Glow (The Plated Prisoner, #4)

by Raven Kennedy

“I was a hissing cat who couldn’t go through a single conversation without picking a fight.” My lips tilt up when I remember that scrappy, vicious girl who used to spew some of the meanest, crudest shit I’d ever heard, and she was only fourteen. “I was surprised you never sprouted claws.”

I was dead and running, just trying to keep up with survival. Just making it one day. People don’t get that, you know? If they’ve never lived like that. It’s one day. A whole slew of one-day-at-a-times, just getting through, squeezing by. Always running, never expecting anything else. Never having anyone or anything but that running and fighting and dying through it.”

“We’ve all got a little rotten in us, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. It’s how we’ve survived.”

I may be empty, but I am not alone.

I can let the severed parts of me sever all the rest.

Honestly, there’s not a single part of him that doesn’t need trimming. His beard is so long I could braid it, his hair is always windblown around his shoulders, and from what I can see at his wrists beneath his sleeves, he’s hairy there as well. I just know that he’s one of those men with chest hair.

And even though I try to avoid him, I still...watch.

I’ve never felt so safe as I do when he’s holding me. When my body is against his. It’s not safety with strings attached, it’s not comfort with conditions. He holds me like he wants nothing else in return, and it’s so foreign that I still find myself in awe at how this can be for me. “Your thoughts are awfully loud back there,” Slade says.

More than anyone else, Slade adored my ribbons. And now they’re gone, and I just feel so…incomplete. Inadequate. I don’t know if I’ll ever not feel that.

Because that’s what he always does for me. He finds every aching part and helps me work through it. Even when I don’t want to.

Half of his personality is arguing with me.

swirling scruples.

I’ve always been more passive in life. I think passivity is often mistaken for weakness. Really, it’s just a different way to cope. To survive. The safest way I learned to react to situations was to endure. To let things blow over. To please. To peace keep. To constantly regulate my own reactions and thoughts and emotions

“No, Goldfinch,” he interrupts. “I’m good to you. But I am every bit the villain that I warned you I was.” His previous words ring in my ears. I’ll be the villain for you. Not to you.

looking offensively sexy. No person should be able to look that effortlessly good

But my song of home doesn’t come from the sun. Mine comes from her.

I can’t deny the thrill that shoots down my back, because I’ve never had this before him—this fierce protector. I’ve had a false one. If only I’d known what a true one looked like, I probably never would’ve been fooled in the first place.

“Reputations can also mean power.” “Says the king.” He leans in close, lips almost brushing my ear. “Says the king to the fae female who’s conquered him completely.” I lick my wine-stained lips. “I’ve conquered no one.” “Goldfinch, you could conquer the entire world with a single look, if only you’d open your eyes.”

“You can flirt and play all you like,” he purrs, tongue lapping, moving to my other nipple, making it match in wet heat. “You can make men and women desire you, crave you, and I will crave right along with them.”

Highlight

“When I say you’re mine, it’s not cheap ownership. I don’t see you as a figure to lock to my arm like a toy to keep away from all others.” That was the only mine I knew. “So what are you saying exactly?” I ask with a faltered breath. “I mean you’re mine to please. To pleasure.” The motive in his eyes matches with the drag of his hand, the curl of his palm as he presses against my throbbing clit and makes me see sparks of light behind my eyes. “You’re mine to protect. To adore. To hear. To see. To experience. To love.” A pitted lump burns in my throat. “You’re mine, Auren. As wholly as I am yours. If there’s something you crave, if there’s some freedom you want to try the taste of, then you will do it, and I will be right there with you. Watching you devour your wants. And then I will devour you.”

I want to do this for him. I may be the one kneeling, but there is power here on my knees, with him in my mouth, with him beneath my grip. Such power here.

So I breathe. A single phrase caught in the exhale, joined with the sorrow of my heart. Find me in another life. Find me in them all.