Page 6 of Sweet Nightmares
A ghost ball.
The hairs on Jane’s arms rose, and her heart pounded in her ears, ticking like a broken grandfather clock.
“Beautiful,” she whispered so low only a vampire would hear it.
All the candles flickered at the sound of her voice, and time slowed.
Jane sucked in a breath, and time crashed into her, and so did a man. She choked on her breath as a forceful gust of wind hit her in the chest. Her body was thrown off its axis, and her back hit the wall opposite the balcony railing with a loud thud.
Before she could orient herself, a large hand clutched her jaw hard.
“Witch,” a man hissed with the low, dark tones of a bass singer.
Jane blinked twice, trying to get her eyes to focus, and when they did, all the air in her lungs was knocked out of her once again. Because there was no question who was pinning her to the wall. The Lord of Nightmares. And, oh, was this man—god—the most attractive person she’d ever seen. So stunning, her eyes instinctively flicked away in shame.
Her heart drummed in her ears because she was not worthy to look upon such a being.
Yet she also couldn’t help but look at him. Because he was fucking beauty and fury made manifest.
He was tall, muscular in frame, but it wasn’t just that. His demeanor and being were so striking that no words could do him justice, not even the word “divine.” If Jane had to try, she’d say it was like his body had been carved out of the rarest diamondsin the world, which then morphed into unblemished, unwilling flesh.
His eyes were also indescribable. The color was the deepest azure she’d ever seen, laced with sparkling silver. But even that description didn’t do them justice. They were simply magic.
Every part of this man was enchanted. Inhuman.
Impossible.
His hair looked like it had been dipped in melted silver, one black streak remaining. It was almost as if the mirror prison were slowly taking over him. The strands of silver were pure magic, they glowed and shimmered like liquified metal, like mercury.
Jane imagined that, like mercury, this god was also toxic to the touch.
As she took him in, he did the same. His gaze tracked up her body, pausing as he moved. Oh, so slowly tracking over her skin. Jane shivered from the phantom contact, his stare a physical force touching her in the most indecent yet alluring ways.
Her breath hitched as he finally made his way up to her face and hair.
“Cinnamon red,” he said, seething, anger pouring out of him like paint dripping off a canvas.
What was happening? This response wasn’t normal… at all. This wasn’t the anger of trespassing. It was something else. Something darker.
“Witch,” he growled again.
Jane swallowed. “I’m not a witch.”
“You reek of witch.” The vein in his jaw ticked, and his finger-pads dug deeper into her neck.
“I am not.”
His eyes sparked and grew distant, as if lost in a memory. “She said you’d come.”
“Who?”
He blinked, and his gaze moved to hers. “Two thousand years, witch. Two thousand years I’ve been waiting.”
Acid crawled up her throat, and she didn’t know what to do or say. This Bargainer was crazed. Beautiful but unhinged.
“Why have you come? To destroy me?” His voice was a cobra readying to strike.
“Destroy you?” Jane placed a palm against the wall to steady herself. “I just want to bargain, Mr.Nightmares.”
