For the first time since I’d met him, he actually chuckled. Low, warm, and unexpected, the sound curled through me in ways it absolutely should not have.
“You’re not?” he asked, tilting his head, his voice filled with rich mock offense. “You wound me. I’ve been told I’m irresistible.”
The corner of his mouth almost curved, like he was trying on the expression of a man who knew how to tease. But then the shadow rolled back over his face, his eyes sharpened, and his aura shifted.
“Trust me,” he said, the humor gone as quickly as it came, “I’m not happy about it either.”
I blinked. Not the reassurance I was expecting.
Then, slowly, his gaze softened, but his voice turned raspy as though he was pulling words from a place he’d buried deep. “But you…” He shook his head once, as if annoyed with himself. “You make me feel things I haven’t felt in eons. Things I only partly remember from my father’s tales, whispered before the bonds were severed. A warmth. A pull. An ache.”
His jaw tightened, but his voice gentled. “You make me want to protect you. To keep you to myself. To tear down anyone who would dare lay a hand on you.”
The air between us thickened, and my chest tightened right along with it. Why the hell did his words sound so freaking romantic in a stalkerish kind of way? And why was my blood pulsing through my body as if heated by an unknown source?
“I don’t know if it’s the bond,” he admitted, “or if it’s you. But I do know this—” his eyes locked to mine, black and burning, “—I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to keep you.”
My heart thundered. The sarcasm that usually rushed to my lips faltered, drowned out by something else, something hot, dangerous, and far too real. Something between us sizzled, sharp as static before a lightning strike. He stared at me, and I stared back, caught in that black gaze that should have repelled me but didn’t. The golden spots I had noticed earlier seemed to have intensified.
I had no idea what to make of him, or of anything he’d just told me. Soulmates. Balance. Aelyth. Godsand wars and portals and demons clawing at the edge of reality. It was too much, too impossible.
And yet…
Suddenly, I felt it. The attraction I’d been dodging, denying, and smothering beneath sarcasm and fear. It hit me like a tidal wave.
Oh God.
It wasn’t just that he was beautiful, though he was, more beautiful than anyone had a right to be. It wasn’t only the physical attraction, though every line of his body, every glint of his golden skin, every ripple of his aura screamed danger and desire all at once. No. What terrified me most was that there was somethingdeeper.
Something dangerous. Something that pulled at me like gravity, whispering that I wanted toknowhim, truly know him. To understand the warrior who had been fighting monsters in the dark for eons. To feel for him, when I had no right to. A near-hysterical giggle burst out of me, sharp and thin. Oh God, what the hell was wrong with me?
Because wasn’t this how it started? Stockholm syndrome? Trauma bonding? Falling for your captor, your executioner, your monster, whatever label they gave it?
Or maybe it wasn’t a syndrome at all. Maybe I was just plain crazy.
Because the truth was, he didn’t feel like a demon anymore. He felt like… like a dark knight, standing guard at the gates of hell, his black eyes carrying every war he’d ever fought.
And against every shred of logic I had left, I wanted him.
God help me, Iwanted him.
The admission slammed through me like a fist, leaving me breathless and furious with myself.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t lose it when the Cryons abducted me. Because alien invasion and abduction? Come on. That was nightmare fuel, the kind of thing you braced against with every scrap of sanity you had left. I held on through weeks of captivity, weeks of not knowing what would happen to me, of watching new prisoners appear overnight while others disappeared without a trace, their fate never spoken of, never explained. And still, I refused to break.
But now? Now it had been less than a single day with him, and already I felt my grip slipping. Already, I was ready to lose myself because of him. He was danger incarnate, a creature stitched out of fire and shadow, a being who had just admitted he’d lived through eons of war and death.
I should’ve recoiled. I should’ve prayed harder, fought harder, buried the flicker before it had the chance to spark. But my body betrayed me, the ache low in my belly, the thrum in my chest, the way my skin still tingled where his fingers had brushed my cheek. And worse, my heart betrayed me too, whispering that beneath the monster there was something more. Something broken. Something worthknowing.
No.
No, no, no.
No!
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, anchoring myself in the pain. Whatever madness this bond was, whatever pull the Abyss had woven between us, I would never admit it. Not to him. Not to myself. Not to anyone.
He was Zapharos. Praetor of War. Alien, god, demon, whatever the hell he was. He didn’t get to own me just because fate—or the Abyss—said so.
