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It’s Ares who interrupts us. And the second his voice hits Deimos’ back, the looming, throbbing malevolence on his face fades to its normal stony coldness. His hand drops from my neck, leaving pulsing tingles of danger on my skin as his darkness rearranges itself into its usual blank facial expression.
He turns away from me as Ares approaches. And it’s not until those eyes stop looking into mine that I realize I’ve been unable to breathe since they first eviscerated me.
“Ares,” he says calmly, even smiling a little as he extends a hand. His brother rolls his eyes, knocking Deimos’ hand away and hugging him fiercely.
“Dude, I wasn’t sure if you were actually going to come!”
“Well, here I am,” Deimos growls quietly, with all the excitement of someone attending a funeral.
“Callie’s going tofreak, bro. She doesn’t know I was trying to set this up.” Ares grins at his brother before his eyes slip past him to me. “Oh, shit—have you met Dahlia? She’s one of Callie’s besties these days.”
Deimos turns away from his brother and back to me. And once again, those eyes stab right into me as the darkness throbs under his face. The change from semi-normal to psycho—for my eyes only—is so abrupt that I physically flinch and find myself backing up against the table full of pictures. My throat works as I vainly try to swallow the cold knot that has instantly formed there.
“Is she,now,” Deimos murmurs, flaying me alive with a look.
I say nothing. Ican’t, not while he’s looking at me like that.
“Hey, come on over,” Ares tugs on Deimos’ arm, chuckling. “Callie’s going to lose hershit, man.”
He pulls his younger brother away, heading in the direction of the rest of the party. Deimos hurls one last cold, piercing, look at me with all the force of a class five hurricane, then he’s turning away and Callie is shrieking in surprise.
I have to get the hell out of here.Now.
* * *
My fatal erroris stopping by the kitchen before I leave. My hands are shaking as I pull open the wine fridge and pull out one of the dozen or so bottles of champagne chilling inside. I pop the cork deftly and quietly with the help of a hand towel, and then pour generously with hands that are still shaking into a plain water glass.
My pulse is still thudding in my veins as I lean on the counter by the farmhouse-style porcelain sink and knock back half of my glass.
This was a huge mistake. I never should have come—
“I’m curious.”
I almost choke. The champagne stops halfway down as my throat closes, making me sputter and wince as I finally manage to swallow it awkwardly. My face goes white as I whirl, my heart thudding, to see Deimos and his wrath filling the doorway.
Oh God.
It was dark outside. But in here, with the lights on, I can see every detail on his cold, beautiful face.
Every dangerous, toxic, monstrous detail.
It’s been six years since I last saw him. And in that time, I swear, he’s only grown darker, more gorgeous, and more hauntingly terrifying than before. His face is a little older, and a little more etched. His eyes are a little colder and fiercer. His body is bigger, and more muscled.Definitelymore muscled.
The dark energy swirling around him is the same, though: like a bomb about to explode.
His lips curve up—again, it’s not a grin, or a smile. It’s not even a deliberately scary smile meant to instill fear or suggest a threat.
It’s just as if there’s so much malice in his face that the sheer toxicity of it pulls at his facial muscles. Just the lips, though. Cover his mouth, and you’d never in a hundred million years guess that his lips were curled up this way.
“Exactlywhatare we celebrating here?” he rasps, nodding at my glass in one hand and the bottle of champagne in the other.
Before I can even open my mouth in an attempt to speak, or before I can think to escape, he crosses the kitchen toward me. And then, there’s no way I’m running.
There’s no way I’m physicallyableto.
I’m frozen to the spot, like his gaze is a spear through my heart, pinning me to the counter behind me. He doesn’t rush, either. He knows thatIknow I’m caught, and he approaches like a tiger padding with amusement toward a prey that’s already lost all ability to flee.
“I—” I swallow, or try to, at least. But I can’t do even that, never mind speak as he moves closer and closer, until he’s looming over me, mere inches away. His dark eyes stab down into mine, freezing my pulse.
