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Her wariness deepened. “Take advantage?”
“You have many special talents. I have a few of my own. Together we make a formidable team.”
“I’ll…try.”
Valen’s lips twitched. She’d nearly choked on the word. “That’s all I ask.”
“We should go.” Peri tugged her arm out of his grasp, her defensive shield sliding firmly back into place. “Tia’s going to come looking for me.”
Valen’s gaze moved to the spot on her cheek that he’d recently healed. “You haven’t told me why you came out of Tia’s castle covered in scrapes and bruises. Or why she would come looking for you.”
“She wanted me to stay and I wanted to leave.” Peri shrugged. “So I set her library on fire and jumped through the window. Unfortunately, it was closed at the time.”
Valen narrowed his eyes. “Why did she want you to stay?”
Peri hesitated, clearly not wanting to share that tidbit of information.
“She glimpsed me in one of her stupid dreams,” she grudgingly spit out. “She has a mistaken idea that I might help her achieve her goal of world domination.”
The temperature dropped until he could see Peri’s breath in a cloud of mist. He wasn’t unsettled by Tia’s arrogant ambition. They’d always known the mage was desperate for power. He was furious at Tia’s belief that Peri’s future was in her hands.
“Do you want me to deal with her?”
Peri sent him a startled frown, as if sensing he would return to the castle and destroy the mage without hesitation.
“No. I just want to find the miasma and make sure it doesn’t cause any more trouble.”
“Then let’s go.”
For the first time in centuries, Valen gave in to a mindless impulse.
Lowering his head, he pressed his lips against her parted mouth. Valen jerked in shock as her sweet taste hit his tongue with explosive force, pleasure scouring through him. His fangs lengthened in glorious anticipation. It was a kiss. Just a kiss. But it was so much more.
A shiver raced through him. Or maybe the earth shook. Either way, there was a soul-deep certainty inside him that nothing would be the same.
“Valen.”
His name left Peri’s lips on a shaken sigh. As if she was equally shocked by the intensity of the light caress. But even as his hands moved to cup her face, the sound of the helicopter firing up its engine shattered the moment.
Lifting his head, he peered down at her eyes, which were shadowed with a passion she was struggling to hide.
“All healed,” he murmured, refusing to dwell on his fierce compulsion to wrap her in his arms and refuse to let her go. Peri had been an unsettling distraction from the moment she first arrived in his territory.
With movements that felt oddly stiff, Valen opened the door to the truck and slipped out, waiting for Peri to join him before bending low and jogging toward the waiting helicopter. Within minutes they were strapped in and soaring toward the star-spackled sky, headed back to Wyoming.
They were seated side by side, his thigh pressing against the delicious warmth of her body. She ran hotter than a normal human. Even hotter than most demons, he realized with a flare of surprise. As if the magic was a fire burning inside her.
Not entirely sure what that meant, if anything, Valen was distracted when Peri wiggled in an effort to put space between them.
“I suppose I owe Gabriel an apology for borrowing his truck.”
Valen settled back in the leather seat, pleased by her wiggles. It meant that she was well aware of the sparks of desire that continued to sizzle between them.
“I’ll admit there aren’t many who would dare to steal the property of a vampire,” he drawled.
She clicked her tongue. “Borrowed.”
“Is there a difference?”
