He had been so distracted she had actually landed the hit.
Faster than he could think, his hand wrapped around her throat, stealing the breath from her remaining scream. This was not how things usually went here. His reaction was... intense, but there was too much on the line.
His grip was firm yet careful, ensuring she could breathe. He didn’t want her passing out again. He would explain the gravity of things to her, but first he needed her to see him.
Reallysee him.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
This was the second time he had come this close. It made her body feel things she didn’t understand. His touch, his proximity, it was invigorating, like he was waking her from a cold, dead sleep.
She shouldn’t have hit him. It was reckless and impulsive, and the moment it happened, she regretted it.
Now, all she could focus on was her breathing as he pressed down on her throat with measured precision. Her vision began to blur and her mind fogged.
Stay conscious. Stay awake.She repeated the mental commands, willing herself to obey.
He held her steady against the wall. She balanced on the tips of her toes, flexing her calves to the point of aching.
Their eyes connected. “Call me a bastard again,” he baited.
She tried to speak. The sound that came out wasn’t far from the croak of a toad.
She tightened her own grip on his wrist while a faint wetness crested the corners of her eyes. She tried digging her nails into his skin as hard as she could, but they were brittle and chewed. She was doing no damage at all.
Stupid habit.
Then his strange mismatched eyes began to change, like someone had spilled a pot of ink inside them and the darkness was consuming everything in its wake until, finally, the eyes staring back at her were wholly and utterly black.
She couldn’t scream, she could only pitifully claw as his whole appearance altered before her eyes.
The color of his veins erupted to the surface of his skin, soaking up that inky blackness traveling from his face down to his neck and exposed arms. His human teeth grew into razor-sharp canines. Claws flicked out from the beds of his fingernails. Thick, dark horns stretched from his head toward the sky. Wings of feathered black sprouted from his shoulder blades.
He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Go on. Say it. Call me a bastard.”
He eased his grip slightly, permitting her the chance to speak.
The resentful bitterness she harbored made her want to oblige him, but she decided on a safer reply. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was hoarse and lacking any genuine remorse, and her gaze was pure fire as she adjusted to the sight of him.
“Liar. You’ve attacked me, you’ve attacked my soldier. I wonder how you would fare if we treated you with the same courtesy?”
A billow of black smoke pooled around them, as if in answer to some hellish power.
His posture tensed, and his brows narrowed in confusion. He tilted his nostrils upward, sniffing her.
“What—what are you doing?”
The angle of his head gave her a more direct look at those animalistic teeth. The sight of him would keep her from sleeping for days. If she ever slept again.
“Very interesting,” he murmured.
This was it, life or death, she had to defend herself.
She lowered her hands behind her back and removed her bracelet. She focused her energy on one thing, one thought.
Get him off.
A gust of black, thready plumes joined his, springing forth from the rocks behind her. Chaotic yet purposeful, they circled the demonic captain’s wrist in thin, flowing ribbons, bending and squeezing so he had no other choice than to let go. He growled in surprise as his hand flexed in retreat. Then the flow of black shadow shoved him away, forcing him to stagger backward.
