Page 110 of All the Devils are Here

No part of me wanted it to stop.

“Ban, I need you to walk faster.”

I didn’t have to tell him twice.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

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MEGHAN

My whole body spasmed with rapture. Ban’s spines dragged inside me and I was coming all over again. The water of the shower was still warm, but my mate’s body was warmer as he pressed me into the wall.

Our frenzy was slow, Ban thoroughly memorizing me with his tongue, hands, tail, and occasionally, paws. Right now, he licked over the spot where he’d bitten, knowing how it made both of us feel. But the flame of desperation had finally gone out in us.

It was amazing to be clean, and it was more than amazing to see Ban in a towel. He rarely wore anything, so to see his human hips wrapped in cloth was as amusing as it was arousing to see the water run down the lean muscles.

I dried off my hair and sat on the bed in my towel, happily exhausted. This felt blissfully domestic, if it weren’t for the magic creeping under my skin. It was taking over my collarbones and rising up to my belly button. Much farther than it had been when I left last night. Whatever progress we’d rolled back was eclipsed. Like we drove it forward instead of back. If we hadn’t done any of this to make it recede, would it have already reached my heart?

A ticking clock I was desperately trying to ignore.

Ban laid behind me, curling around my body in that way he had, though he wasn’t in his feline form.

“You feel worried.” He tugged my towel down and kissed my ribs. Not to arouse me, just because he loved the feeling of my skin and the way I smelled. The purity of the feelings through his bond was comforting.

“I’m turning purple,” I murmured. “For most humans that’s a worrying thing.”

The scratch of his tongue tickled, and for a moment I thought it would be weird. But it… wasn’t. It felt good and normal. Ban was a cat. If he didn’t try to groom me at some point, I would have been worried.

“You’re beautiful no matter the skin color.”

I leaned into him. “You don’t mind if I’m all purple?”

His purr rumbled against my back. “I hardly look human. Why would it bother me?”

I hadn’t thought it would bother him. But with everything surrounding us being bigger than life, it felt good to have such a soothing response and interaction. “I love you.”

“I love you, kitten.”

A pulse of pain started low in my gut and spread. The familiar tingling of my skin that felt like burning. But it burned so much more fiercely right now. “No,” the word came out as a moan. “No, please.”

Ban growled, and I couldn’t move. I fell over on the bed, and he was cradling my face. “Kitten?Kitten.”

“It hurts,” I managed, fire building alone my spine. “It hurts.”

But it wasn’t pulling me away. It was just pain, and there wasn’t any source to pinpoint or something I could tell them to help. My nerves were on fire.

The door slammed open, and I heard other footsteps before I saw Ariel’s face over mine. And then the others. “Meg?” Laurent asked. “Can you talk to me?”

“She said it hurts,” Ban said. I could just barely see him rub his chest. “I can feel it.”

“Yes,” Ariel said.

I wasn’t in control of my body. Hijacked by pain and power. My muscles were rigid and flexing. Spasms that nearly felt like I was seizing.

“It hasn’t reached her heart,” Trin said, but his words sounded like he was speaking through water. “And she hasn’t disappeared. What is this?”

“If I knew I would stop it,” Ban growled.

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