Forty-Eight Dianna

I groaned and pried my eyes open, smiling at the sight of the beautiful, large man sitting beside me.

“Black is definitely your color.” My voice cracked as I ran my fingers over his biceps. The heavy muscles flexed beneath my touch, straining his long-sleeve shirt. “Oh, you also smell nice, and you cut your hair again and trimmed your beard.”

“You’ve been asleep for four days, and the first thing you do when you wake is flirt with me?”

I snickered and stretched. I might have arched my back a bit, allowing the tops of my breasts to stretch the tank I wore.

“I’m hungry,” I purred, keeping my arms above my head. “Feed me.”

A slow, sensual smile curved his lips as he leaned over me. The same damn flutters I always got when he was near went into overdrive. I nuzzled at his neck, but he just grabbed something off the nightstand beside the bed and sat back up. He held a cup toward me, the contents the color of dark mud.

I pouted. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it’s not, but we’re also in a small tavern off the edge of Crustinaple with about thirty people below us.”

“So?”

“So, I am still not used to the feeling when you take from me, and I do not wish for a group of people to storm the room when you start screaming for me. So,” Samkiel said, shoving the cup toward my face, “this will suffice for now.”

I huffed and sat up, grabbing the cup from his hand. “So proper.”

“At times.” He smiled at me as I took a sip.

Blood a little sweeter than I liked hit my tongue, but I swallowed. My stomach cooled, no longer yelling at me, and while it would soothe my hunger for a little while, I craved something else. I didn’t tell him how much I actually preferred drinking from the vein. I savored the feel of my fangs piercing skin and the body heat of another living being as I fed. A part of me was afraid he would learn one secret too many about me and look at me differently. That would destroy me. I licked my lips and crossed my legs, setting the cup in my lap.

“Good?” he asked, reaching out and tucking back a lock of hair that had fallen across my face.

“It will do. What is it anyway?” I asked.

“There is no translation for it in your world, but think of it as a stag from there.”

“You gave me animal blood?”

He dropped his hand, leaning slightly back as he regarded me. “Yes, I thought it peculiar for me to ask a stranger to borrow some.”

That made me giggle as I took another sip. “Fair point. I thought you were just insanely jealous and preferred I tasted no one else.”

He shook his head. “Gods don’t get jealous. We can have anyone we wish.”

“Oh.” I leaned over and placed the cup on the end table before throwing back the blankets and scooting to the edge of the bed. “Well, in that case, I’m done with animal blood. I’m going to go see if someone is drunk enough to forget if I get a nighttime snack.”

My feet barely touched the floor before his arms were around me. He tossed me onto the small bed, and I laughed as he pinned my hands above my head.

“Be careful. I’m mortally wounded,” I said.

Samkiel released my hands and shifted his weight off me to lean on one elbow. His big hand skimmed the edge of my tank before pulling it up, exposing my abdomen.

“No, I checked. I made sure . . .” His words died when he saw nothing but toned skin. He glared at me. “You’re not funny.”

I grinned and held my thumb and forefinger just a little apart as he lowered my shirt. “I’m a little funny.”

“Minute, if even.” His fingers slipped just under my top, rubbing at the sensitive skin of my belly. “What happened at the prison?”

My mind flashed to Vincent and the rocky mountainside, watching his body fall to the water rushing below. I’d waited for that damn blue light to shoot across the sky, but it never came. I forced a smile as he regarded me.

“It’s been forever since I’ve lain on a bed that was actually soft. I missed it,” I said, opening my legs and sliding my knee along his side. “Do you want to use it?”

His hand wrapped around my thigh and pressed it flat against the bed. “I understand how weaker men would immediately fall for your wicked ways, but don’t try to distract me with sex. Especially when I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”

My lips pursed. He was so different from anyone I’d ever been with, and that was another reason I wanted to skip this conversation. I slipped out from beneath his touch and sat up. I felt the bed shift as I stood.

“Dianna.” His hand reached out, stopping me.

“I want to take a bath,” I said.

His thumb ran across my wrist as he turned me to him. “You killed Vincent. That’s what you said before you passed out from blood loss.”

I didn’t respond, keeping my eyes focused on his feet. I wished the world would open up and swallow me whole.

“Do you feel bad?” he asked.

My head whipped up. My gaze met his, and I knew he saw not an ounce of remorse in my eyes. “No, and that’s the problem. I feel nothing but relief about it. And I don’t want to talk about it with you because regardless of what he did, he was your friend, and you loved him, and I killed him.”

