I turned before I reached for her. “Follow me. The suite is this way.”
She hesitated a moment before following, her steps light and wary beside me. Every few feet, her aura would flicker again, tiny white-blue arcs that danced along her arms and made my shadows stir in answer. Each spark felt like a caress against my skin.
My demon purred—something I had no clue was even possible. The rational part of me that was still trying to do my fucking job was quietly losing its mind.
I was supposed to be monitoring the entire hotel. Checking wards. Watching for larger breaches. Instead, all I could think about was the delicate woman at my side. The way her dark hair caught the light, the faint freckles across her nose, and how badly I wanted to pull her close and taste her skin.
By the time we reached the secure wing on the ninth floor, my control was hanging by a thread.
I opened the door to the suite with a palm scan and stepped aside so she could enter first. It was luxurious but fortified. There were reinforced wards and no windows to the outside. This section of The Abyss was reserved for VIP guests. Only the private wing for staff had a higher level of protection, with the security measures doubled when Adan found his fated mate in Calliope. And doubled again when they found out she was pregnant.
Isolde stopped just inside the threshold, her arms wrapped around herself like she was holding her power in by sheer force of will. “You don’t have to do this. I can stay out of the way. I’m good at being invisible.”
Her words made my demon snarl. It went against a succubus’s nature to fly under the radar. They were born to attract attention.
“You’ll never be invisible to me.” I gently wrapped my fingers around her elbow to tug her deeper into the suite. “And tonight, you’re not going anywhere I can’t reach you.”
Her green eyes widened again, fear and attraction warring across her delicate features.
I forced myself to take a step back before I tugged her against me.
“Get some rest,” I suggested in a rough voice. “I’ll be close if you need anything. Just call for me, and I’ll come.”
“Call for you?” she echoed, her gaze searching the living area of the suite. “I don’t see a phone, and I don’t have my cell with me.”
“The Abyss has magic of its own.”
“I know, it’s so impressive.”
My demon preened at the compliment since he helped power the glyphs built into the stone walls. “How about a small demonstration of what this place can do?”
Before she nodded, The Abyss anticipated her answer and transformed the suite from a luxurious set of rooms that could impress any VIP guest to a space that was tailored to Isolde. The walls deepened from cool charcoal to a rich plum, silver threads of starlight shimmered faintly across the ceiling, and black-stemmed night-blooming jasmine vines curled delicately along one wall, their tiny white flowers already beginning to open with an almost inaudible chime.
A plush reading chair sat near in the corner, draped with a throw the exact shade of her eyes. The sconces glowed with a low violet hue, and a faint undercurrent ran through the air, as though the hotel itself was trying to soothe her power.
“Wow,” she breathed, twirling in a circle to take in all the changes.
As most of her tension gave way to awe, she looked even more gorgeous. And too tempting. “You’ll be safe here.”
I turned to leave before my demon could override every ounce of restraint I had left.
When the door shut behind me, I reached out to Adan on the telepathic path he’d opened between us so long ago.
Ran into a problem that cannot be resolved in the usual way.
Too many prying eyes?
The Abyss was Adan’s domain, and he protected it with an iron fist. He’d given me purpose when I needed it most, and I would forever owe him for that. But Isolde had already become the center of my universe. If he deemed her a threat that needed to be eliminated, I’d take her far from his reach.
But I had no choice but to let him know what was happening.
Found my fated mate, but her aura is glitching. Caused a small rift, so I put her in the VIP suite with dampening powers.
The mate bond thrummed steadily in my chest, growing stronger with every passing second. It would not be denied.
3
ISOLDE
