Page 17

I’d turned and found Lux Draven’s assassin standing in my path.

He was huge. Tactical gear covered a body built for violence, heavy straps crossing a broad torso, weapons secured along his ribs and thighs, every piece fitted tight enough to show exactly how much man waited beneath it.

The mask swallowed most of his face, narrow eye slits buried beneath the hood and pointed edges dropping along his cheeks like fangs. His mouth was the only human part left exposed. Somehow, that made him more menacing. More deliberate. Blood darkened his gloves and streaked across one sleeve, fresh enough to shine beneath the lobby lights.

Fear tightened the muscles of my stomach.

Heat gathered lower.

Apparently, my body saw an armed murderer built like a reinforced door and counted blood as a personality trait, which was medically concerning.

I had practically speed-walked to the van. Then I climbed inside, locked every door, and sat gripping the steering wheel while my pulse battered against my throat. My body had wanted distance. Some smaller, hornier, more embarrassing part of me had wanted to turn around and find out why he’d reacted to me as though the floor had disappeared beneath him.

That part had terrible judgment, no survival instinct, and access to too many romance novels.

I dragged my attention back to the page. The heroine was arguing with her demon general about whether she needed a bodyguard. She did, obviously. She was heading toward her third kidnapping, but stubbornness remained her most consistent character trait.

I respected the commitment.

“You’re not my keeper,” she snapped.

You’re not my keeper, I mouthed along, grinning against my thumb.

The demon general in the book leaned in close and said something possessive and unhinged that made my toes curl. Safe. Fictional. The only man allowed to talk to me like that lived between paper and ink and stayed exactly where I left him.

Steam screamed from the kitchen.

“Shit.”

I tossed the book face down on the coffee table and rolled off the couch, pads of my feet cold from the cheap laminate. The kettle was in full shriek mode when I reached it. I turned the burner off and pulled it aside, letting the steam blast up toward the ceiling.

My stupidly shaped cat mug waited next to the stove, big ceramic ears and painted-on whiskers. It was a thrift store find and deeply ugly in a way that made it perfect. I dropped a tea bag in, poured the boiling water, watched it cloud and darken.

The side of my neck itched.

I lifted my hand and scratched absentmindedly just under my jaw. The skin there felt weird. Warm. Like I’d been windburned or scraped it on my collar earlier. Whatever. I probably had. Today had been a long day. “Stop complaining,” I told my own skin, grabbing the mug by its ridiculous tail handle.

I padded back to the couch, careful not to spill. Lights outside my window painted faint stripes across the living room. New Abaddon murmured under it all, a low, constant noise.

From the right angle Lux Tower was visible from my apartment through the gap between two taller buildings, its black sides knifing up into the sky. Tonight, I didn’t look.

I sank into the couch again and pulled a blanket over my legs, the cat mug cradled between my palms. The first sip burned my tongue. Warm spice, apple, and clove.

Worth it.

The book waited, patient as always. I picked it back up one-handed, thumb finding my place by muscle memory.

The heroine was now pressed up against a wall, demon general crowding into her space. I sighed, already knowing I’d be up an extra hour I couldn’t afford because sleep was a myth, and I had poor impulse control when it came to fictional men.

“Just one more chapter,” I lied to myself.

The itch at my neck spiked when his fingers brushed the heroine’s mate mark. Sharp enough to make me pause. I set the mug down and rubbed the spot harder, frowning.

“Okay, seriously, calm down,” I muttered.

It felt hot now. Not like a fever, more like . . . heat under the skin. A phantom burn. When I pulled my hand away, there was nothing there. No redness. No mark. Just plain old neck.

I tucked the weird feeling into the same mental drawer as “random heart palpitations” and “existential dread” and went back to my book.