Samkiel nodded, his thumb drawing circles across my wrist. “Vincent is a complicated subject for me. I remember the man who twitched at loud sounds or when someone moved too fast. I remember the wounded version of him. The one I wanted to help and protect. I want to believe he was manipulated. A part of me screams it is far more than it seems. I had lived with all of them for hundreds of years. I saw how he was with the others, and I knew him. Or I thought I did. Then he turned The Hand into something I cannot comprehend. He hurt them. He hurt you and tried to kill you. So it’s complicated. I want to feel hurt that he is gone and feel sad, but I don’t. I’m more upset you are hurt, more upset I haven’t found the rest of my family, and more upset I couldn’t do more to help.”

My chest tightened at his words. I stepped between his open legs and wrapped my arms around his head. He rested his cheek against my breasts and hugged me close, holding me as I held him. “I’m sorry.”

He said nothing.

“Not for killing him,” I added. “But for what you have lost.”

He only nodded, but I felt his arms tighten around me. I slid my fingers through his hair, aching to soothe and care for him however I could.

“Samkiel, you’re allowed to mourn,” I said, pressing my lips to his hair. “You are allowed to grieve the friend you lost and your perception of him. You’re allowed to mourn what has happened to your family.”

Samkiel nodded, and I tightened my grip on him, letting him know he was not alone. Never again would I let him be alone.

“I’ve never had anyone like you before,” he said.

“What? Someone as bloodthirsty and attractive?”

“That, but no.” He laughed, his breath hot against me. “Someone who just . . . understands. I don’t have to say anything. You just understand.”

“I think one thing we can definitely do is relate to each other,” I said, laying my head atop his.

“How did he wound you so?” he asked, his voice rough and deep.

“Well,” I said, my fingers playing at the short hairs near his ear. “Hypothetically, could your deranged evil sister make a godly weapon?”

Samkiel’s brows knitted together, and he pulled back a fraction to look up at me. “It’s possible. I was unsure what my father taught her. The gods made godly weapons, but it required a magnitude of power and the right environment to create and sustain such weapons. With the wrong ingredient or slip of the hand, it could destroy entire worlds. For that reason, my father long ago built a facility on a desolate moon.”

“Do you think she could be using that moon?” I asked.

Samkiel shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps. We can check it out, but not now.” He ran his hand over my stomach, where that weapon had already sliced me apart. “And I say this with every ounce of ego and pride I have, but I am not ready. And you were impaled by a godly weapon.”

“It’s not the first time.”

A look of clear bewilderment raced across his face. “When were you . . . Dianna.”

He shook his head as he realized what I was referring to, and my grin widened. “Regardless, I do not have my full power, and I barely survived her when I did. If we go there, I need to be at full strength. My focus right now must be on reclaiming my power from the sky.”

“Can you do that?”

“It’s possible,” he said, dipping his hands to the back of my thighs. “It is mine, after all.”

“I guess we can add that to our list of goals, then. Try to suck your power out of the sky.”

Samkiel just nodded. I leaned back, trying to shift out of his embrace, but made it nowhere. His arms tightened around me, holding me to him.

“Another thing,” he said, his brows lowered and the muscles in his jaw tight.

“Uh oh.” I smiled weakly. “I know that look.”

His lips pursed into a thin line. “You shouldn’t have blocked the tunnel nor dropped the prison below the ground, either.” I protested, but he raised a hand, silencing me. “I’m not done. You said you’d be right behind me, and you did the opposite. Had you planned that all along?”

“To be fair, I’d planned to close it behind you and the survivors. I was going to buy time for you all to escape and then meet up with you when I was done. I didn’t expect the battle to last long or Vincent to be the one that showed up or the godly weapon, so I’m sorry.”

He nodded, but I knew by the tension holding his muscles tight that he was still furious. “We’re supposed to be a team, Dianna. We have to work together, which means you can’t decide what we will do and then carry out those plans on your own. Especially now that we have a hint of what she is capable of making.”

I nodded, feeling the slightest edge of guilt. We’re a team, and all I’ve been doing is keeping secrets and lying. I still couldn’t tell him what really happened in that tunnel. My heart clenched in my chest. Here he was, offering every piece of himself, and I couldn’t cough up a fraction of myself. He was everything I had wanted and hoped for. Someone who would be there for me, someone who wanted me and would fight for me. He was offering me the promise of never again being alone, and right now, I felt so very lonely because there were things I was still too afraid to tell him. So my lies and secrets built higher, cutting me off from him like a godsdamned fortress.

“You’re right.” My smile was small. “I promise no more secret plans.”

He glanced down, fiddling with the hem of my tank top. “I know you are strong and capable. I am not saying that to undermine you, but I worry for you. You don’t have to do everything by yourself.”

