Page 46 of Touched By Death

I don’t think.

“Why did you touch her?” Dariana speaks up from somewhere behind Daemon. I’m not sure exactly where. I don’t peel my eyes away from his near-black ones.

“It was a stupid mistake.” I can’t exactly tell them that she asked me to. They’d never believe me.

Another vicious snarl rips loose from Daemon’s vocal cords, and he rises to his feet, towering close to the flames. We don’t have the connection that would see us able to share hellfire. If he touches mine, he’ll hurt himself. Little is known about fire-bonding. Some angels are born with the ability to bond to a mate, while others form that connection as a forging bond blossoms. But whatever binds angels together is distant in the room now. Flames lick up the length of his arms, and his extended wings give an aggressive flap.

The kind of flap that says, “Stay the fuck away!”

Message received.

I climb to my feet, blood dripping from my chin as I put out the flames. Daemon never takes his eyes off me, pacing in front of the angel.

I know better than to look at her now while he’s this triggered. Breathing like a provoked bull, he yanks his hair.

A soft touch to his arm seems to snap him out of whatever mental nightmare he’s stuck in, and everything about him calms at the sight of Dariana.

“It’s okay,” she says softly, her raven hair tied up in a high ponytail. “She’s safe.”

I almost snort at that. Safe?

Now is not the time to have this conversation.

“Missed us, little angel?” Ronan asks, sliding his arm around Genesis’s shoulders with an easy smile.

“What are you doing?” she asks when he steers her out of the room.

“These games end today. You’re coming with us.”

Drawing to a sudden halt, she peels his arm away from her shoulders and throws me a wary glance. I’m so thrown for a second that I question everything. Especially when she looks at me that way, like she’s scared of going with them.

She can’t be. It’s part of Genesis’s plan.

“I’m not going with you,” she says in a shaky voice that stirs the alpha in Daemon and every other man in the room.

“It’s not up for debate,” he growls out, his voice final. Bored, even.

Her mouth falls open in pure outrage, and it’s so believable, I find myself riveted by the scene unfolding in front of me. Maybe my father is wrong?

Poking a stern finger into Daemon’s chest when he tries to sidle past her, she puts enough venom into her voice to sweet-talk every swinging cock in the room. “What part of ‘it’s over’ don’t you get?”

There’s that attitude that reeled in his attention like a fish on a hook in the first place. If Genesis is in there, she has watched and learned.

The air thickens with tension as Daemon flicks his dark eyes to her finger. She pokes him again. Either she’s blind to the rage shimmering behind his onyx orbs, or she’s provoking him on purpose. In a swift move, he bends down and hauls her over his shoulder. With a hard slap to her ass, he carries her out of the room.

Ronan chuckles and shakes his head as he follows hot on their heels. Alaric, on the other hand, lingers, watching me like he’s trying to figure me out. The sound of Dariana’s heels clicking on the floor fades away as she exits the room.

“Daemon isn’t the only one with a mean right hook,” he says, biceps flexing in his arms as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Touch her again, and you won’t just have one pissed-off male angel, but three to contend with.”

Arching my brow, I chuckle humorlessly. “You three, I can deal with. Dari, on the hand…”

Alaric’s gaze shifts over his shoulder to the door and then he brings his attention back to me. Rocking back on his heels, he drags his eyes down my body and back in an assessing way that tells me he’s measuring what kind of threat I present in the light of things. “Stay away from her, Dmitriy. I won’t warn you again.”

With those parting words hanging in the air along with the scent of burnt fabric, I watch him leave, clueless to the danger they’re about to bring into Lucifer’s home.

“Alaric,” I call out before he has a chance to exit.

He spins around, hand on the doorframe.

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