Chapter 18
Slumber claimed me so deeply that death itself should have been jealous.
Scratch that—I was prettier than Death. Every fairy tale princess to ever grace the pages of children’s books across the world was the better comparison.
If demon offspring had storybooks of their own, I’d definitely be the fairest of them all.
All this tragic beauty. All this devastating unconsciousness. And no crown to call my own… yet.
The final page of my dreamlike state turned, and when I finally woke, I came to awareness in bits and pieces. Consciousness refused to commit, ebbing and flowing in fragments.
The thinnest sliver of blinding golden light broke through a gap in massive blackout curtains, offensive and unapologetic in its invasion. I groaned and buried my face into the nearest pillow to shield my eyes from the rude assault of Superbian daylight.
Memories flickered behind my eyelids.
Ace, stark naked like some god of sexuality. His body and mine and how they had connected in a way that had been raw but real. The blood he claimed from my body, and whatever I had claimed from his.
The thoughts left my body feeling cloaked in some sort of euphoric blanket.
I rolled onto my back, expecting to feel sore. Imagine my surprise when I didn’t. Something ached beneath the surface. It didn’t hit the mark of hunger, not quite. For the moment, I pushed it down inside me.
Propping myself up onto my elbows, I looked around the room. The master suite, Ace’s domain. One that he didn’t currently occupy. Closing my eyes, I reached out with my mind’s eye.
The reach extended further than anticipated, the vision of a half-eaten lunch on the counter downstairs and Ace checking his watch impatiently.
It cut out all too quickly, but the truth remained that my ability had stretched out further than its usual short-term glimpses. Whatever shield or block had prevented me from seeing Ace either fractured or had broken altogether.
Color me purple and call me a peacock, but I found it absurdly coincidental that this evolution had transpired after he made me fall apart on his cock. The fleeting recollection heated something deep inside me, my legs pressing together to suppress the need that threatened to grow there.
Opening my eyes, I kicked the sheets off my legs and scooted to the edge of the bed. I padded over to his closet, throwing open the oversized double doors.
Inside, the collection of clothes on the left was nothing but predictable. Dark suits, cufflinks lined up in velvet display cases, and dress shoes maintaining a boastful shine. The right side of the walk-in was neatly organized apparel that lent itself to more casual use but still screamed vanity.
“Hmm.” I tapped my finger against my chin while I scanned the racks of clothing before me. Briefly, I considered wearing one of his dress shirts.
Too cliché.
Next, I picked up a pair of navy joggers.
Beneath my style.
Then I spotted it. In the back right corner, there were two hangers tucked away, apart from everything else. One remained empty, and the other suspended the only logical outfit choice.
I approached, my eyes lit up with intrigue.
When I reached out, my fingertips were greeted with the softest material belonging to a bathrobe I’d ever felt.
It was as black as the deepest desert night and had embroidery on the upper left that was a shade of silver that seemed to glow brighter than the moon itself.
The threading curved and curled into an abstract spade with the letter “A” in the center of it.
Cozy and luxurious—perfect.
Pulling it from where it hung, I slid my arms into its excessively long sleeves and proceeded to wrap myself up in it like it were a fur coat.
Curling my fingers around the edge of the collar, I rubbed the material up against my cheeks while inhaling deeply.
It faintly smelled of lightning, bourbon, and the sharp edge of a winning hand. All things that I associated with Ace.
Even after securing the belt around my waist, the robe swallowed my body whole. One shoulder remained exposed; I didn’t bother to correct it as I ventured out to seek where my Knight of Hell was brooding.
My Knight. Mine.
Was that what Ace was to me now? Something stirred inside me, whispering in my mind that he belonged to my desires. That voice was one I had heard once before, the familiarity ringing deep into my subconscious like something I knew only in dreams.
Descending the penthouse’s stairs to the first level, the back of the robe trailed behind me. Ace was nowhere to be seen, but the draft of morning air coming from the open balcony door beckoned my approach.
Standing in the opening, I leaned against the frame. My arms were drawn behind me in a way that pushed my chest forward, and one leg peeked past the divide of the robe in a shameless taunt.
It seemed that sex gave me a confidence I didn’t have before. Okay, well, it gave me a new level of confidence.
I stood there staring at Ace’s bare back, the way his muscles remained taut beneath his tanned skin, broad shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist, the line of his spine to those lower back dimples right above his ass, and the faint lines of his runes currently dim in his relaxed state.
If he registered my presence, he didn’t show it. Instead, his focus seemed locked on the distant horizon beyond Superbia’s skyline with his hands tucked inside his pockets.
Too impatient for him to acknowledge me, I pushed off the frame and came up behind him. His height dwarfed my own. The top of my head barely came to the curve of his shoulder.
The tip of my nail traced the patterns of his runes that seemed to follow nonsensical patterns.
He didn’t flinch at the contact. Instead, a low hum escaped him.
“Expected you to sleep longer,” he admitted before glancing over his shoulder at me.
A flicker of need lit up the depths of his green eyes, striking quick but hot.
Ace reached behind him, firmly wrapping his hand around my wrist. He guided me around him until we were face to face, my back to the picturesque view of the city.
