Page 122 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

The air escapes her all in a whoosh, and she relaxes into his grip, drawing a low sound from him, like he’s the one coming to realizations. His fingers spasm against her wrists, like the single point of contact there is keeping him in place instead of her. That the holding is for him, not her, that he’s the one desperately clawing to control of himself by pinning her there.

She clenches around him, and he inhales, sudden, his eyes wild.

“You okay?” she asks, and her voice comes from her high, uncontrolled.

He doesn’t answer, just thrusts inside of her, one strong move again, drawing another gasp from her.

“You,” he starts, almost in a growl, “feel so fucking good.”

He thrusts against her again, starting a brutal pace, sliding between the point of brutality and pleasure with each stroke. Her mind blanks out of all the witty responses, of all the romantic things she usually tries to wring out of her partners.All that remains is the heat between her thighs, his weight above her, and the pleasure blooming inside.

After,he pries his fingers from her wrists and throws his arm around her, pulling her against his chest as he all but collapses onto the bed next to her.

All of her nerves still alight, Chloe rests her head in the crook of his shoulder, breathing harder than she would care to admit. There’s a thin sheen of sweat against his skin—she didn’t know demons could sweat—and her ribs pang, just a bit.

Not enough to stop her, she wouldn’t shift away from this for all the money in the world, but just a bit.

This close, she can see his pulse fluttering against his skin, his actual skin. See the beating heart of his demon self, ever shifting.

For a few long minutes they cuddle like this, the peace almost fragile above them, like speaking would shatter it into a million pieces, before a sigh rumbles through his chest and he tugs her in a bit tighter.

“I have heard…” he starts, before falling short, burying his face into her hair, but she just waits for him to speak again, to finish what he began. “Other demons have said that the sensation’s muted with humans. Except Necromancers.”

That goes roughly in line with what Chloe’s heard from Melekai.

“You weren’t muted,” he finishes, and she can feel his words more than hear them. “Nothing about you was muted.”

In the dim light, he’s beautiful.

And she doesn’t mean the guard’s face, but the rougher underneath, with the same almost-wrinkles around his eyes and the cut of his jaw.

It wells up in her heart, striking a similar cord of terror.

“Killian,” she asks, almost hating herself for speaking, the words bubbling up out of her. “What are you planning on doing with the spirit fox?”

He blinks at her, lashes casting shadows over his cheeks.

“I need to know,” Chloe says desperately. “I need to know if you’re going to hurt her.”

He props himself up on his elbows, and it’s such a human action that it hurts her heart, but his face is serious.

He’s taking her seriously.

He regards her for a long second, and she refuses to shrink back down. Refuses to feel guilty for the question, refuses to retract it for the sake of peace.

“She’s going to protect her,” Killian says, with a nod towards the other room, despite the fact that the pre-teen is safe over at her friend’s house. “I will tie her power to Seanna, so Seanna will always be safe.”

Chloe exhales, her heart still pounding.

“If I do it right, the spirit fox will be unharmed,” he says, and it’s almost close to a vow. “She will be a guardian, a companion, ever watching over Seanna, and no one will dare hurt her.”

Chloe swallows down the rush of emotion, the unnamed lump in her throat.

Killian reaches out a single finger, tracing a line down her arm, close to the still healing cut from the demon in the cage.

And Chloe has to wrestle with her ideas. Her want to set the fox free, to run wild, do whatever she wants, with the need to see her friend safe. To see her happy, content.

It’s something she’s wrestled with for the years of their separation.

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