Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I lean in closer to Emil, aware once more of how cold his skin feels now. It's a strange sensation. As if he himself isn't generating the iciness.

As if the cold is coming from his surroundings, which is odd, because the air around me is warm.

I dare to draw our connected hands to my side, pressing his palm to my waist.

The way the metal remains wrapped around us forces my arm to bend at the elbow, as if I'm putting my hand on my hip, but it isn't too uncomfortable.

My chest is now a mere inch away from his and I don't miss the way he sways toward me.

Meanwhile, the metal gliding around and around my wrist slows a little.

I tip my head back and rise up on my tiptoes, edging forward until my lips are dangerously close to his.

"Stop wearing this face," I whisper, brushing my lips ever so briefly to the corner of his mouth. "Show me Diavolo. Be him again."

During the time when I called the keeper Diavolo , he predominantly alternated between two faces. One was his most in control. In that form, he had the darkest-brown eyes, light-brown skin, high cheekbones, and lips shaped like a god's. It was his tallest, most muscular persona.

The other form was the one I associated with his anger. His hair was as inky-black as the panther's fur, his eyes were dark blue like a churning sea at night, and his body was leaner, sleek and deadly. In that form, he called me a ‘beautiful darkness'.

He said he couldn't wait for me to unleash my rage on the world.

Such a contradiction to what my father wants: to stop the destruction he believes I will bring to all dark creatures.

And now, I would give anything to go back to the moments when I trusted Emil, even if that trust was misplaced.

"Show me your darkness," I whisper to him. "Put away this beautiful fa?ade… these eyes and this silver hair… and show me your darkness."

"I can't," he grinds out.

I narrow my eyes at him, because there's a difference between can't and won't.

"You won't ." It's a soft accusation. "Which means you lied. I don't have power over you."

A snarl leaves his lips and his hand tightens against my waist. "My Veda, you have more power over me now than you ever did."

His other arm sweeps up my back and into my hair, cupping the back of my head.

He bends his head to mine and the breath catches in my chest a moment before his lips clash with mine.

My chest collides with his and heat bursts through my body, an intoxicating, needy heat because he has never kissed me like this before.

Not even on the island. Not even under the moonlight on a deserted beach.

Always, he held something back, focusing on my body and every pleasure point on it, but never so fully focused on my lips.

Now, his tongue demands entry to my mouth, his lips coaxing mine apart, and he groans when I open to him.

My head swims with the taste of him, and all of the protective layers I placed around my thoughts and feelings before I entered this cottage peel away, leaving only a burning need.

How can I want this connection so badly that I'm willing to risk my life for it?

I gasp for breath as he breaks the kiss and pulls away from me just the slightest and, for a moment, I think he's going to step away from me, but then he sways inward again, claiming my mouth once more.

I want the use of both of my hands, want to run my hands up his back and trace his muscles, but it's impossible while the chain is binding our wrists together.

"Off," I snarl against his lips, tugging at the metal that joins our hands.

"As you like," he rasps, at which the metal rapidly retracts, its molten form warmer than before as it slides away from my wrist—and his wrist—and away across his chest.

I catch the briefest glimpse of it returning to his black ring before he cups my cheek with his left hand and his kiss deepens again.

There's a very clear part of my mind that tells me I'm being reckless.

Horribly reckless.

I need to keep him at a distance. I can't let him get close to me. Not physically—not closer than this—and not emotionally.

And then there is another part of my mind that is purely calculating.

He kissed me .

He told me I have more power over him than I ever did before.

He refuses to tell me the truth or give me the information I need, but this kiss…

Dark saints, it's pure, desperate abandonment.

He's pulling me so close, cupping my head so urgently that I could believe he needs this kiss so that he can keep breathing.

My head swims with the memory of the moments when my body was broken, and he healed me in the forest of Portland.

Beautiful dark magic poured from his crown-shaped ring and streamed toward me in ribbons that wound around my legs, torso, arms, neck, and head, raising me off the ground.

His power descended far beneath the surface of my skin, coursing through my body in a loop of pleasure and pain, and for the first time, I was aware that it was costing him.

Healing me came with a price, although I could never quantify it.

That was the first time I saw the face he wears now. The first time his eyes became the color of pale leaves and his hair like strands of fine, silver metal.

The shadows of this cottage engulf me in the same way now, and it feels like we could be back in his realm, the darkness forming a cage around us.

Around him.

Because within me, there is only a sense of quiet.

A tiny spark of control.

Unbidden, I hear my mother's voice, reminding me that sex is about power and control, not pleasure.

So I let go.