His eyes…and everything else about him.
“Vampires, shifters, witches turning Dark… What is the Goddess making you do?”
“And Isaid,go fuck yourself and fly back to the realm you’ve crawled out of.” I jerk my face away, eyes descending on the ground before centuries upon centuries of wall building crumble.
His chuckle scrapes at years of self-worth. “Glad to see you’re the same, Freya. It’d be a shame if you weren’t. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“A few decades, yeah.” It’s been longer.
“Two centuries and you know that as well as I do. Keep pretending you’re not counting the days. You forget what my role is.”
“To be the biggest asshole around, though you do have competition from one of your distant relatives. The vampire king, Alec Dormer, is something else. Capital A, that one.”
“Beyond the creation of the first vampire, you know their business doesn’t interest me. Or anything else on Earth, for that matter.”
The simple statement—the remark he thinks he’s so smart with—drives my eyes up to his face again, wishing my glare could end the cocky smirk for good. “If that’s the case, why are you here?
“For you, obviously. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Does it matter? Guess it does, or else you won’t be the one to hand me to your master.”
He releases a growl comparable to Ryder’s, and a hand snaps beneath my chin, gripping my throat again. It’s a gentle hold, though, his fingers brushing over the pulse he could very well crush with a firm poke if he chose.
“That was never my plan, and you fucking know it. You never gave me a chance to properly explain.”
I still won’t.
He sighs and his hand slides off my neck, easily undoing a hundred years of self-progress. His fingers caress to my collarbone as memories of him touching me like this in a field, feathered wings preventing the sun from burning me, assaults more of my distaste.
“I’m warning you, keep your witches away from this war.”
“Tell me what you know about it, and maybe I will.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Because of his master with the tail, horns, and wings who’ll burn him alive. “Then you know why I can’t either.”
He sighs and his wings shoot out to the side, reminding me of that very day I’ll be drinking acid to extinguish. “Stay alive, Freya. You know the consequences if you don’t.”
“As if you care.”
His wings push down, lifting him off the ground and hopefully back towards his realm or literally anywhere else that isn’t near me. Before he flies off, his voice floats down, so soft, it’s nearly lost on the wind.
“I care. Always have, always will.”
Um.
Yeah…
Fuck.
Now you know. Kinda.
