Page 63 of Married to the Devil

“Explain yourself,” he orders. His voice harsh in the space. The glamour practically simmers with the energy he’s giving off. I design a few glamours a year myself, but not quite of this caliber. As impressive as it is, it’s distracting me from tracking his emotions.

Or I’ve just never seen him as angry as this.

“Can you turn it off?” I ask, trying not to dwell on his anger.

Stoneheart frowns. “Turn what off?”

I wave my hand to encompass all of him. “The glamour.”

He narrows his eyes. “I’d think that this appearance would be more comfortable for you. People have accused my true form of being intimidating.”

“I’d rather face the real you no matter how intimidating,” I whisper. I told myself that I’d be strong in the face of opposition to my plans, but it’s hard now that I’m so close to him to disregard the influence he has over me.

There’s an insidious part of me that still wants to please him.

Stoneheart keeps his gaze on mine as he twists one of his many rings. When it clicks, the illusion falls away. His wings hold tightly to his form, but his size is formidable. He is very intimidating, and I’m regretting asking him to remove the glamour, but not because I’m afraid of him.

My body hums, I press my thighs together against the gathering heat there. It’s unfortunate that an angry, mean Stoneheart really does it for me.

His nostrils flare, undoubtedly picking up the scent of my interest, but he doesn’t make any move to answer it.

“Stella,” he says, breaking me from my trance.

Oh yeah, he’s waiting for answers, not about to rip my clothes off and call Ben in to toy with me. Pity.

“This is my territory too,” I say. “I’m going to help look into these disappearances. I can’t just stay up in my workshop. These people need to see me. Need to know that I care.”

“And how can you help?” he asks, the roiling anger under his surface pauses for my answer.

“They had one of my charms.”

Wards are expensive, and most are charged by the presence of the occupants. How many of the people who have been missing months or years had wards that were as undisturbed as this family’s but weren’t noted because they were drained by the time Stoneheart’s people started investigating?

“I think fae magic of some sort could be sneaking past active wards,” I say.

He stiffens. “That’s possible?”

“I’ve known someone with fae blood to have the ability,” I say, keeping it vague. Katarina’s ability is a secret. “I won’t know until I do more investigating.”

Stoneheart’s frown is a fearsome thing. A part of me thinks he’s going to whisk me away to the Firefly and lock me in my workshop, but he doesn’t, and I’m going to spend too much time later wondering why I’m disappointed that he’s not as protective of me as Kalos is of Katarina.

Instead, the gargoyle sighs and slips off one of his rings and slides it onto my thumb. It barely fits, but I gasp, my fingers stroking the warmed metal as my heart lurches. Sensations clamor to the forefront.

It’s captivating.He’scaptivated. By something…I push the first suspicion of what down for now. I won’t make the assumptions I did our first night together.

The silver ring has a Celtic design in the side. Under the emotion it carries is a woven purpose that I frown and try to decipher.

Stoneheart pauses like he’s regretting gifting me the ring. Is it because it’s so valuable or because it has so much of his essence on it? The hesitation disappears faster than I can define it, and he speaks. “If you’re going to be wandering around theterritory, you will wear that. It will keep people from being able to be successful in long-range attacks. You will also start combat training?—”

“I’m not really athletic,” I say, blinking in surprise. And what can I really do against someone who can turn into a lion? Though to be fair, most shifters don’t fight in their animal forms, something about their animal selves lacking the same motivations as their human selves. But they are faster and stronger.

Stoneheart’s eyes narrow, and he continues, ignoring me. “Andyou will take a real bodyguard with you.”

“Ben’s a bodyguard—” I start.

He scoffs. “I picked Ben because of his skills of being a companion to you and his abilities, not because his presence will stop an assassin in their tracks.”

I arch my brow. “You picked Ben to get in his pants.”

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