Page 77 of Inflamed By an Incubus

Because she was cursed?

Chapter 23

Evelyn looked across her shoulder at Fenix, seeking the answer to whether she was cursed or not in his eyes. He looked as if he wanted to come to her but was holding himself back, forcing himself to remain at a distance. Because he didn’t want her falling for him.

“I’d like to go home now,” she whispered as the mansion and the mountains seemed to close in on her. It was all too much. She felt as if she was being bombarded with information that didn’t make any sense to her, but at the same time made perfect sense, and she couldn’t handle it.

She had all the space in the world, so why did she feel as if she couldn’t breathe? She pulled the collar of her T-shirt away from her chest and fanned herself, struggling to get air into her lungs as panic prickled down her spine and her temperature soared.

“Evelyn,” Fenix husked and his tawny eyebrows furrowed.

He flexed his fingers at his sides and then sighed and looked at his feet. For a moment, she felt sure he might do as she wanted and take her back to Archangel.

And that panic she felt increased, closing her throat and causing a riot in her mind.

She couldn’t go back there. She couldn’t really stay here, not like part of her had been considering.

She had to go somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where. She just needed to get away and clear her head. She needed a moment to think and process everything that had happened. Archer was a warlock and had been lying to her. And God, did that mean she had died in the Fifth Realm but he had brought her back? Was she dead?

Again?

According to Fenix, she had died multiple times. How many?

“You’re panicking, sweetheart.” He held his hands out to her again, his green gaze soft with a need she could name. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted it but he feared it at the same time.

Because he didn’t want her falling in love with him. Because if she did, she would die.

Because she was cursed.

“No shit,” she muttered and began walking in a circle, trying to shake off the panic that gripped her, desperate to clear her head and for everything to sink in and make sense.

It wasn’t going to happen. Not while her mind was whirling with everything Fenix had told her and she was caught up in the maelstrom, unable to find her footing or something to hold on to.

She glanced at Fenix and her gaze lingered on him as that sense of solidness she badly needed filled her. She had no reason to trust him, but something deep inside her did, and she found herself just looking at him, narrowing the world back down to him in an effort to let everything else fall away.

Evelyn’s gaze drifted over him, from his wild tawny hair threaded with gold, to his green eyes that held a hint of that colour too as he gazed at her, down over the black shirt that hugged his lean figure. Her eyes roamed over his left arm as everything dropped away, as calm flowed through her again and she felt at peace. What colour were his markings as he gazed at her?

Still incubus blue and gold, laced with that dash of dark pink? Colours he wouldn’t tell her about, and she suspected it was because they were colours that betrayed his feelings for her. She couldn’t see the markings on the rear of his left forearm, so she shifted her focus to his right.

And frowned.

Just below the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt, close to the inside of his elbow, was a circular black mark. She stared at it, trying to make out the design while resisting the urge to step closer to him so she could see it more clearly.

“Got new ink?” She kept her eyes on it, squinted a little and thought there was a dragon in the design within the circle, and possibly a deer or some other creature with antlers.

Fenix raised his right arm and twisted it, his head tilting towards it as he stole it from view, increasing that urge to move towards him.

“Not by choice.” He ran his left thumb over the mark as he angled it towards her again, as if he had felt her need to see it. His features hardened as he stared at it and traced the outside of the circle. “It’s a brand, I think. A promise… maybe. Like a pledge?”

He didn’t sound sure.

“Where did you get it?” She tried to ignore how much she liked this easiness between them, how normal everything felt here in this moment, where they were talking about something other than her or Archer. Or a curse. Or her multiple deaths. Her throat closed a little and a weight settled on her chest again, so she focused more intently on the mark, picking out all the details she could. There was writing that followed the ring, marks that were in a language she didn’t know.

His green gaze lifted to lock with hers, held her immobile and had that tight feeling falling away again as his soft voice swept over her. “Remember the bloke Archangel were holding in the cell opposite mine?”

A knot formed in her stomach at the reminder she had taken him captive and had been the one to subject him to the terrible things Archangel had done to him. An apology balanced on her lips. One part of her wanted to let tumble into the open while the rest of her held it back.

“Turns out he was an unseelie prince. Never seen one before.” He glanced at the mark again and idly brushed the pad of his thumb over it. “Don’t think I ever want to see one again either… but… apparently he owes me and now I have this… token? I think I can cash it in for a favour.”

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