A warm glow filled the living room as early evening light shaded the distant trees and buildings of Rose Apple. Blue turned on the lamps with just a thought, while Artur closed the shades. Dela and Eddie began fixing dinner, an assortment of sandwiches and chips.
She sensed some lingering tension between Hari and the others, but a quick glance assured her that rough trust, and a little camaraderie, was beginning to form. Dean and Hari bent over his weapons. The shape-shifter seemed to be telling a story. Blue sat nearby, listening.
Artur came up behind Dela and she smiled at him as she showed Eddie where all the paper plates were stored. She didn’t think anyone—least of all her—felt like doing dishes tonight.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said to the tall Russian. Artur’s smile was sad, his eyes shadowed, weary.
“When I heard what happened, I could not stay away. None of us could.” Artur hesitated. “How are you, Dela?”
“Tired,” she confessed softly. “And scared. So much has happened in such a short time, Artur. I feel like my head will explode trying to make sense of it all.”
“It is not just the threats on your life. It is also Hari.”
Dela felt Eddie go very still, and a moment later he sidled away to the farthest corner of the kitchen, ostensibly to slather mayonnaise on the bread.
“Yes,” she whispered, thankful for the illusion of privacy. “But he’s also the reason I’m holding up so well. He’s the reason I’m still alive.”
“I know.” Artur raised a gloved hand to his dark head. “I have felt him. These past few days have been very powerful for Hari. Life-altering.”
“For me, too,” she said, looking away.
“You love him.”
There was a strange wistfulness in Artur’s voice, in his pale face. She had no answer, save one, and slowly nodded.
Artur’s face relaxed into a tender smile. “I am glad. Truly, Dela.”
“Thank you,” she murmured. “That means a lot, coming from you.”
“We had our chance and I was not ready. That is the way of it.”
Dela touched his arm. “You’ll find someone, Artur, and it will be when you least expect it.”
“Like you?”
There were two ways to understand those words, both radically different from the other, and Dela hesitated. “It will happen. Just give it time.”
Again, his soft smile. He gently pulled away and joined the other men around Hari’s weapons. Hari glanced up at Dela, and there was a quiet understanding in his golden eyes. She wondered just how good his ears really were.
The dining table was large enough for all her friends to find a seat, and dinner was a loud, boisterous affair. Dela sensed that everyone was trying to keep her spirits high, away from thoughts of murdered children, weapons, and parents trying to take revenge. Amazingly, there were moments when she did forget.
But not for long.
After dessert, which degenerated into a contest between Dean and Eddie to see who could eat the most ice cream, Dela professed exhaustion and retreated to her bedroom. She collapsed on top of the covers, curled into a tiny ball, and closed her eyes.
She did not know how long she slept, only that when she opened her eyes, the full moon cast a sheet of silver across her bed and the walls. A breath of movement caught her attention; in the corner, by the closed door, stood Hari.
He wore only a towel, and Dela thought she smelled shampoo. He did not approach, and when she slipped from the bed and went to him, he still did not move or make a sound. She touched his warm, damp skin. Her fingers tingled, her hands, arms—everywhere was tingling. Hari’s eyes began to glow, and she welcomed the light, bathed in it as though she could wrap her body in a cocoon made of Hari’s power. When Dela stood like this before him, all other men seemed like shadows, fleeting and shallow. So much without substance she doubted they existed.
“You are so beautiful,” she heard herself whisper. Her words sent something hungry spinning through Hari’s glowing eyes, and she felt his palms whisper against her waist. A moment of hesitation, and Dela leaned into him. Just one touch, a kiss.
Hari’s hands were very large, his fingers long and elegant. His palms tightened around her waist, gentle and firm, lifting her closer. Gulping, she feathered his scarred chest with her fingers, her lips. Some breath of air escaped Hari’s mouth; his eyes were closed, and he was still, so very still.
