“You’remistaken. I don’t know you. You’re supposed to be behind the counter,” she states as if more to herself, her gaze dropping. “Please let me go. I won’t tell anyone about this, I promise. Y-you can go back to what you were doing, and I’ll forget this ever happened.”
“I am not mistaken, woman. We are bonded now, whether you want it or not. There is no turning back. Can’t you feel it? Our connection?” Because I can, deeply.
Deliciously. Wickedly… I scan her shapely form, possession clogging my throat.
Possession?
A rumble tears from my throat. Possession is a demon’s thing.
I stiffen, dwelling on it, stunned by the emotion. I have never felt possessive over anything except my name. To feel this way toward her?
She shakes her head. “No. I feel nothing.”
Nothing!When I riskeverything.
I take a step closer, and she cowers in the corner. “You deny me? Then what was it that you called me earlier?” I ask, taking several more steps, closing in on her. “Whisper it. Repeat it, just this once.”Make me quiver, little female.It is hard keeping my distance. I want to study her, wrap her in my wings, and breathe her in. I have fantasized endlessly about meeting her. I need to understand why I have formed a cock, this mating genitalia of her species. “Say my name.”
“Please… I don’t know it,” she begs. She makes her body as small as possible, her lips parting and closing. Her face has gone ashen, her eyes wide as moons, staring at my face.
“You do.”
She shakes her head, sending blonde waves over her shoulders.
“Say it,” I order.
She swallows. Her eyes close.
“Say it!”
“Zuriel!”
My name breezes outward, filled with legacy and otherworldly magic. It blooms, unseen, solidifying the threads between us.
I take a deep breath, inhaling peaches, and my body relaxes.
There has been no mistake.
The peace can’t last. Just as quickly, tension ignites, erupting through me furiously as a terrible knowledge heats me from the inside, inflaming my tough skin: I should end her now and ensure the continued safety of this world.
Except I can’t.
Closing my eyes, I grit my teeth.
I can keep her safe.There are ways.
I can empower her, fill her.
“Listen to me carefully, Summer…” Though I do not sense my demon nearby, I know he is not far. “Never speak my name aloud again. Never whisper it into the darkness, don’t taste it on your tongue. It is sacred. My name is beyond a moniker—it’s all of me. Many sought it, and who seek it still, if only to grasp at the power they are not allowed to have.
“There is one who needs my name to be free. One who will do anything to obtain it. He will hurt you to reach me. He must never find out,” I warn. “You must never tell anyone about me. It is for your safety.”
She does not lay down her stick, although I can tell that she is listening, taking in every word I say.
Her brow furrows. “I don’t understand.”
“Promise me you will not share what you have learned with another.”
“I—”
