Brimstone Prince. Barbara Hancock J.

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СКАЧАТЬ nodded as if she understood why he would reject his heritage. She had run away from hell herself. She should understand. But his burn was already such a part of the man she had just met that she couldn’t believe he would be so deluded about who and what he was.

      “Let me help you with that,” she offered. She came into the room where he was trying to reach one last cut on his back with an antiseptic wipe.

      “Be careful. Sometimes my blood can be dangerous,” Michael warned.

      “It seems fine right now. No smoke. No fire. Look. The bandages aren’t turning to ash,” Lily teased. She dabbed at the cut and listened to his very mortal hiss before reaching for the bandage he’d already taken from its wrapper.

      “For now. I’ve got it under control,” Michael said. She could hear the tension in his voice. He spoke with a tight jaw and narrowed eyes.

      If so, he was doing better than she was. Her heartbeat had quickened. Her lungs had tightened. She was as close to him as it was possible to be without embarrassing herself and it wasn’t close enough. She’d had several months of practice dampening her affinity, but that practice fell to dust with Michael. Her hands trembled as she placed the bandage over the cut on his back.

      But worse than the tremble that betrayed his effect on her...she allowed her fingers to brush over the ripples of his scars. His chest expanded in a sudden gulp of air at her touch. She shivered. Her affinity tuned her in to the agony of his long-ago pain. No wonder he rejected the heat of his Brimstone blood. It had almost burned him alive from the inside out.

      Their gazes met in the mirror and Lily’s hand paused. She didn’t jerk it away, even though his skin began to heat.

      “You want the bandages to scorch?” Michael asked. His voice had gone deeper and more melodic than before.

      If she’d been honest, she would have told him she was a full-on pyromaniac in that moment. She’d been sheltered from this burn her entire life even though she’d been raised in hell. The daemon king had buffered and dampened and kept her safe. She’d run away from that refuge. She’d run from the frying pan into the fire. And she wanted Michael to burn. Her father had used the last hours of his life to bargain for her safety, and now all she wanted was to step into this dangerous man’s arms and throw away all thoughts of a safe haven.

      Even so, alarm flared in her breast when Michael stepped forward, nudging her body toward the mirror with his. She didn’t resist. She backed up until she was pressed between the cool glass and his hot chest. Her hand had fallen away from his back, but now she lifted both of them. She meant to press her palms against his shoulders to hold him back. But the move became another caress of sensitive fingers down the scars on his arms.

      He trembled beneath her touch and she looked up to see that he’d closed his eyes.

      “This won’t be a refuge for long. We have to determine where we go from here,” Michael said. His voice was only a rough whisper. It revealed what her touch made him feel, but he didn’t lean to kiss her. She could feel the desire in his body. She could tell that he held himself in check even though he was pressed against her. The glass at her back no longer felt cool. His Brimstone heat had transferred to her. She wondered that the mirror didn’t melt, because she felt as liquid as lava.

      “I’m going to have to play the flute. My affinity will fill this place,” Lily warned.

      “I’ll be outside. For as long as I can manage to resist,” Michael said.

      But he didn’t immediately move. Their respiration synchronized. They breathed in and out together. Each slow, shaky inhalation was a confession. Each exhalation seemed to invite and encourage their lips to draw closer. Tingles of awareness charged her skin as he drew nearer. Their mouths were only slightly apart, their gazes locked, their breath coming faster and shallower when Michael finally moved away. The cool rush of space between them was harsh. They had stood together far longer than they should have. The pause hadn’t been innocent. It had been a test of self-control—for both of them.

      Lily shivered, suddenly chilled.

      She watched as he pulled on a clean T-shirt and called for Grim. The hellhound rolled into being from the paws up as it moved toward the door. She’d been sheltered in the palace. She’d never seen one of the giant creatures until today, but he still reminded her of home. She touched the top of his head earlier because there was something familiar about the frightening beast who obviously loved his master. Touching Grim had soothed her. Touching Michael had left her completely undone. He was scarred from his own Brimstone, in and out.

      She was already certain there was no way she would be able to fulfill her guardian’s wishes if what he asked was for her to throw Michael into the flames he’d spent his whole life resisting.

       Chapter 4

      Her bag was a trusty familiar tool she approached with more caution than she’d used before. Michael’s presence and the daemon king’s possible manipulations were added elements that caused her previous work with the elemental spirits to seem like child’s play. A child who had no idea she had been playing with fire.

      This time she dug deep into her pack to draw out the oldest kachina first. She’d never dared to use it in a ritual and she certainly wouldn’t now that she’d met its living, breathing embodiment. But she couldn’t resist unwrapping its familiar shape and tilting its face toward the light. Sun beamed into the room, softened by the tinted glass of the skylight above her. The kachina’s carved features were barely illuminated. She’d memorized them long ago, but now she’d seen the sharp angles of cheek and jaw in real life. The tightening of anger and concern. The softening of humor...and desire.

      She’d tasted Michael’s lips. She’d craved the heat of his tongue. Lily had grown up in a palace in hell. She called on Earth, Wind, Fire and Water and they answered her call. But this tiny figure come to life had shaken the fabric of her reality until it seemed the very shadows whispered with secrets she could almost hear for the first time. The recessed skylight was framed by several feet of packed earth encased in adobe that had been painted rich, deep ocher. Desert grass moved in an outside breeze she couldn’t feel and its swaying created a dance of shadows across the kachina’s face.

      A warrior angel. A daemon prince. Its black wings boldly arched over its muscular back. Lily closed her fist around the doll, feeling its weight and shape in her hand. Every curve, every angle fit perfectly into the soft crevices of her palm as if the lines and indentations had been made to hold it.

      She had no time for this reverie.

      Sunlight wavered, painted dark by grass shadows and passing clouds. She quickly rewrapped the kachina and vowed not to take him out again. Instead, she reached for the wrapped dolls that represented Earth, Wind and Water. She imagined she could feel heat rising from the wrapped form that represented Fire as her hand hovered over it. Her fingers were a hairsbreadth away when she fisted them and pulled them away.

      She would leave Fire in her pack, unsummoned. She’d had enough heat for one day. Her lips still tingled and no amount of moistening kept her from feeling a parched ache for a forbidden sweetness she suspected only a daemon prince’s kiss could satisfy.

      Her flute was cool to her touch when she slid it from its pouch. The dolls were easily placed in position. Dancing shadows painted their blocky features with darkness and light. The earth-bermed home surrounded on the top and three sides by packed desert dirt was ideal СКАЧАТЬ