Page 109 of Dark Shadow of Guilt

That may be, but she didn’t want to severely injure him either. Like drinking all his blood so that it took centuries for him to heal.

Twisting toward Dom, Madeline stared at his masculine face with its hard angles, firm jaw, and lines that said he’d seen sadness. A man she was falling in love with.Hell. She’d already fallen.

He was gruff. He was impatient. He was a survivor like Madeline. He’d tackled life and won. But there was more. Despite a less-than-cheerful outlook, he was kind and caring. It didn’t hurt that he had a body women wanted to fondle.

Would she be his downfall?

Dom opened his good eye, fixing on her, his black hair loose, a silky swath resting on a thick pectoral muscle. He caught her ogling him. “What?”

“Nothing. This is nice. The two of us. The starry sky.” She felt the flush of embarrassment on her cheeks.

He smiled, something Dom didn’t do nearly enough, but when he did, well, ladies hold onto your knickers. And in his smile was an equal dose of love and assassin confidence. A lethal combo. She felt it to the tips of her toes.

Dom suddenly went still, a sure sign he was listening to a telepathic conversation. He growled. Apparently, the news was not good.

Maddy grabbed a book from the bedside table.

Chapter Thirty

Dom mentally disconnectedafter he and the other Feard listened to Remi’s newspath. He leaned against the headboard and gazed into the distance while putting the info in order. On this side of the gateway, an unknown Immortal had given Maddy to Malacour. He handed her off to Serita. Then the trustee Scourge’s Mind Rat employee, Praevus, had chopped his boss into little pieces and stolen the prize—Maddy. One puzzle solved.

Ely added his tidbit. Sent by the OC, he’d found and lost Malacour. Tough break.

But somebody had extincted Praevus. Two mysteries. Ike and Praevus extincted. Malacour, the apparent rebellion leader in Angor, was in the wind. But he couldn’t ash a Scourge. That left the same suspects. The OC, Michael, and Luce. Harmony was a powerful Immortal with major responsibilities, but her skills were nowhere near those of the others.

Realizing he was spinning and nowhere near getting answers, he shifted and kissed Maddy’s cheek. Dom shared the news with her, interrupting her read on Blood Leeches. She probably knew more about the malady than he did. Of course, he’d never cared to know the deets about stricken Immortals.

He wondered again whether he’d ignored Gareth’s descent into madness or his friend had hidden it well. Whatever his history, Dom had already decided he would be more attentive to Maddy.

While her nose was in the book, he studied the human-turned-Scourge. Or was she? Too many oddities. Still, it was hard to dismiss the wings, fangs, and inability to get through the gateway. At the very least, she was a hybrid of some kind.

With her chin tilted down, her hair fell around her face and her expression changed with each passage she read. Sometimes she bit her lip. Sometimes she wrinkled her forehead. Sometimes she nodded.

Dom didn’t know when it had happened, but it had. He loved her. The connection he’d felt the first time he’d seen Madeline huddled in that abandoned car in Stupool had only grown stronger. He could no longer deny it.Damn. He didn’t want to deny it. A thin but unbreakable thread from his heart reached toward her. If Madeline accepted him, it would bind them together, tethering one to the other. He no longer ignored the truth. They were mates.

Ohngel was right. Dom didn’t have to understand the particulars of bonding. When it happened, it happened. And he was good with that.Fuck. He was ecstatic. Maddy completed him.

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