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“Let me go, you asshole,” she screams, kicking backward at me and swinging her arms in an attempt to strike my body.
I’m the asshole?
I swing her around to face me. Letting go of her neck, I fist the front of her shirt and pull her in close, forcing her to her tiptoes. Her expression isn’t the least bit recalcitrant, her eyes blazing with the same level of fury I feel.
“Do you know what that incubus would have done to you?” I demand, giving her a shake to force some regret into her eyes. “He would have raped you, repetitively. He would have used every touch, kiss, thrust into you to take pieces of your soul. It would have been agony as you gave it up to him—excruciating pain not just to your body, but to your existence. And when he’d gorged on every bit and fueled his body, this new body I gave you would be dead again. And you know where the remainder of your soul would have gone?”
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even give me the courtesy of a nod.
I lean in closer, my lips curled with a sneer. “It would have gone straight to the Crimson River. I wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”
I expect to see understanding, fear, and regret, and yet I get nothing but defiance. She has strength and resilience I’ve never seen before in a human. Hardly have I ever seen it in immortals.
With a sigh, my anger dissipates, and I drop my forehead to hers. “I should just throw you in the river and be done with it,” I grumble, although I don’t mean it. If I did, she’d already be over the edge.
“Or you could kiss me,” she whispers.
My head jerks back, and I glare down at her with narrowed eyes. “What did you just say?”
Gone is the rebellion from her expression, replaced with uncertainty. “I said you could kiss me.”
Permission.
Or manipulation?
“Why? So I won’t throw you in the river?”
“I can’t stop you from doing it if you really want to, and it’s no more than I deserve.”
It’s not the first time she’s said that. She truly believes she deserves damnation.
“Then why do you want me to kiss you?”
Her gaze slides over the bridge’s edge to the frothing river below. “Because I’ll probably end up there at some point. Maybe I want something good before that day comes.”
It shouldn’t affect me… the acceptance in her voice that this is as good as it’s ever going to get for her. It most definitely shouldn’t make my black heart thump that she considers a kiss from me something good in all the bad.
She watches me expectantly, a glimmer of yearning there. I release her shirt, moving my hand to the back of her neck. “You’ve given me permission to touch you, and you know I’m going to take more than a kiss, whether you like it or not.”
“Well, duh,” she drawls. “You’re the evil king of the Underworld.”
There’s no stopping my bark of laughter. No one down here has that dry humor. It’s not only refreshing, but it turns me the fuck on.
It’s game time.
My mouth takes hers in a consuming kiss that should frighten her, but she moans and sinks into it. Her small hands rest on my chest as she slides her tongue against mine, and I feel it in my balls.
Christ, this little dead human with a blackened soul and a complete lack of fear of eternal damnation has made my body react in a way no other creature in my existence ever has.
Just from a kiss.
Wrapping my arms tight around her, I envision my bedroom and pull it toward me across time and distance. I take a short step forward, leaving the bridge and coming to a stop right beside my bed. I release my hold on the convergence of two places, and the bridge snaps back into its proper place.
I lift my mouth and give Nyssa a slight push.
She looks around, chest heaving. “How do you do that? Are you teleporting somehow?”
“It’s called bending distance.” I sit on the bed and remove my boots. “The more powerful fae have the ability.”