“I know.” I nodded, reaching forward and clasping his hand in mine. “It’s hard for me to remember sometimes, if I’m honest, but I’m working on it.”

He lifted my hand and held my gaze as he placed a kiss to my knuckles. “We can work on it together.”

“Together sounds lovely.”

Liar!my damned heart screamed. You’re a liar!

It was true. If it came to him and his safety, I would defy the very heavens themselves to keep him whole. More than anything, I feared that when he looked at me so lovingly, he saw the girl promised to him. She was a celestial being filled with love and hope and goodness, but she had died in a desert far away from her home world. She had been carved up and spit out by the most brutal creature and then reborn into something far more cruel than her predecessor.

Her edges were ripped, jagged, torn, and bloody, but she built herself back up the best she could. She enclosed herself in unbreakable and impenetrable walls that would take decades to breach. I hoped that when he looked at me and saw this new version of that girl, he would recognize that parts of her still existed. I hoped he cared enough to want me, and he could see that every bit of good I had salvaged from that girl was now his. These were hopes I clung to.

“Did you get the gauntlet?” I asked.

“Yes, I have it contained. I need to find us a safe place before I try to figure out how it works, just in case it is volatile. I don’t know if it was one of your father’s creations, but he was far craftier at making weapons than any of us, and it was always risky tampering with them.”

I groaned involuntarily at the mention of Azrael, but Samkiel went on.

“I have a place on an abandoned planet in mind, but I need to verify it’s safe enough before we go there.”

“Oh? What’s it like?”

He glanced out the window toward the stars and the part of him that still painted the sky in silver streaks.

“You’d love it if it’s still the same. Towering mountains, rolling wooded hills, deep ravines, and waterfalls as beautiful as the ones on Rashearim. Your other form would enjoy exploring there.”

“Maybe we can make it a new Rashearim if it’s still pretty.”

That brought a smile to his face that damn near made my heart stop.

“What?” I managed to get out, feeling breathless.

A smile still bloomed on his devastatingly beautiful face. The haunted shadows that had taken up residence in his eyes when he talked about Vincent had been banished. He no longer ached with thoughts of the man he’d called a friend and his betrayal. I loved that I could drive away his demons so effortlessly as he had done mine.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just . . . I’d like that. A lot.”

“What of the other prisoners?” I asked. “Did everyone make it out okay?”

Samkiel nodded. “Yes. Most have also showered and changed clothes. I believe they have found places to stay around this city. I cleaned Logan up and left him with Roccurem. The remaining prisoners are probably at the neighboring tavern.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t all flee.”

His fingers flexed on the back of my thighs. “Most will. I know a few are worried about the home they left behind. I do not fault them if they don’t choose to stay.”

“Even Savees left?”

His eyebrow flicked at my question, his annoyance palpable. “Am I going to have to hide you from every Otherworld being there is?”

I playfully hit his shoulder. “Stop it. That’s not why I’m asking. Like you said, he’s formidable and would make a great ally.”

Samkiel’s lip curved up. “I hope you speak of me so well in the presence of others.”

I laughed before leaning forward and kissing him. “Sami, baby. You are the textbook definition of jealous.”

“Hmm,” was all he said before sighing. “No, he did not leave. Although now I’d prefer he did and immediately. I changed my mind about alliances.”

“You’re impossible.” I smiled softly, running my hand along the side of his head. “Enough about alliances. You know what I’d like?”

Heat flared within his storm-colored eyes. “I am already thinking of seven things you are going to say, but please enlighten me.”

I placed my hands on his shoulders. “I want a shower or a bath, whichever they have here.”

“That can be arranged.”

I leaned forward and whispered, “And you can come with me.”

“That cannot be arranged.” He smirked and gave my ass a couple of pats.

“Why?”

“Akrai,” he practically groaned. “You are not the quietest, nor are we the most . . . gentle. Do you wish to cave in an entire tavern full of . . .”

Samkiel’s words trailed off as I raised my shirt and placed it over his head. He moaned, and the heat of his breath washed over my bare breasts, making my nipples tighten.

“This is cheating.” I felt his lips brush the sensitive skin between my breasts.

I giggled as I pressed his face between my breasts. “I never said I played fair.”

“This is coercion,” was his muffled response, and I knew I’d won.

Samkiel pulled my tank top off and grinned at me before he gripped my thighs and stood, tossing me over his shoulder. I squealed and was sure the whole tavern heard. He chuckled devilishly and swatted my upturned ass as he strode toward the bathroom.

“Quiet, Dianna. Or I will have to put something in your mouth to make you quiet.”

Oh, my man was in a mood, and I loved it.