Taking her face in my hands, I lifted until her eyes were locked on mine. “Merri, don’t you get it? We were supposed to find each other. How else do you explain me stumbling onto your page all those months ago and how you and I ended up here in the middle of the apocalypse?”
She jolted a little at the word.
“Yes, I know about that too.” I snickered. “My kind are sort of hardwired to know the signs.”
Her breath was sweet where it fanned over my lips.
Pressing my forehead against hers, I delivered what I hoped would be the killing blow in terms of her resistance. “I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to be right here, in this moment with you. You’re the one I’ve been looking for.”
Ooooh, I was good. Knee-buckling, panty-incinerating, swoon-inducing. She wasn’t going to be able to deny it now. Not when I said all that to her. Not when I knew it was what she most craved.
A voice in my mind whispered,and not when it’s the truth.
I shot that down instantly. She was my purpose, yes, but that purpose was to claim the world as my domain and get out of the depths of hell.
Time to bring it home.
I leaned in and brought my lips a breath away from hers. One kiss and she’d be mine; I just knew it.
But she pulled back, denying me.
“I’m... I’m sorry, Cole. I’m not ready for something so intimate.”
A snarl formed in the back of my throat, but before it could take shape, she looked me dead in the eye and added, “But you’re right. I do need to feed.”
“So... Pretty Woman rules? No kissing on the mouth?”
She smirked. “Yes. Nothing on the mouth. But trust me, there are other ways to get what I need. You’ll enjoy them all.”
Chapter
Ten
CALEB
“You’re holding out on us. You seraphim are notorious liars via omission. Worse than demonkind ever has been.” Pan’s bitterness couldn’t have been more clear if he’d spat poison at Evander.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Respecting the concept of free will without interference isnotomission. Demons are too selfish to appreciate the nuanced nature of the notion.” The angel’s cool dismissal was completely on par with his unbothered persona. It was only our second time meeting him, but he’d certainly made an impression on this group of hotheads. The less emotional his reactions, the more it seemed to fire up the shifters, demons, Vikings, fae, and, well, frankly, pretty much everyone in the room.
“How can you be so nonchalant about this?” Asher asked. “The rest of us are chalant as fuck over here. Because, you know, the world is ending and you aren’t helping.”
Evander stood, eyes blazing bright with the threat of a low-boiling temper. It would seem the angel had a button to push after all.
I slammed my palms on the table between us. “That’s quite enough of that from you three.”
A few guilty glances cut my way, along with a few appraising ones.
“Are we boring you, padre?” Asher asked.
“We’ve been in here for over a fecking hour and still haven’t gotten to the main point of our meeting.”
“This is why I suggested an agenda,” Moira stage whispered to Kiki. “It’s the only way to keep these guys on task.”
“I don’t know if that even works anymore. There are a lot of cocks in the hen house these days.”
“Too many, if you ask me. Lilith was right; we need more feminine energy in the Hades Society.”
Lilith smirked but didn’t say anything in response to the witch.
