookie? Shadow pup? Sparky?”

“Don’t be like that, my little black cloud of cuddles. We are betrothed. We must share all our secrets.”

“Stop being a little bitch and put the shoe on or stay here,” she snaps at me. Why did I just get hard?

Ain’t that the truth. If I had my way, I’d be using her for a lot more. She can use me for anything she wants.

In the layered dresses she wears in the Midnight realm, she is a haunting gothic phantom of beauty. But in fishnets, leather, and clothes with cutouts in all the strangest places, her hip bones bared but her legs covered, she is a forbidding dominatrix. I would drop to my knees and lick her boots if she asked.

“Let me make something clear, friend. It’s never okay to treat any person like an object for your impulsive tiny-balled pleasure, whether they're someone’s girl or not. Do we understand each other?”

She's a luxury I can't afford, a dream I have to let die before it even has a chance to take root.

The fear. The arousal. Fearousal.

“You taste like if heaven and hell combined for a smoke-infused ambrosia.”

My silver tongue ring. That’s what the burning is. Where the fresh blood is coming from. The silvers seared his flesh, yet he kept kissing me. He bled for me.

Kaison is half-erect, giving me a glimpse of the horizontal barbells climbing up his shaft. A Jacob's ladder. And crowning the top is a reverse Prince Albert, a ring piercing that curves over the head.

“That's like saying a piece of art isn't great because there are a million other works.”

“Oh fuck, are you going to come just from rubbing those pretty pussy lips over my cock?” Kaison sounds pained. As if the truth might kill him.

“Fuck yeah, Cinder. Ride it, baby girl. I'm so hard for you.”

The guys I fuck also don't look at me like he does. Like I'm a goddess. Like he'd happily let me save or slay him.

“No. Give it to me. Grind on me exactly how you need.” Despite not needing to breathe, he sounds breathless. “I can take it. Please.”

“Cinder, you look. . .” He trails off, shaking his head clear. “Like a princess?” I offer. “Like the most powerful, dangerously seductive creature I’ve ever beheld.”

Tonight is going to be a bitch. But to be fair, so am I.

“Don’t tempt me.” “Oh, I think I might,” he says in a low husk.

I try to match their elevated way of speaking, though I still get some looks as though the vampires can’t believe there is a talking dog at the table. Woof woof motherfuckers.

“Let me see you come in front of all these people, my gothic goddess.”

“You sadistic asshole,” she hisses with narrowed eyes. “Oh, baby, say it slow, and maybe step on my balls while you do.”

I wanted to see the world through her eyes. To be so independent that I wouldn’t have to answer to anyone. Instead of approaching her, I found my peace in watching hers.

The need to circle that digit in some kind of binding metal to show that she is taken swells in me. For the plan, I try to remind myself. Not because I want to broadcast that she is off limits.

I’m hungry. Hungry to get her alone, to explore all her piercings and tattoos. I want to make her scowl, make her smile—like really smile. And I want to annoy the ever-loving shit out of her with the million more nicknames I cook up.

Not that I fix things or make them better, but. . . something in me wants to try. For once.

She stands there, a gothic vision of royal enchantment and zero fucks. The only shift in her normally expressionless face is the downward tilt of perfect lips and a slight furrow in her brow. Okay there may be one fuck lurking in her somewhere.

Cinder. I just want all of Cinder. I need her.

I’m not a person. I’m a thing. A performance to be enjoyed. But that's not how Cinder looks at me. That’s never how she’s looked at me.

“Try me, my black souled diamond. My ghostly damsel of distress.”

Something deep, dark, and lonely yawns open deep at my core, and suddenly I feel like I’m that boy again, wanting too much, too hard.

Shit, we should make a safe word. Pineapples? Pumpkin spice? Stop touching me in my sensitive feely place?

Uh oh. Pumpkin spice! Pumpkin spice!