Kalder felt the strangest sensation go up his arm the moment Cameron’s fingers brushed against his flesh. He couldn’t explain it really. A peculiar flash of heat that instantly drained his fury. And with it, it brought a warmth in a place where he hadn’t realized he’d been cold.
For the first time in his life, he could see past tomorrow and into the future. He could see something he wanted.
Nay, he could seesomeonehe wanted.…
And it terrified him to the very core of his being.
She’s born of Michael’s blood. A Necrodemian.
You’re a demon of the lowest region.
Heaven and hell.
Two extremes that could only meet and merge in a dark shadowy nether realm of madness where almost everyone lost their way.
Which said it all about their future.
It was insanity to even contemplate the thought of having something to do with a creature such as her. Ever. Her breed sent his back to hell every chance they got. Even after his redeemed themselves.
Yet he could think of nothing else.
Could imagine nothing save being with her.I’m not the siphon.
She was.
All his fury was gone now. Buried beneath a tranquility that came every time she neared him. He’d felt it that very first night when he’d seen her on the docks with William. She’d been rambling on about nothing in particular, asking a million and one questions, in rapid-fire staccato drills.
The moonlight had cast shadows against the paleness of her features, making her skin glow like pearlescent cream. Her beauty had drawn him from the sea toward her. A succulent beacon he couldn’t resist. In spite of the damp chill he’d had from his late-night swim and her mannish clothes that had obliterated her curves, he’d hardened at the sight of her. At the sound of her soft, lilting accent.
He’d craved the syllables of his name on her lips.
Instead of a sweet greeting at their first meeting, Cameron had given him a startled shriek as she jumped away from him as if he were poisonous.
And yet, she’d faced her fear and refused to give in to it. That had been the moment she’d ensnared him. When their gazes had met on that dock in Port Royal and she’d stood her ground rather than flee.
That night she’d met his questions with questions of her own, and shown a true curiosity about him. There had been no judgment or hostility. No guile or subterfuge. No barbed words or prying for information that she could use against him or to better herself at his expense.
She had been…
Cameron.
Honest. Open. Caring. Curious.
Unassuming.
And that he would protect with every breath he drew, and every drop of blood that flowed inside his body.
No sooner had that thought gone through his head than he heard something he hadn’t heard in a long, long time. So long that at first, he thought he was imagining it.
It wasn’t until Perrin and Varice began scrambling their soldiers that he realized it wasn’t his imagination.
The ground beneath their feet buckled and surged, throwing them up toward the ceiling. Devyl grabbed his wife as Kalder lunged for Cameron.
Paden caught her first and hissed at him. “You’ve caused her enough harm!”
Kalder would argue with the moron about that, but this wasn’t the time or place.
William, Bart, and Rosie, along with Sancha and Belle, tried to stand and fight, but none of them could keep their footing as the floor fought against them.
