Page 19 of Touched By Death

Not even a little.

“I should have known,” I say, laughing tauntingly. “Are you stalking me now?”

His eyes flicker with hellfire as he leans down to sneer in my face. “Did you think you could just walk away? That we would let you fuck around?”

“This debate is getting fucking old,” I growl, attempting to push myself up, but he’s too heavy. “It’s part of the hunt.”

I flop back down as Dariana’s face comes into view. Unlike Alaric who looks two seconds away from strangling me to death, she winks. “Got yourself into trouble again?”

I flip her off, pick up the nearest stick, and hurl it at Alaric before frowning and attempting to lift my head off the ground. “Where’s Dmitriy?”

“Ronan is escorting him home.”

Blinking up at Alaric while deciphering the meaning behind his detached words, I release a disbelieving laugh. “If he does anything to hurt him—”

“Then what?” Alaric interrupts, increasing the pressure on my chest.

Annoyance flares up inside me, and I peel my lips back in an animalistic snarl. My meal, slowly emerging from his daze, slumps against the tree. If I don’t act fast, he’ll get away.

“I need to feed,” I admit reluctantly.

“Is that so?” he mocks with a winged brow as he tilts his head to the side. “It looked to me like you were about to suck his dick. If it’s cum you want, all you have to do is ask.”

“Let. Me. Go.”

“Ask nicely, little angel, and I’ll consider it.”

My growl intensifies, and he bends down and pats my cheek hard, causing me to snap my teeth at him.

Behind him, Dariana laughs at my pathetic attempts to intimidate him. There’s no scaring off a powerful angel like Alaric. I know it. He knows it. We all fucking know it. I still try, though.

Fuck if I’ll lie here like a good little angel and let him dominate me like this.

Flames dance at my fingertips, but they fizzle out with a click of his fingers. I try again, and he puts them out just as fast.

“Baby girl, while you have the potential to be more powerful than me, and you have been at times, you’re not in control of your powers yet.”

A red haze descends, clouding my vision. Alaric’s eyebrows shoot up before he releases a chuckle. His dark hair falls into his eyes as he lets his head fall to his chest. Shoulders shaking, he flashes his incisors with a lethal smile that renders me powerless against him. “The monster in you wants to come out to play, too.”

“We need to tread carefully,” Dariana reminds him.

He sweeps his eyes over my face as he replies, “I know. I’m not blinded by her pussy like Daemon is.” His gaze trails down my body to between the apex of my thighs, where my dress pools in a sea of black fabric. “Though her arousal sure smells fucking divine.”

With a snort and a laugh, Dariana mutters, “Sure,” as she walks past us to my meal.

Mine.

My feral growl intensifies at the threat of her stealing him away from me. Vicious snarls that belong to a feral animal rip through the night. “Lay a fucking finger on him, and I’ll make you regret it,” I threaten.

At my warning, she looks at me and drags a single nail down the front of his throat, over his pronounced Adam’s apple. Pausing between his collarbones, she asks, “What are you going to do, little witch?”

My upper lip twitches while I continue snarling, pissed that she’s touching him. “He’s mine. I captured him.”

“She’s territorial,” chuckles Alaric, boot on my chest, elbow on his thigh.

“I thought sharing was caring?” Dariana taunts, making a show of popping the buttons on his shirt, one at a time, until his tanned chest is bared.

With strength I didn’t know I possessed, I fly up from the ground and push Alaric aside in a blur of movement. Dariana barely has time to react before I’m in between her and my meal. My wings are flared, and hellfire is licking its way up my arms. Her brown eyes reflect the wild flames as she lets out a loud, feminine laugh that rings out like chiming bells or a siren call at sea. Whatever magic she possesses in that soft lilt is dangerous.

---