Page 43 of Anathema

Like an enchanting goddess, she slept soundly, a fringe of long, black lashes fluttering against the top of her cheeks, while her body succumbed to his power. An ache stabbed his chest, as he marveled at those thick, pouty lips and gleaming skin that compelled him to touch her. That scent that clawed at his senses, urging him to put his mouth to her skin for a taste.

He’d never been so taken by one of his prey.

A sharp throb struck his groin, and he grunted, his cock pressed hard against his leathers as if it longed to climb out of his damn trousers. Frowning, he adjusted himself. Something about the girl stoked the fire in his veins, and were he not there to sear her blood to stone, he might’ve taken an interest in what she hid beneath that loose gown.

Instead, he raised his hand again, sending another blast of heat across her body, and just as before, she shifted again, raising her arm above her head to reveal a strange marking on her flesh. A feather-like scar with metallic silver accents.

As she squirmed with discomfort, her fever undoubtedly heightening, he felt a tickle at his brow. A bead of sweat dripping down his skin that, when he wiped it away, felt hot to the touch. So unusually hot, he broke concentration, and the flame in his palm fizzled.

He wiped his face across the sleeve of his tunic and held out a palm again. Focusing. Imagining the flame rushing through her veins like molten lava.

A flare of pain rippled through him, like tiny blades in his blood, and Zevander stumbled back a step.

Godspit!

Teeth grinding with frustration, he tried again, but again, he was struck with an agonizing burn beneath his skin that had him backing off.

The process normally took seconds. A quick and quiet kill, and he was ordinarily done before anyone even noticed him there. He lifted his palm yet again, eyes blazing with rage as he stared down at her sickeningly beautiful face.

An image of her head tipped back in ecstasy struck his skull, and he shook his head of the visual.

Fuck. Fuck!

His fist vibrated with the urge to punch a wall. To break him of whatever had hooked itself in his mind.

She let out another soft moan, and gods be damned, Zevander’s ordinarily steady muscles shook. The sound rattled his concentration, and the flames retreated back across his skin.

Jaw clenched hard enough to crack his teeth, he tried for the half-dozenth time. Muscles steeled, he concentrated on the flames working their way through her veins. Boiling and hardening to stone.

Nothing came forth. As if his power refused to follow his command.

It’d never failed him before. Had never hesitated to take life, however brutally Zevander had willed it.

Staring down at her, his mind silently weaved the spell that he’d never had to speak aloud, and a streak of agonizing heat wound up through his forearm. He looked down to see one of his scorpions stinging him. Retaliating on him. The cursed flame attacking him, instead!

Enraged, he roughly brushed his knuckles against the scorpion, sending it off into a cloud of black smoke, and ground his teeth at the outrage. He would kill the ridiculous mortal if it took all the power he could summon, and gods help her then.

In his fury, he caught sight of her breast through the silky fabric of her sleeping gown. His hand itched with the momentary distraction of wondering if it’d fit in his palm as perfectly as he imagined right then. He ground his teeth harder, until a flash of pain struck his skull.

She held such a purity and innocence about her, a vibrancy that taunted the darkest corners of his soul. And seven hells, he wanted to tear his own eyeballs out for noticing.

Hand still hovering over top of her, he dared himself to touch her.

One touch.

He curled his hand into a fist.

No. If he had to fuck every sexsell from then until his death, so be it. So be it!

She stretched and shifted again, her body calling to him, and a stab of pain struck his groin.

On a grunt, he bent forward, his cock throbbing with an ache that would never be sated so long as she breathed. Zevander reached for the blade at his hip. Perhaps killing her first might allow him to concentrate on her blood. With trembling hands, he held the blade at her throat. One slice. That was all it’d take.

Hundreds, he’d killed before they could so much as draw in a breath, and yet, he loomed over her like a fledgling. Like a fucking newborn assassin terrified to follow through.

She opened her eyes to reveal beautiful, pale gray irises, the color of morning skies in Wyntertide, the left marred with a streak of silver that reminded him of the moon he’d seen earlier. Deep, intelligent eyes that gave an air of youth and mischief, their cat-like shape seductively sleepy.

As they sharpened into focus, he broke from his trance.

---