Dela traced the hollow of his throat with her fingernail, following the line of his collarbone. He was so tall she could not reach him with her mouth. Hari bent down. She thought, for a moment, he would kiss her. Instead, he pressed his lips against her ear. She shuddered.
“May I carry you to the bed?” His voice was so deep, luxurious as velvet against her skin. She nodded, uncertain of her own voice, and Hari gently lifted her into his arms. He did it easily, as though she weighed nothing.
He set her on the bed, stretching out beside her. He bent his knee, inserting a leg between her thighs. Dela gasped as he pressed close. He was hard, everywhere.
“Not all things must happen now,” he said gently, touching her face, reassuring her with the softness in his eyes that was at such odds with the fierce cast of his body. “I just want to hold you. I have been alone for so long, Delilah, that just being able to put my hands on your body is a gift.”
Something old and tired gave way in Dela’s heart, and she stroked Hari’s face, running her fingers through his fine hair. His gaze felt warm upon her skin, exquisite with tenderness, and she slowly, carefully, brushed her lips against his own. Fire filled her, spreading from her cheeks down her throat, through her breasts and deeper.
Just one touch, a kiss.
Hari enfolded Dela in his arms, his body swelling rock-hard, exquisitely painful. Every brush of Dela’s soft curves sent waves of pleasure and torment through his body. He had never wanted a woman so badly, not even in his youth, before the curse; his heart shuddered with desire.
So strange: Only one night before, Hari had wondered if he was falling in love with Dela, but now he thought he had already fallen, and this wonderful feeling inside his chest, warming him, was the culmination. He did not know. He had never been in love. He had spent the past two thousand years as a slave to men and women whose requests of him had been violent and brutal.
Would Dela still accept him if she knew of his trespasses, the things he had done? Would he ever have the strength to tell her?
And what was love, anyway? What did he know of love, which was nothing but a distant, heartsick memory?
I want to make her mine, he thought, pressing his lips against her throat. I want to make her free. I want to wrap my heart around her soul and keep her safe.
“Hari?” she murmured, breathless. “What does it mean to kiss like mates?”
His laugh was low, sensual. “I would have to show you, but when I do, it will not be in a home full of other men.”
Dela smiled, her hands drifting down his waist; lower, and still lower, until Hari growled. “Your eyes are glowing,” she whispered. “Like the sun.”
He shivered, but Dela would not let him pull away. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and Hari was once again reminded that Dela was stronger than she looked. Steel in her arms, for the steel she smithed.
“What is it? Tell me.” Hari closed his eyes. Dela growled, frustrated. “Don’t hide from me!”
Hari opened his eyes, and he could finally see the glow reflected in her face, bathing her flawless skin in sheer liquid gold.
“My eyes should not be glowing. Without my skin, it is impossible.”
“Why?” She was so earnest, so sincere. His heart lurched.
“Because it is an element of the change. Shape-shifters’ eyes glow for a variety of reasons, arousal being one of them, but it always precedes a shift from one body to another. My skin is gone, Delilah. I cannot become the tiger, and therefore, my eyes should not glow gold.”
Dela chewed her bottom lip. “Maybe y
ou’re wrong. Perhaps it just seems that way. Did anyone else ever mention your glowing eyes?” Hari shook his head, and she hesitated before adding, “And lovers? Have you had any at all over the years?”
Hari sighed, pushing his face into Dela’s throat, drinking in her scent, his hands stroking her ribs, her breasts. She pushed against him, arching her back, but the question still loomed and he knew he had to answer.
“Some of my masters were women,” he breathed, collapsing the painful memories into a pinprick he could partition. “Sometimes they used me for battle, but often they preferred to keep me in their bedrooms. I am not sure which was worse—fighting, or being used by them. Eventually, there was one whom I thought cared for me, and I felt some affection for her in return—but she betrayed my trust. Her husband was a king, and he had no knowledge of the box. When he found me in her chambers, instead of telling him the truth, his wife lied and said I raped her, that I had threatened to take her husband’s life if she did not cooperate.”