“Found something of mine, I see.” Amusement colored his tone.
I flashed a smirk. “Found several things of yours.”
The rumble from his chest, a suppressed chuckle, was a sound that I could play on repeat. Something in its commanding baritone sent prickling sensations across my skin into parts of me that recalled other sounds he had made last night.
His hands found my waist, locking his hold onto me before lifting me to sit on the edge of the balcony’s balustrade. Not once did he loosen his hold.
Being up so far from the ground, my strawberry blonde hair whipped around my face with each gust of wind that owned the atmosphere around us.
“Tell me about them,” Ace commanded, his eyes scanning over my body. “Else I’ll be forced to hunt for where you’re hiding them beneath my robe.”
It landed as both a threat and a vow, sealed with his lips dragging down the column of my throat.
Tipping my head back, I allowed more access to the vulnerable line of my neck.
“Discovered your impressive wardrobe.”
“Obviously,” he murmured against the hollow of my throat.
My eyes fluttered shut as I added, “Though I must say that I am slightly disappointed in the lack of variety in your formalwear.”
He nipped at my exposed collarbone. “That right?”
“Mmhmm.” The sound came out as more of a sigh than an answer.
“Black looks good on me,” he smugly replied.
I opened my eyes and tilted my head forward, locking our gazes. “Nothing looks better.”
An honest-to-devil growl came out of him. His hands squeezed my waist firmly enough to pull a sharp gasp out of me.
“Don’t tempt me, Eve.”
“You aren’t already?” I lifted a brow with playful innocence.
“Not just talking about taking your body. Already know I can have that whenever I fucking want.” He licked a stripe up the side of my neck until his mouth was at my ear. “I’m talking about dropping the veil and branding my mark somewhere inside you where only my demon cock will find it.”
All the air rushed from my lungs at the obscene imagery.
When he drew back, there was that familiar heat still in his gaze, the one that eclipsed his green eyes into thin rings. One hand abandoned my waist, rising to place the edge of his finger beneath my chin while the pad of his thumb pressed against my lower lip.
“But we have other things to discuss before that happens.”
Amusement bled into my eyes, adding more sparkle to them than the city’s neon lights. “Are you suggesting that the great Ace Reynard can’t multitask?”
His thumb pressed insistently at the seam of my lips. The tip traced along the edges of my teeth.
“No, I’m suggesting you can’t.”
I huffed out, my mouth then opening to refute the absurdity of that statement. “Bull—”
Ace’s thumb exploited the gap and sank further into my mouth, hooking on the bottom row of my teeth. He gave a firm tug, controlling the movement of my head with a dizzying level of dominance so easily wielded.
“Didn’t ask for your opinion, Little Spade.”
My words died somewhere between my throat and the pressure of his control.
I sat there on the ledge of the balcony, sixty-something floors up, with a Knight of Hell making it clear that things between us shifted with a speed that would have made whiplash jealous.
After several stretched moments of nothing but the sound of the city approaching its morning slumber and the howl of the desert wind, his finger slipped free from my mouth.
“Good girl,” he rumbled, his hand falling back down to settle on the dip of my waist. “Now, sit still.”
His eyes locked onto mine with the intensity of a predator studying prey.
The hunger was still there, but something else rose beyond the surface of his irises.
An eerie glow, not quite green and not quite blue, overtook the natural mossy hue of his eyes.
It reminded me of tropical waters demanding to be seen in the dead of night.
The aura spread from his eyes, bleeding out like a serpent as it unfurled through the air towards me. There was no element of danger radiating off it, simply a prickling sensation that sent goosebumps across my skin even beneath the warmth of his robe.
It was a sensation I had felt before. A memory snapped into my head of my first day stepping into Sevenfold.
Somewhere along the way, I felt a strange sensation along the back of my neck.
It came off as warm and welcoming, yet underneath that intense and old.
It was everywhere and nowhere along my body, like invisible fingers dancing over each and every inch of my flesh and licking deep into the marrow of my bones.
My hand lifted to trace the side of my neck with my fingertips, unable to pinpoint the source.
Turning my head, I scanned the area around me, but nothing appeared out of the norm.
No pervy creepers staring me down or security guards lurking and ready to pitch me to the curb for breaking their silly rules.
The recollection of the moments before I had been invited to the blackjack tournament felt like eons ago considering all that had happened in such a short amount of time.
However, the difference this time was that I could see the stretch of his powers advancing on me.
My sapphire eyes tracked each bend, swoop, and slither of the aura.
Something in it felt at home when it finally wrapped around me, the energy circling my throat like a lover’s hand before sliding down between the back of the robe and the length of my spine.
A soft whimper escaped my lips. I couldn’t explain what I felt, but I could taste him. Not the way one tastes food or not even the way certain scents hit your tongue when you breathe them in. This was something deeper that felt like a reflection of something that existed between us.
My mind’s eye opened up without my prompting. Images flickered like a skipped record.
Thirty seconds from now.
Two minutes.
An hour.
Three days.
In the final vision, staticky at best, I saw a pool of crimson that looked too sticky to be anything but blood. Before I could push to control the direction of that haunting sight, my precognition short-circuited. Everything went blank.
Too blank.