AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This is why I left you in the mortal realm, you know,” I said, removing my shoes and lifting up my skirt. I slipped my leg through the window until straddling the frame, and the cold stony ledge met the tip of my toes. “Don’t make me do this, Camael. I really don’t want to do this.”
The dogs barking had become so wild and intense, it was surely only a matter of time before someone would come to investigate and catch me half hanging out of the window.
The annoying cat stopped licking her paws and sat watching me with pointed interest, as if entertained by the idiot human who was about to fall to her death. “Camael! Come here now!”
Reaching out a hand, I flicked my finger toward her, to which she made a sport of by swatting at me.
“You’re going to fall and die, stupid cat! And if by some miracle you don’tdie, those dogs are going to carve you like a Tuesday roast! Now, get over here!” I thrust my arm out farther and, in doing so, teetered forward.
I lost my balance.
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” A scream ripped from my throat as my body swung through the window toward the snarling dogs below.
Something yanked on my arm, bringing me to a screeching halt. I looked up to find myself clutched in Vaszhago’s unyielding grip. On a growl, he yanked me back, and I shot up like a geyser, the rough concrete scraping across my chest as he pulled me back inside. On an ungracious tumble, I fell to the floor.
Rubbing my arm, I frowned. “You didn’t have to yank so hard.”
He snarled back at me, his eyes a glowing orange. “What the hell were you doing out there?”
“I saw my cat on the ledge. I didn’t want her to become a meaty morsel, so I tried to call her in. Unfortunately, cats don’t listen. Ever.”
Peering through the window, he looked both right and left. “I see nothing.”
Snorting, I awkwardly pushed to my feet and straightened out my dress, noting a snag in the fabric of the bodice. “Yeah, well, I’m sure you ruined all the fun by saving me from a gruesome death. She’s probably sulking somewhere.”
Jaw shifting and undoubtedly pissed off, he twisted around, shoulders square and battle-ready. With his hair clean and pulled back from his face, black leather pants beneath a long black hooded tabard, black leather belts secured at his waist, and a pawn shop’s worth of weaponry hanging off him, he looked like something out of a Mortal Kombat cosplay kink. A far cry from the rags he’d worn the first day he’d arrived. “Are you aware that you and I share a curse? That if you would have fallen off that ledge and died, I would’ve spent all of eternity feeling the exact moment when a man’s balls are ripped from his body. Every minute of every day. For eternity.”
“Do your balls actually get ripped off? I’m just asking.”
His jaw shifted again with his obvious irritation. “I was tasked to keep an eye on you. Nobody said I couldn’t chain you to a chair all day long.”
“Well, don’t worry, because I’m going to have a talk with Jericho, and soon, you’ll be on your merry little, murder-loving way.”
“Trust me, if there was a way to break ba’nixium, I would have done it the moment I saw you dangling out that window. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. I’m tied to you until your change to cambion.”
“What?” Eyes narrowed, I crossed my arms, trying to wrap my head around what he’d just said. “Are you telling me I have to deal with a grumpy-ass shadow until after this baby is born? That’s months away. I thought he hired you to watch me while he searched for my father?”
“Congratulations. Your first misunderstanding as a couple.”
It wasn’t our first, butirrelevant. “I don’t need someone watching me.”
“Did you happen to slip into unconsciousness a moment ago when you nearly plummeted to your death?”
“That kind of thing rarely happens. It was a freak moment.”
He lifted his nose, his nostrils flaring as if sniffing the air. “Do you smell that?”
My arm twitched with the urge to sniff myself. “Smell what?”
“Bullshit. You are, by far, the most accident-prone female in all five realms. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if you tripped and tumbled into Nightshade.”
“Does the first time count?”
“I suddenly have an overwhelming sense of regret.”
Raising my hand in the air, I shook my head. “I didn’t pick you. And remind me when the baby is born never to let Jericho pick the sitter. And, for the record, I was only trying to save my cat.”
“I wouldn’t worry so much about your cat. She seems to have better survival skills than you.”