Hari shuddered, and Dela drew him as close as flesh allowed. “The punishment was quite painful,” he said. “And I could not die, no matter what was done to me. When the king discovered this … this gift … he called me a devil, and proceeded to punish me even more. I was finally spared when he killed his wife for being tainted by a demon.”
“No more,” Dela promised, her voice shaking. “You will never have to go through that again, Hari. Not ever.”
He pressed his hand to her cheek, savoring the smooth silk of her skin, the silver of moonlight on her hair and body. Even clothed, she inspired him.
“How can you be so sure?” he whispered, looking deep into her eyes.
“Because,” and here she smiled, and he remembered the echo of her words from days past, “the alternative is unthinkable.”
He kissed her then, tangling his fingers in her hair, gently parting her lips with his tongue, filling himself with the taste of her mouth, her scent. He could not imagine a more exquisite woman, a more extraordinary heart than the one fluttering so wildly beneath his hand.
Perhaps two thousand years was worth it, just to be here in this moment, with her.
He could feel energy building between them. Dela’s hands slid beneath his towel to cup his buttocks, fingers stroking the sensitive crease. He gasped, and she used the opportunity to deepen their kiss, her teeth scraping his tongue. His fingers pushed up her shirt, his palms rubbing lightly over her taut breasts. She moaned in his mouth, and he stole her breath, fingers closing over her nipples to lightly twist, pull. Dela trembled, breaking their kiss to pant wildly against his ear. Her desire aroused him even more, made him bold. One hand still behind her head, the other crept down, past the waistband of her loose pants, sliding soft against skin, down until his fingers met curls and a slick, hot heat.
Just one touch.
Dela buried her mouth against Hari’s throat, trying not to cry out. She did not know where the others were, but they had to be close, and she did not want them to hear her making love to Hari. The moment seemed too intimate, too sacred, to share with anyone but the man pressed to her.
She was unprepared for her body’s response to his kisses, his caresses. No one had ever given her this much pleasure, and it both thrilled and frightened her. We’ll never be able to do this standing up. I’d collapse the first time he touched me.
His fingers burrowed deep. Her thighs clasped tight around his hand, increasing the pleasure as he stroked harder, faster, guiding her mouth back to his. He swallowed her whimpers with his kisses, striking a rhythm with his tongue that made her dizzy with pleasure. When she came, it was thunder—lightning in her head, arcing down her spine. Somewhere, she was distantly aware of the steel girders groaning, the mattress springs trembling.
Hari did not remove his hand, nor slow the fine quick stroke of his fingers. Within seconds she came again, and a minute later, one more time.
A kiss.
“Hari,” she gasped weakly, held tight against his chest.
“Shhh,” he murmured, smoothing her hair. “Just rest. I have been wanting to do that for a very long time.”
“How long? We’ve only known each other a couple of days.”
“You were very fetching in that towel,” he said, nipping her ear. She laughed, lightly punching his chest. And then, before he could prepare himself, her hands slipped beneath his towel, stroking him. He almost shouted, but bit his tongue before more than a low croak emerged.
“My turn,” she whispered, her voice rough with desire.
Her fingers danced, a random patter of movement that made Hari strain against her, wild. Dela bared her teeth in a fierce smile; he felt her wrap forefinger and thumb around the base of his erection, gliding the twisting ring of her fingers upwards, alternating between quick and achingly slow. Her other hand caressed the area behind his balls, and he felt himself grow harder, each stroke of her hands more intense than the last. He saw stars—thought he saw the own glow of his eyes, reflecting inward—and his breathing sounded loud in his ears, painful.
Oh, but if this was pain, then he would take it all, always. With much effort, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Delilah,” he managed raggedly, even as she continued her magic. Her fingernails lightly scraped his balls, and something inhuman emerged from his throat. “Delilah,” he tried again, “I would like to … to move inside you, but now … now is not the time, with all these people here, and I … oh … I want you to understand it is not because I do not want you.”
“I know,” she said, tongue darting in his ear. “I feel the same way. Consider this an appetizer.”
