“Roman?” I rest the fingertips of my other hand against his jaw, sensing the tightness there, which nearly causes me to shut down my power.
“You have to go further, Nova,” he says. “The surface is not enough.”
I’m hurting him. I can sense it. He won’t say so, but allowing me to use my power—accepting it into his body—must be colliding with all of the walls he’s constructed around himself, possibly for hundreds of years.
He told me that finding his fear would be more difficult for me than it would be with any other being—and perhaps he also meantfor him.
Closing my eyes and focusing on my demon sight, I release another trickle of my power. This time, the smoky swirls grow darker in my demon sight, cutting through the blood-red screen.
It’s like a blade ripping through a curtain, and I sense the sweat gathering at the base of Roman’s neck, the moisture on his jaw, and his raggedly indrawn breaths. Still, his hand against my back is soothing and I wish to all that’s good that I could somehow return that feeling to him.
Then the curtain parts and I don’t really know what I’m seeing.
I’m lying on my side—or rather, I’m viewing the scene in front of me as if I’m tipped to the side—but I can’t make out what I’m looking at. Not clearly.
It’s shiny. Glossed over. All I get are outlines…
Overturned furniture?A table. Two broken chairs… No,threebroken chairs. One is smaller than the others. A room made of smooth rock, possibly polished marble, with a ceiling that soars above me so that it disappears high above. A square shape on the opposite wall—maybe a window, maybe a painting. And a sound…
Twosounds entwined. One wailing, one rasping like claws scratching on stone, both noises filling me with cold terror.
Roman’s breathing is harsh in my ears and his voice is even more severe as he says, “You have to go deeper, Nova. You have to see behind the veil.”
I try to press forward within the vision—into the room. It’s still tipped on its side, and I try to right my view, correct it, so I can reach past the shining surface. But as I increase the trickle of my power, the wailing and scraping sounds grow louder and the hand I reach forward is trembling and covered in blood—
“No!” I wrench away from Roman, jerking my hand away from his neck, breaking the contact between us.
He doesn’t let me go, holding me close, his chest heaving as hard as mine. His eyes are pure black and the violet light glowing across his cheeks tells me that my own eyes are purple, as sharp as my wolves’ eyes.
I thought it would be easy to see Roman’s deepest fear, but it isn’t.
Only the worst horror could frighten this demon, and I don’t think I can handle it.
“I can’t,” I say.
“Why not?” he asks, a harsh demand. “You said you’d do whatever it takes. What are you afraid of?”
I try to find my reason, my logic. The cold terror that filled me when I heard the wailing and rasping sounds returns to me in a rush, but I tell myself I’m a nightmare demon. Terror shouldn’t faze me. Not someone else’s terror.
Not unless I care about them more than I want to admit.
“I’m afraid to hurt you by forcing you to relive your greatest fear,” I say, a hard truth to face because it reveals more than I’m ready to speak aloud.
Roman’s black eyes make him look so much like a demon that it’s terrifying. The stormy green of his irises is gone, even his hair looks darker, his features perfectly crafted, his muscles intensely honed. His rune power could flare at any moment and wipe out every creature around us. And yet, despite all the destruction he could wreak…
“I don’t want to cause you pain,” I whisper, leaning toward him, my fingertips grazing his jaw.
He blinks and his eyes clear. “One day, you’ll have to,” he says. “One day, you will.”
He told me we would destroy each other if we ever felt more than we should.
“Not today,” I murmur, my lips pressing to his, triggering the lightest burst of sensation.
It’s a reckless impulse, the kind I should regret, but I don’t.
Not one fucking bit.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
