Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“Besides,” she said after a moment, “each time in history when there was something big and bad going on, there were always the good guys doing their best to fix things, to save people. I want to be on the right side of history. What’s the point in being partially immortal if all I do is serve myself?”
“That is noble,” I decided, admiring that even if I couldn’t necessarily relate. I liked humans. Especially human women. Their mortality made them—as a whole—kinder, braver, and more empathetic.
“You think it’s silly,” she said.
“I think it’s—” I started.
It happened so quickly.
One second, we were walking side by side.
The next, she was in front of me, and her arms wrapped around me tight.
The warmth hit me first. The literal warmth of her body, the way it chased the chill that had been needling at my skin for the walk back from the car.
It wasn’t long, though, before I was noticing other things. The swells of her breasts against my chest. Her heart beating wildly against me. The sweet orange and cream scent of her skin. The brush of her silky hair on my arm. The way she seemed to fit against me so perfectly.
Mine.
What?
Where the fuck had that thought come from?
I mean, sure, all that pretty would be nice for a night or two. I would love to get lost between her thighs for an hour or two.
But she wasn’t mine.
Mineminemine.
“W—“ I started, only to feel Nox’s hand slap over my mouth, pressing down hard, desperate to get something across to me. Namely, yeah, to shut the fuck up. But also…
The crunch had my head whipping over just in time to see someone walking right alongside us. His head turned, brows pinched, as he started right toward us.
But didn’t see.
It was right then that I understood what she was doing. She wasn’t throwing herself at me like she just couldn’t fight her desire—damnit. She was wrapping her darkness around us both, hiding us.
The man shook his head and lumbered off. Not, I have to admit, before I noticed the power emanating off of him.
I hadn’t really ever noticed that before. The closest I’d ever come was when I’d first met Arick. An extremely powerful warlock. Power seemed to actually flicker in the air around him.
It was a different sort of power, though. Arick seemed to specialize in things like seduction and, for his clients, pointing them in the most profitable directions.
The power that was emanating from the man who’d just passed us was something different entirely. Something… elemental.
He meandered off, disappearing from view, but Nox held onto me, her face buried in my neck, her breath warm on my skin.
So what if my arms went around her too? Maybe they even slid up and down her back, pressed into the hard knots in her muscles, and worked them free as she melted against me.
It was the way that she swayed against me, maybe actually falling asleep on her feet, that had her jerking back, stepping away.
“We have to move,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “Silently,” she added. “But stay close.”
As we made our way back to the estate, the natural shadows of night were drawing away. And, I noted, Nox’s cloak of darkness was flickering, just barely holding.
One look at her strained, pale, exhausted face said it was taking everything she had to keep it going even as we finally moved behind the door to make our way downstairs.
“I would stay,” she said, her voice as small as her heavy-lidded eyes. “But there’s nowhere to hide. Not when I’m fading.”
“Don’t worry about me, sweetness. I’ll be just fine.”
Was it mostly false bravado? Yep. I wasn’t looking forward to the emotional or physical torture that was surely coming my way in a matter of hours. But it was also true. It would hurt. Then I would heal. That was how shit worked with us.
“I really wish there felt like there was another way,” she said, finishing chaining me back up, her gaze finally cutting to mine.
The grief in her eyes—for a complete stranger, and an evil one at that—had that little voice whispering at the back of my mind again.
Mine.
“Just do me a favor,” I said.
“Anything.”
“Once you hear the screaming stop, give me an hour or two before you come down.”
“Why?”
“Give a demon a chance to heal up a bit, will ya? Gotta keep up appearances. Can’t be denying you this gorgeous face, now, can I?”
That got a small laugh out of her.
“Okay. I can do that. What about, uh, food? Sustenance?”
“I don’t need to eat,” I told her. Sure, I liked it a fuckuva lot more than my demon friends did. I mean, if you couldn’t appreciate a deep-fried onion blossom, something was wrong with you. “But I wouldn’t mind a warmer shirt,” I said, thinking of a long night trekking through the grounds with her.