“I’ve enjoyed a tree nymph or two in my life, but not since meeting you.”
Disbelief filled her face.
“You ruined me for all other women the second you kissed me in the minotaur’s labyrinth.”
“Good.”
A part of me thrilled at that word. She’d battled it, but she was as lost to me as I was to her… or almost as lost. I studied my marks on her neck, marks she had not given to me. She hadn’t given herself entirely yet, but she would. I would make sure of it.
“But it wasyouwho kissedme.”
I grinned at her. “If that’s what you want to believe.”
She gave me a disgruntled look as she folded her arms over her chest. “So, are my friends safe around you?”
“Yes, unless they try to attack me, and then I won’t hesitate to kill them.”
“Fair enough. And what will you do when we go after Death and Pride?”
“You won’t have to go after them.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll come for me when they learn I’m with you.”
“How will they learn that?”
“Nothing remains secret amongst demons, Bale, especially when it’s something as big as this.”
“And will they try to kill you?”
I turned my attention back to the falling snow. “Yes.”
She didn’t speak as the snow swirled around us, and occasionally the wind would cause a blast of it to plaster against my face. I despised the cold of this plane, but I much preferred it to life behind the seal. I preferredanythingto being behind the seal.
However, life behind the seal wasn’t life, but I hadn’t had much of a life before I was locked away either. My existence before the seal consisted of inciting others to murder and sitting back to watch my anarchy unfold. Demons were nothing but puppets to me, and I expertly played their strings.
Aside from sex, which had also become dull and monotonous, it was the only entertainment I had, and my amusement with it was fading. Before the seal, my fellow horsemen and I became crueler and created more chaos to add some excitement to our lives. We were devolving into something I barely recognized, but I eagerly rode that path of destruction as it was the only thing allowing me to feelanythinganymore.
Until I kissed Bale in the minotaur’s cave, and she was right about that,Ikissedher,and I would do it a million more times if it meant I’d get to stand in the snow with her. Because for the first time in more millennia than I could recall, I feltalive.
She wanted answers about where we would go from here, but I didn’t have any answers for her. The best I could tell her was I would keep her safe. I still wanted the varcolac dead, but I would figure that out later.
For now, I preferred to forget everything and everyone between us, and she could help me. Stepping closer to her, I clasped one of her cold hands and drew her toward me. She came far easier than I’d anticipated, and as I pulled her against me, I clasped the sides of her face and lifted it.
Her lime green eyes searched mine as her mouth parted. Her sweeping, dark red lashes fell to shadow her cheeks before rising again. Uncertainty shone in her gaze, but so did desire.
Neither of us knew what to do with the other, but for now, and the next few hours, I would make sure it didn’t matter.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Wrath
I claimedher mouth in a kiss that affected me almost as much as her, but whereas I remained unmoving, she swayed toward me. Before Bale, I’d never kissed another, but I couldn’t get enough of it with her. The heat of her mouth, the taste of her, and the way she melted against me all created an intoxicating effect that would forever hold me in its thrall.
Stepping back, I pressed her against the wall of the hotel as I released her face and settled my hands on her hips. If she were any other demon, I would take her here and now, but she wasn’t any other demon.
She wasmyChosen, and I was acutely aware of the guards in the woods, probably watching us. I would not allow them to see what belonged to me. Reaching behind her, I fumbled across the brick wall and then the metal door before grasping the handle and pulling it open.
