Page 278 of House Ignis

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I ran with a speed that should have been born of terror, but my lips were pulled back in a jagged, exhilarated grin.

This was his version of a confession—a twisted invitation to finally step into the darkness he’d promised me.

He’d given me a head start, a mercy I knew wouldn't last.

I could feel him behind me, a cold, predatory shadow that pressed against the back of my neck, urging me to push faster.

I dove into the thicket, thorns and low-hanging branches clawing at my skin.

I hissed as a briar sliced across my arm, the sting sharp and immediate—but then the bond throbbed.

The realization sent me spiraling, a mix of genuine alarm and devastating heat coiling in my gut.

He surprised me at every turn, peeling back layers of himself that were as beautiful as they were terrifying.

But I was distracted.

My foot caught on a stray branch, and before I could even gasp, gravity took hold. I hit the ground hard, the breath driven from my body in a single, dusty thud.

He caught me before I could even push myself up.

A sharp yank at my ankles, a blur of motion, and I was on my back, staring up into the night sky.

“Got you, firecracker.”

I winced as the taste of blood filled my mouth, my teeth having caught my tongue in the fall.

He looked like an ancient warrior god standing over me, terrifyingly handsome in the pale light.

He began to strip with a slow, deliberate focus—jacket, tie, then the buttons of his shirt.

I couldn't look away from the wolf in his eyes.

“I shouldn't have left,” he said, his voice threaded with a dark kind of honesty.

“But you have to understand, Ava... I am the darkness. I have demons that haven't even begun to show themselves. Why do you want this?”

The shirt hit the dirt.

My gaze drifted down his chest to the low-slung waist of his pants and the throb of him beneath the zipper.

I swallowed hard, my pulse a frantic roar.

“Because I’ve never been afraid of the shadows,” I told him, my voice iron-clad.

I stared him down, needing him to understand that I saw it all—the demons and the male—and I wanted both.

His jaw worked as he processed my words, and then that wicked, familiar grin returned.

He sank to his knees, his hands possessive as he took my foot, his lips following the line of my leg in a slow, agonizing crawl that made my entire body go taut.

His lips traced the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, sending a jolt of pure electricity through me.

I felt him move, a shadow blocking out the moon as he settled his weight above mine.

He looked down at me, disheveled and dirt-stained, his silver eyes searching for a reason to let me go.