And then she did something else. He did not know what, only that he exploded with an orgasm so powerful his back arched, his muscles swelling, contracting, a roped ripple that made him go blind with pleasure.
This time it was he who collapsed in her arms, and they both lay together, limbs tangled, curled around each other’s bodies, occasionally laughing with some inexplicably giddy happiness.
“You’ve ruined me for anyone else,” Dela told him, and Hari’s heart swelled.
“Good,” he said fiercely. “I do not want to share.”
“Neither do I,” she said.
Hari’s answering smile was gentle, sweet. “Never have that fear, Delilah. Even without the curse, I am yours forever.”
Chapter Eight
Dela woke to the sounds of muffled shouts. Her room was dark and Hari was beside her, naked, spooned against her back. He stirred, and was out of bed in an instant, padding silently to the windows.
“What do you see?” she whispered. Hari shook his head. She strained to listen for sounds from the rest of the apartment and heard nothing. Throwing back the covers, Dela crept to her bedroom door and opened it just a crack. All the lights were off.
She whistled, and a moment later her call was returned, soft as a bird’s cry. Hari pressed against her shoulder, drawing her away from the door. “Stay here,” he said. “I will go check on the others.”
“Towel,” she ordered. Hari’s teeth flashed, and he grabbed his towel from the floor, wrapping it around his waist. A sliver of moonlight still haunted her room, and Hari’s long muscles gleamed, his back rippling as he silently glided into shadow. Dela remained by the door, listening.
What the—this is my home, too. I should be out there with them.
Another shout, startlingly close, and Dela slipped from her bedroom, staying close to the walls. The quiet within the apartment was preternatural—a dead silence, made starker by the intermittent sounds of fighting outside the warehouse—and suddenly, beneath her. She wished she knew who was out there; wished she could just talk with them, spill her heart.
And would anyone be able to reason with you if it had been your child?
No. Dela would die with grief—and be reborn in rage. Terrifying, twisted. No mercy.
But her guilt was not strong enough for suicide, or even despair. There would be no laying down of arms, especially if the other side r
emained hostile. If Dela was going to fight tonight, she would fight to win.
Just as her friends were doing, if the sounds rattling beneath her floorboards were any indication. Worry assailed her, thick and choking.
Artur and the others can take care of themselves, she told herself firmly, but it was weak comfort, especially when they were risking their lives for her.
Dela crept along the wall, looking for some sign of Hari and the other occupant of the apartment. She thought she heard breathing, the rub of clothing, and she peered around the corner wall to find Hari and Eddie crouched on each side of the front door. Hari held his sword in front of him—a warrior from a fairy tale, magical and powerful and strange. Eddie crouched in his shadow, and Dela caught the glint of something dark and metallic in his white grip. It whispered gun.
She cringed for the young man, drew a breath to speak. Hari heard her, and glared. Silence, he seemed to say. And then, Go.
Dela shook her head, stubborn, and Hari’s lips pressed into a hard white line. He made a move toward her, but just at that moment, someone rammed the door, hard enough to make the hinges creak. Hari grabbed Eddie by the scruff of his neck, hauling him up and backward as the door was hit again. A single gunshot, then, the dull thud of a silencer. The lock blew out.
Hari shoved Eddie toward Dela as three men poured through the door. Dressed in black, with tight ski masks pulled over their faces, they carried guns in their hands. Knives whispered from sheaths tied to their thighs.
Her intruders were clearly not expecting to see a seven-foot tall, half-naked man with a sword. They hesitated, and Hari fell upon them, silent as a ghost, his sword flashing, the blade darting like quicksilver, piercing skin, plunging past ribs.
Screams shattered the living room; as the first intruder died, the others regained their wits, unloading their silenced weapons into Hari. Eddie moved to help, but Dela grabbed him before he could step into their line of sight. He stared at her with wild eyes, but stopped struggling when she silently pleaded with him to be still. Grim, he peered around the wall with his gun pointed.
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