Page 79 of Touched By Death

The small side smile on Alaric’s lips and the way his dark hair falls into his eyes when he lifts his gaze to look at me from beneath his dark lashes have my heart fluttering wildly. Combine it with the sincerity in Dari’s eyes and Daemon’s fierce grip on my hip and exploring lips, and I’m putty in their spun web.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask when Daemon slowly slides the dress down my shoulders, his fingers brushing over my arms in a whisper of a touch that I feel down to my toes.

With his lips on my shoulder, he smiles, whispering, “Because Genesis can’t survive the light in you.”

“The light in me?”

“Can you not see it?” Dari trails her soft fingers along my cheekbone. Tears glisten on her lashes, and my own heart thuds heavily in response as my eyes widen. She places her hand on my chest, between the swell of my exposed breasts.

The dress pools around my feet, kissing my ankles on its way down.

“Look at that…”

A breath gets caught in my throat at the sight of the light that pours from my chest beneath her hand. As if she’s drawn in like a moth to a flame, the tears in her eyes slide a slow path down her cheeks. She leans in to replace her hand with her lips.

“Only the light can defeat the darkness,” Daemon tells me, his lips back on my ear, brushing the sensitive shell. “We were wrong all along to encourage you to indulge in the darkness.”

Dariana’s warm mouth envelops my nipple, and she tweaks the other one between her finger and thumb.

“I like the darkness,” I admit. “I like how invisible it makes me feel.”

A presence to my left alerts me to Ronan, who joins us and slides his hand around the side of my neck. He dives down to breathe me in, his warm lips descending on my tingling skin. His voice skates along my collarbones like a midnight breeze. “Meanwhile, the light scares you.”

“Yes…”

Another hand cups my chin and guides my eyes to Alaric on my other side. His dark eyes drift over my face like a lost ship at sea that’s called home by the mermaid’s song. “It’s time to face your fears, babe. Love is scary. Fuck, we know. This is Hell. Love has no place here, yet you brought it into the devil’s abode. How is that possible, little witch?”

Daemon steps back, and Alaric slams his lips to mine, devouring me like he’s feasting on the light pouring from my chest.

Hands caress every inch of my skin, and lips explore my body like an uncharted trail that leads through a mythological forest. I lose myself in them. In the Light that pours from my soul like an expression of the deepest truth of me.

Lost in their touch, I open my eyes to see the door behind them. The door that’s open to reveal another timeline. One where they’re waiting for me from across an ocean of possibilities.

A timeline where I first felt sin’s delicious touch. How it spun my entire world on its axis to create this moment right here. Amenadiel was wrong. I never erased time. I created a new timeline, and this is where they meet. The fork in the road. The river that leads to the ocean. All it would take would be a single step, a split second’s decision, and I’d be back in their arms. But then…

Ronan guides my lips to his with his calloused fingers on my chin. His forehead comes down on mine briefly as he implores me to see the truth in his eyes. “What are you doing to us? Can’t you see it? The way you cradle our hearts in the palm of your hand so effortlessly?” He kisses me then, and I part my lips to welcome his warm tongue. Dariana is on her knees before me, dragging her hands up my thighs.

Breaking away from Ronan’s mouth, I look over at the door, but it’s gone. In its place is Dmitriy.

Leaning against the door frame, he makes no move to join us, but he watches with that look in his eyes that cements my decision to stay in this timeline. With that decision, a twinge in my heart lets itself be known. There can’t be a win without a loss. We can’t gain without letting go. And we can’t truly love if we don’t let it hurt.

Rounding us, Daemon points a stern finger at Dmitriy. “Step over that threshold, and I’ll kill you.”

Dmitriy never takes his eyes off me. Not when the others step back for their leader, who approaches me with an intense look in his eyes that feasts on my naked, glowing body and black wings like I’m the most beautiful, precious treasure he’s ever found. I want to memorize the way he commands my attention so easily.

Pulling his T-shirt over the back of his head, he grips the ends, puts it around the back of my neck, and pulls me closer. His scent is everywhere, heady and woodsy. His wings unfold behind him, and he encircles us in a cocoon of emotions that bring me to my knees.

“I’m scared, Daemon.”

“I am too,” he admits, winding the T-shirt around his hands and forcing me closer until my breasts press up against his bare chest.

“You are?”

His lips slant in a naughty smile that sends tingles to my clit. “Yeah,” he breathes out lazily, watching me closely with his brown eyes that darken by the second. “I have never feared anything until the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“You mean when I threw a football at your head.”

The T-shirt slides from my neck, and he lets it fall to the floor before palming my neck with one hand and my cheek with his other. He presses his lips to my temple, and his breath caresses my face. “Even before then.” Brushing his thumb through a tear on my cheek, he holds me closer. “Give me all your tears, little witch. I want it all.”

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