Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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Blinking, I jerked my head back. "Why the fuck not?"
"I can't kiss you because of, you know," she said, straightening and pointing an accusing finger at my face, "beard rash. Everyone would know. That's what happened to one of the girls last year. Her whole face was covered in an ugly red beard rash from kissing a bearded guy too much and for too long, and her parents pretty much put her on lockdown for the entire year."
And then Tabitha's watch alarm suddenly went off. A digital beep-beep-beep noise filled the space between us. She glanced down at her wrist, awkwardly pulling her sleeve up to check her watch. "I've got to go." She twisted around, yanked the door open, and strode off.
Wait...what the fuck?
I hurried after her, pushing through the cool room door, and chased her down as she quickly clipped through the kitchen, the copper pots hanging from the ceiling on hooks scattering light from the dimmed lights above. Tabitha moved through a door in the kitchen which led into a hallway with buttery yellow striped wallpaper.
She marched so fucking fast, practically speed-walking, I was jogging beside her to keep up. My cock was a goner for this girl. I was trying to tell it to back the fuck down, but it wasn't listening. "So..." I said, broaching the subject again. "We don't need to kiss for..."
"For?" she said, shooting me a sidelong look, one eyebrow raised. She knew exactly what I was going to ask.
"You and me..." I said, waving a finger between us as we headed toward an intersection between hallways.
She ground to a sudden halt, whirled around with a hand on her chest, threw back her head, and laughed so heartily her shoulders shuddered. She shook her head, her hair shimmying as her laughter subsided. She made some kind of snorting sound as if it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard, then a little sigh as she collected herself once more.
She smiled at me like she was humoring a cute little fool, and mirrored my gesture, waving a finger between us. "No. There isn't going to be any you and me and that."
Like a disappointed idiot, my eyebrows rose when I said, "Huh?"
Her eyebrows matched mine as if she couldn't fathom how fucking obtuse I was.
She blinked once, then twice, then popped a hand on her hip. Her upper body canted forward. "My friend's sister is pregnant," she drawled, now squinting at me, giving me attitude.
"Yeah so?" I had no idea what this had to do with us.
She straightened her posture, flipped up her hand that had been on her hip, and started ticking off her fingers. "Tomas clearly isn't going to stand by the baby. She isn't married. She isn't even in a position of being engaged to anyone. She is in so much trouble I can't even begin to imagine how her parents are going to react or what is going to happen to her. I have no idea how they'll hide the fact she's pregnant, let alone an illegitimate child." She made a sound like gah but it sounded a lot more annoyed than playful. "Seriously, you know what it's like for us. And there is no way I'm putting myself in that kind of danger." She suddenly glanced furtively over her shoulder down the empty hallway, before turning back to me to whisper-shout. "We shouldn't even be seen alone together."
