Page 42 of The Edge of Dawn

It worked in Kordolians and some other humanoid species.

He knew. He’d used it on occasion—to calm them before he wrapped his hands around their necks.

But with her…

He wouldn’t dream of harming her.

He only wanted to soothe her, to take away her anguish.

She trembled beneath his hands, but at least she didn’t recoil in horror or try to fight him. In fact, she seemed to lean toward him, drawing sensation from his fingers.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t say a word.

He simply waited.

It felt like the right thing to do.

And after a while, she reached out to him with her mindspeech—amazing that she could already use it with such ease—and she sought his reassurance to temper her disbelief.

She was having trouble accepting he was real?

How ridiculous.

But then again, humans knew very little of the Universe outside their small planet, so she couldn’t be blamed.

As he spoke to her, doing his best to sound soothing and unthreatening—how in the Nine Hells did one do that?—she accepted his words, and it was the first time he had ever had the experience of providing comfort to anyone, and because of that, he astonished himself.

She shuddered, breathed in deeply, and became less tense. Then she turned to face him.

Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. With his Second Sight, he could make out every last detail of her, right down to the delicate strands of her eyelashes and the gleaming, translucent lenses of her eyes, which turned luminous in the scant light, reminding him of rare gemstones.

And when she spoke, her voice was low and throaty and filled with relief.

What do you really want with me?

She still didn’t trust him—understandably—but he sensed a yearning within her, a notion that she wanted to.

That was new, too.

Enough of this. The strangeness was too much for him to deal with.

He needed to get her out of there. The two humans were starting to rouse, and although he didn’t have any qualms about killing them, he didn’t want to shed blood in front of her.

She was already too jittery.

“I’m going to take you out of here,” he informed her. “You can barely walk, let alone stand. I will carry you.”

She recoiled a little as if the thought of being held by him was the most terrifying thing in the Universe.

He didn’t like that.

How could he get her to lower her guard?

Jade. How can I get you to understand that I’m not a demon?

Well, he was a terror to his enemies, but now that he was free of the Mistress, he would never, ever hurt an innocent like her.

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