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My spine straightens like I’ve been electrocuted from behind and I whirl, coming face to face with a smirk I’m certain will star in my future nightmares. His brows arch closer toward his hairline as those deep amber eyes take me in, traveling down my body and taking their sweet-ass time doing so.
I lift a foot, ready to bolt for the hills, but his voice stops me dead in my tracks. “Hands.”
“Excuse me?” I barely get the words out, too busy cycling through scenarios of where I can hide.
“I said, show me your hands,” he breathes, tipping his chin at me, his fingers flexing on the hilt of the sword sheathed at his hip. The motion draws my eyes down a scar-ridden chest, splattered with dark blood. The copper scent of it singes my nose, laced with a sour tang of the pix root poison, like that on his blade earlier.
Are all of his blades dipped in it?
The moonlight catches on his tan, sweat-slicked skin, painting him in strokes of silver, bronze, and shadow. His dark shoulder-length hair is half wet, and raked through by ruthless fingers, leaving only a couple rogue strands to frame his face.
The man could be a god… Hell, he might be. Power radiates off him, clouding my mind. My head spins with the pulse of it, and somehow, the sweetness that magic emits overpowers everything else. It’s intoxicating, and I have the sudden urge to move closer, to allow it to curl around me, to reach out and spread my fingers across his broad chest, to paint with the blood splattered there.
He bares his teeth, not bothering to hide the ire in his tone. “You can eye fuck me later, princess. Hands. I won’t ask again.” The sternness has warning bells blaring inside my head, pleading with me not to push him.
Demons like to play games. Maybe flirting with him,playing with him, will allow me the chance to escape, seeing as I’m armed with nothing more than a sharp tongue and the world’s tiniest dagger. Both of which are practically useless compared to the magic at his fingertips. I slowly raise my hands, revealing that itty bitty blade. “Worried I came to finish the job? You can’t possibly believe I’m dumb enough to stab you twice.” I give him a sultry grin, forcing my spine to remain strong even though every cell of my being is screaming to run.Hide.Escape.
“I think you were dumb enough to stab me the first time, then ballsy enough to risk coming back. If it weren’t for the fact I just watched you fall out of a tree, this conversation would be going much differently,” he says, glaring at me down the length of his nose.
He saw that?
The man steps closer, eyes locked on mine as he pats me down, sure to keep his body—his blades—out of my reach. I don't so much as breathe as his warm hands slide down my sides, between my legs, and over every curve of my body. And I’m almost certain he can feel my rampaging pulse through the layers of my clothes.
Pleased with the fact I’m relatively unarmed, he steps back, but remains expressionless as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “So, if you’re not here to play murderer, why are you here?” A smile teases his lips. “It can’t be that you lost something, can it?” Laced with a hint of amusement and challenge, his tone makes my heartbeat kick up a notch.
“I thought you’d be gone by now.” It'd be pointless to lie. I’ve never been a good liar, and he’d smell it from a mile away. Demons are perceptive that way.
“Oh?” He arches a brow as he pulls a single hand from his pocket, twirling his wrist in the space between our faces. My necklace appears out of thin air, dangling from his crooked, blood-stained finger. “So, you weren’t searching for this? Good to know.”
I school my features into a wall of expressionless stone, giving away nothing. “Actually, I’d just planned to go on a midnight stroll.”
His laugh is low and cunning, a sound that sends shivers down my spine in the least unpleasant way possible. “A stroll?” Those amber eyes become sinister as they lock with mine. “Here. Take it, but know you’re not welcome on my lands, and as you can see, I’m rather busy. So, if I were you, I’d make yourself disappear before I tire of this little game you’re playing. I get rather murderous when I’m bored.”
I reach for it, our fingertips brushing briefly as I grasp my necklace. The world seems to tilt from the charge in that touch. It sends an echoing pulse of something dangerous, somethingwildthrough every nerve in my body. "You’re just giving it back?" I manage, clutching the crystal like it's my last shred of sanity.
“Not out of the goodness of my heart, no. I’d rather not have to pick up your pieces come morning. The woods are riddled with dread wolves. I’ve killed over half a dozen already.”
Not daring to look away, I clutch the crystal to my chest, hissing at the sting that radiates up my arm. “Well, I’d hate to inconvenience you further by dying, so I’ll be on my way.” I take a single step, halting to peer at him out of the corner of my eye. “Thank you, for my crystal.” Pinching my lips between my teeth I force myself to look at him. “And for not killing me.”
The corner of his lips quips up. “My pleasure.”
I can feel his gaze roaming over me as I leave, and against my better judgment, I steal a glance over my shoulder, finding him leaning his back against the tree he was near, arms crossed. And if I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a flirtatious glint in his eye.
It’s not wise to give a creature like him my back, but my hope is it’ll appear as though I’m not scared of him, even if the truth can’t be more opposite. I only make it a few yards away before I hear that angelic voice once more.
“What’s your name?” he calls.
My lips pull into a smirk, but I don’t dare look at him as I say, “I know better than to give my name to strangers.”
“I’m not fae,” he says, like the word is dirtier than his blood-caked nails. “Give me a little credit, will ya? I’m a demon and the only way a demon can trick you is if you make a deal and seal it in blood.” His voice is much closer, as if he’s standing right behind me, but I’m too frozen to look.
With menacing slowness, he barely disturbs the ground as he circles me, chin tucked toward his chest. Those amber eyes glow from beneath his dark lashes, only inches separating us while he watches me with suchintent, I’m not quite sure what to do.
“I could’ve killed you, you said it yourself. Yet, I didn’t. I returned your necklace, despite you coming to barge into my home announced…again.”I tense as he scoops up a dark lock of my hair from where it was resting on my shoulder, then proceeds to coil it around his pointer finger. “Doesn’t that deserve some reward?”
I clear my throat. Clearly, he needs this. I knew it was too good to be true, and I don’t think he ever had intended to let me leave without giving up something. But he’s right. Demons can’t make deals without consent and just knowing my name isn’t dangerous in itself. For lesser demons, those not as powerfulas the one standing before me, they’d need a name to track me down. This man? He’s already seen my face and for nephilim that’s enough.
“Valeria.”
