Page 142 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

CHLOE (5:31 PM): No, I’ll let you know when we’re done here. I’m safe.

His face does a complicated thing, the demon visage twisting on some emotion while the human remains blank, before he tightens his grip on her wrist.

And pulls her into a bruising kiss.

She gasps against him, and he opens his mouth against hers, something halfway between a prayer and an invitation.

One hand snakes against the small of her back, holding her tighter than anyone ever has.

“Don’t think,” he whispers to her between kisses, his lips moving against hers, “that I don’t recognize what you just did.”

She would never assume he wouldn’t, as his other hand cradles her chin, as if she’s a precious treasure he can’t help but consume.

Sure, her ribs still twinge and her body’s still exhausted, but all her mind can do is keep up with the pressure on her lips and the gentleness of his hands.

He’s always gentle. Always so gentle, always tender, even before they knew each other. Even back in the cave, he ever so gently picked up her hand.

The magic of the shield sparkles and he flinches, breaking the precious contact, dropping his hands.

But he stares at her, his eyes alight.

“I have to finish the shield,” he whispers, voice husky and low. “But I know…”

Chloe nods, unable to speak, and instead smiles up at him.

It’s one of those smiles that grow tremulously. With all the scares and the drama and the horror seen by them in just the last few days, there’s no way she can make it sunny. There’s no way she can make it as if she’s perfectly okay, as if she’s completely unassuming.

But it doesn’t mean it’s not honest.

35

She drowses, as he finishes the shield, the tremulous contentment growing in her, until she watches as the demon’s shoulders tense, illuminated from the shield.

Killian hisses out a breath.

“What?” Chloe says, startling up. “What is it, who—”

The shield blooms into black, vicious, and Chloe scrambles to standing, grabbing the first thing her hand closes upon—a few spare pebbles.

Killian gestures her back behind him, which is bullshit, so she shifts, keeping an eye on the shield. “They followed me.”

He hadn’t gone anywhere in the last few hours, which means they tracked him from Europe. From before.

“Why would anyone follow you?” she whispers, her heart pounding, but there’s nothing outside, nothing that would betray them other than some slushy trees.

“Power,” he mutters. “Power, influence, elimination of competition. Control. Seanna. So many options, none of them good.”

Chloe agrees with that, turning the pebble over and over in her hand, then carefully crouching and pulling a battery out ofher bag. She still hasn’t cleaned the gun since she used it at the base, but she belts the holster on her regardless.

In most cases, she’s much more dangerous with the battery.

A breeze in the trees, the oft familiar creaking of the spruce branches, and Killian’s shoulders tense underneath the guard’s clothing.

Chloe has just one chance to inhale, before a man stands in front of the shield, a flash of a teleportation ward underneath his feet.

His blue eyes immediately snap to hers, past the warping magic blocking him.

“You’re the one leaving demon traces everywhere?” he asks, his voice lilting as he sizes her up.

---