But I won’t.
I prefer a challenge when it comes to conquests. When it comes to saving the only thing that can save us all, I need to get shit done.
I run my fingers lightly over her ribs. She hisses. “Here?” I murmur and press harder.
She grunts and nods.
I splay my hand over the worst of her bruised skin and allow the heat of my healing power to flow into her. She absorbs it with a gasp, her eyes flying open as she feels the pain vanish.
“See?” I say, not looking at her. “I can help.”
“You’re such a dick,” she grumbles. “Release me from whatever compulsion you put me under.”
“It’s already gone, slayer,” I murmur and adjust the angle of my hand. Her skin is warm beneath my palm. The energy flows from me into her, a current of shadow and restoration, knitting bone and mending torn muscle. She watches my face, her expression full of suspicion and grudging relief. The compulsion is gone, but the memory of her helplessness lingers in the tense line of her jaw.
“How are you doing that?” she asks, her voice low, devoid of its usual bite.
“Gods have their uses,” I reply, my gaze fixed on the fading bruises. They fade from purple to yellow to nothing, leaving her skin smooth again. I feel her getting stronger under my hand, her life force buzzing like electricity. Something in me recognises it, responds to it. I haven’t felt this way in centuries. Slowly, I move down her body to heal the wound on her leg. It closes instantly, and she breathes out.
She sits up slowly, cautiously. Her eyes narrow. “You could have done that on the hill.”
“And denied you the pleasure of calling me a dick in thecomfort of your own home?” I rise to my feet, pulling her top back down for her with an impersonal tug. “Perish the thought.”
She grimaces.
“Besides, do you really want all that weakness to be on show?”
“Okay, fair point,” she mutters. “But nowyouknow.”
“I knew anyway. Are you going to stop being so stubborn now?”
She pushes herself fully upright on the sofa, swinging her legs to the floor. The defiance is back in her eyes, brighter than before, fuelled by her restored strength. “It’s not stubbornness. It’s called doing my job.”
“Your job is to die needlessly? To throw yourself at threats you don’t understand and hope for the best?”
“My job is to protect this village,” she retorts, her voice sharp. “I’ve been doing it just fine without a trio of condescending gods showing up to critique my methods.”
“Fine?” The word is a low rumble in my chest. I take a step closer, crowding her space, forcing her to look up at me from the sofa. “You were moments from being torn apart by a creature your Order’s precious books have never even imagined. That is not fine. That is a prelude to an obituary.”
Her chin lifts, a familiar, infuriating gesture of defiance. “I would have found a way.”
“You would have died,” I state, the words cold and absolute. I lean down, bracing a hand on the back of the sofa beside her head, trapping her. “You think this is about your village? About demons in graveyards? This is about a war that has been brewing for centuries, a war that has finally found its battlefield in your backyard, and you, slayer, are the only thing standing between this realm and utter annihilation.”
I see the flicker of doubt in her eyes, warring with the ingrained pride. It is a start.
“I am telling you it is a war we cannot afford to lose. Your methods are obsolete. Your pride is a weakness. Adapt, or you will doom us all.”
She doesn’t say anything, but places her hand on my chest to move me out of her space. I don’t move an inch.
My lips are millimetres from hers. I could capture her in a bruising kiss that would wipe clean any memory she has of another man’s lips on hers.
Her hand tightens into a fist, bunching into my shirt tightly.
To my surprise, she drags me closer. “So, what is it you want from me, Dreven?” she murmurs against my lips.
I peel her hand from my shirt, but I don’t let go, crushing it until she flinches in a measure of her strength and her pain barrier. She is tougher than she looks. A regular mortal would be nursing a broken hand by now, in tears. In a moment of utter insanity that crashes through my control, I place her hand over my stiffening cock.
Her breath catches, and she licks her lips. She tries to pull her hand away, but I keep a grip on it, pressing it down, increasing the pressure as I grow rock-hard.
