Page 87 of The Devil and His Sparrow

My heart thundered, and unease prickled my skin. It was times like this that I remembered who I was and what exactly filled this room. I was prey, and I stood face-to-face with a predator. Though, this one only seemed interested in dancing as he pressed into my front and grinded to the beat.

I glanced at our table to see what Zagan made of the demon trying to dance with me. But he wasn’t watching. He’d turned in his seat to stare after the Bargainer demon, who kept throwing teasing smiles over her shoulder at him. It was an invitation to follow her up the stairs.

My stomach soured, and I quickly turned back to the demon in front of me. It didn’t matter if Zagan was interested in Babette. I didn’t care one bit that he wanted to go after her. In fact, I didn’t care so much that I held my head higher and flashed a coy smile at my new partner.

“What does it look like I’m doing here?” I finally fired back. I swayed my hips and grabbed the belt loops of his pants to pull him flush against me.

His grin widened, and he licked his lips, almost like he was hungry and eager to taste me. He pressed in and held my waist as the two of us moved to the pulsing music. Dancing with this stranger wasn’t like dancing with Zagan. There was no rush of excitement or desire for more. No flip in my stomach, no pulse racing under my skin, no itch to get even closer and breathe him in until I was drunk on his smell.

But he was here, and Zagan wasn’t.

A fact I was reminded of when I looked up and saw gold eyes and a lopsided grin without piercings. The tattoo-free hands skimming across my body to grope my butt and brush across my breast didn’t encite sweet electricity, but rather, annoyance. I was irritated that this stranger thought he could touch me like that, and I was even more aggravated with myself for comparing everything about this demon to my demon.

Not wanting to stare at this stranger, I turned in his arms to dance on him with my backside, and there was no missing the feel of his erection against my butt—something that really didn’t send sparks flying inside me like it would’ve with Zagan.

There was a gasp from right behind me and a split second where the body at my back disappeared. Just as quickly as it vanished, a new firm torso pressed into my back, and two large hands gripped the skin of my bare thighs. Spice and warm cedar wrapped around me, and I knew without looking over my shoulder who now held me.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, letting another demon touch what’s mine?” Zagan demanded in a low, husky voice.

A shiver ran up my spine with his hard body pressing into my backside and his lips hovering over my ear. My heart was back in my throat as his hands moved from the sides of my bare thighs to the front of them, brushing over the short hem of my dress.

“You didn’t seem to mind,” I said, my voice coming out shaky with that lingering tension still pooled in my gut.

Seeing Babette seek him out had clearly jarred me more than I cared to admit.

“Tell that to the ashes of the demon who’d just been touching you,” he chuckled darkly.

My eyes widened, and I looked down, seeing a heavy dusting of ash beneath our feet. Shock shot through me at a blinding speed when I realized Zagan had killed him, but more than that came a hot, intense swell of desire. It was such a strange reaction to a really fucked-up thing, yet there was no denying how turned on I was.

All because Zagan had killed a demon out of jealousy.

Over me.

It spurred my body to resume my hypnotic dance moves, swaying my hips and rolling my body against Zagan’s.

He groaned and pressed his hard cock against my backside. “You’re fucking killing me, Sparrow. I’m supposed to be the temptation, not you.”

Zagan’s lip rings teased the skin on my earlobe. He nipped me lightly and dug his claws into my thighs, just hard enough to elicit a small sting that quickly mingled with the hungry awareness pulsing between my legs.

“Yet here you are, calling to me like the sweetest, sexiest sin,” he purred.

“Is that right?” I asked breathlessly.

I bit my lip and leaned my head back onto his chest. I didn’t stop dancing, and he didn’t try to make me. He moved with me, grinding against me and moving with the swivel of my hips to the pounding music. Every inch of me was blissfully aware of every inch of him.

It also served as a reminder that these same places had just been touched by Babette, and that twist of nausea flooded back, spurring my tongue to move on its own accord. “Who was your friend?”

I hated this sickening coil in my gut. I’d never felt like this, and I didn’t know how to make the feeling go away.

Zagan trailed one hand up my body and over my breast until he gripped my neck. He tilted it back until I had to look at him over my shoulder. A smirk tugged on his pierced lips. “Is that jealousy I hear?”

Was that what that bitter churning was? Jealousy?

“No,” I answered quickly—too quickly.

He chuckled and brought his mouth closer to mine. It whispered against my lips as he purred, “I only have interest in one body, Sparrow.”

My heart stuttered. His words filled my veins with fire, warming me from the inside out. Until reality doused it in water.

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