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Ryder shifts and lays down next to me. “Is this your first time sleeping with a demon?”
I shift to face him, propping up on my elbow. Our faces are mere inches apart. “I guess it is.”
“Lucky me.” He smiles invitingly.
“Don’t forget what I said—” I begin.
He raises a hand, and places one finger over my lips gently. “I’m not going to try anything, little witch. Remember what I told you at the club?”
I pause, unsure which of our earlier conversations he’s referring to.
“I would never be with someone who did not consent one thousand percent,” he continues. “When I’m with someone, they want it so badly they wouldn’t dream of saying anything but yes. And there are many yeses, many of them screamed, throughout the course of the night.”
My nipples go hard as ice and I suck in a breath. “Just one night?” I don’t know why I say it, but it slips out unbidden, and I feel a blush creeping over my cheeks.
I can feel heat and magic coming off him. He’s one expanse of gorgeous darkly tanned skin and muscle. Pecs, abs, and even his thighs are sculpted like one of the marble statues of the Italian masters. But I find myself staring at his lips. They’ve got to be the fullest and most sensuous lips I’ve ever seen on a man. We’re so close that just the slightest movement could end the tension sparking between us. All I have to do is run my fingers up the flat plane of his chest…
“I’m not relationship material,” he says. His tone is light and there’s a quirk to his lips, but something in his eyes belies them both.
“Figures you’d be a commitment-phobe,” I say, my own tone teasing, trying to cover up for my embarrassing question.
He goes silent for a moment, and his smile falls. “I wasn’t always.”
I blink. His comment surprises me. “What happened to change that?”
A heartbeat, and then his smile is back, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Goodnight, little witch.”
Ryder closes his eyes, and I close mine, and I fall asleep with a demon sharing my bed.
In the dream there’s a large wooden box, almost like a shipping crate. I’ve been dreaming of this box for months now. Even in my dream I know it’s familiar.
What I don’t know is what’s inside it. I just know it fills me with apprehension.
Then come the other figures that run on repeat in my dreams every night. My ex-boyfriend, my ex-coven. Angry faces looming over me. My ex chases me through the woods. I keep running and running and running…
At some point, in that way that dreams shift unexplainably, it’s not my ex chasing me anymore. It’s the horned beast. The demon who abducted me, tied me to a post, and nearly burned me alive. It’s dark, and branches whip by me, slashing at my skin. He’s gaining on me. I can smell the sulfur radiating off him, as well as the dark magic, thick like sludge. Right on my heels… my heart is pounding out of my chest, and my breath comes in sharp, panicked gasps.
And then he has me. I feel claws raking my shoulders, searing my flesh. I twist, trying to get out of his grasp, and I fall backwards.
I see two glowing eyes. Teal like the ocean…
Magic pours from my hands, blasting the demon right in the chest. A roar fills my ears as he yells in pain.
But the sound isn’t right. Something’s wrong…
I wake and jerk upright. Ryder is lying in bed next to me, clutching a burning hole in his chest.
