Page 128 of Visions of Darkness

“And when there’s no good left in them ... you ... kill them?” I tripped over the question, and my mind pitched back to the man who’d attacked us in our last motel.

A man who was dead because Pax had been protecting us.

But I knew, by the dimming in his eyes, that what he typically did was different.

“Yes.” The single word was a jagged stone. There was regret in his voice, though it lacked any true remorse. Silence curled around us like the serpent that slithered up his neck as I tried to orient myself to his confession. To the reality of who he was when he walked through the day.

“Are you scared of me?” His question whipped through the tension.

Was I?

I reached up and smoothed out the harsh, defiant dent that furrowed his brow. “Am I afraid, Pax? Yes. I’m afraid of what you do. Of the position you put yourself in. Of the risks you take. But am I afraid of you? No. We both defend this world in the way we’ve been called to do.”

“You think the blood on my hands is a calling?” The spite that ripped from his mouth wasn’t directed at me but rather at himself.

“When you do it, is it to stop them from hurting someone else?”

His jaw clenched. “Always, Aria, always. Because the only thing these monsters have in mind is destroying. Ruining. I just see to it that I ruin them first.”

I gathered the hand of the fingers that had been playing through my hair, and I brought his palm to the ravaging on my chest. Right over the spot where I’d been struck. “Then yes, I think it’s a calling.”

Pax drew me closer. The heat of his hand blazed into my flesh, his voice gruff when he murmured, “Because you’re so good you can’t see anything else.”

“You’re wrong, Pax. I see you. You’re the only person I’ve ever really known. I might not have known all the details, but I know your heart. And I know your soul.”

“Aria.” My name murmured from between his lips, and his hand wound in my hair. A shiver streaked down my spine as he plastered me against the powerful lines of his lean, packed body, his arms ruthless and steady.

Heat flamed where we were connected, and my stomach tightened into a fist, a throb that pleaded between us like our own, desperate song.

He groaned as he pulled me even closer. Every inch of his body was sealed against mine, hard and raging, keening as our spirits begged.

He stared at me. Stared at me in torment and need, and I whispered, “Please.”

A pained sound left him before he snapped, and his mouth was on mine.

I gasped at the connection. At the flash of light that burst behind my eyes.

Pleasure rushed, so close to overwhelming I couldn’t see, and I was washed in a swell of lightheadedness.

The kiss was slow and powerful. His soft, red lips moving over mine. He tasted of dreams and possibility. Of need and desperation.

I whimpered and fisted my hand in the fabric of his shirt and begged again, “Please. I need you.”

A groan reverberated deep in his chest, and he rolled me onto my back as he shifted to lie on top of me. He kept his weight on his elbows, though he pressed himself against me where he was wedged between my thighs.

His body was a flame that incinerated.

With the way my body burned, I knew there’d be nothing left of me but ash.

“Aria,” he whispered at my lips before he deepened the kiss and stroked his tongue into the well of my mouth. I kissed him back, just as desperately, our tongues twining and twisting.

Tiny bolts of bliss streaked through my veins.

I clawed at his back, my nails eager and raking as he barely began to move, rubbing himself against my center.

I swore lightning struck in the middle of me.

A crackle of energy that pulsed.

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