Chapter Eight
New Year’s Resolution Number Eight: Fight for what you want.
Bastard.
Yeah, he sure as shit felt like one. Devereaux cradled Lark’s limp form against him. He hated her pain. If he could have, he would have taken it all himself. He’d given her pleasure, then sent her to hell. A hell she didn’t deserve. Lark deserved joy and laughter and every good thing in the world.
I will give her the world.
But first, dammit, first he’d needed to give her immortality, and the price of that particular gift could be a bitch.
She’d been a hybrid. She had fangs that came out when she got scared or angry, but she couldn’t stay a hybrid forever. She would have been too vulnerable with all of the paranormal creatures after her. She’d needed a vampire’s immortality, something she could only get with a full change.
With my blood.
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Kick my ass when you wake up, but you will wake up, love. You’ll wake up, and you’ll rule.” He was starting to think that she already ruled him. A development that he hadn’t expected.
He’d planned to take her as his mate, a necessary goal for his endgame. But he’d never…
Never planned to want to see her smiles.
Never planned to want to destroy anyone and everyone who made her cry.
Never planned to want her so much that his entire body had nearly been consumed by lust.
Never planned…to feel jealousy course through his veins just because a hellhound stood too close to her and kept calling her “dear Lark”—the sonofabitch.
He glanced around the apartment. She’d strung up glowing lights over the bed. Christmas lights. They put off a soft glow and gave the room a warm, romantic feel. She had more lights hung over her window. The walls of her bedroom were painted a soft, dreamy blue.
He was starting to think that his Lark was a dreamer. He liked that.
A dreamer who’d grown up surrounded by nightmares.
His fingers slid down her delectable body and paused over the long, ragged scars that marked her side. It was good that the ones who’d hurt her were long gone.
No one will hurt you again.
He eased down and pressed a kiss to her side. Tenderness poured through him. He’d never felt tenderness before. Only with…her.
The scent came to him first. Then he heard the rush of footsteps. Snarling, he yanked the covers over Lark’s body just as her bedroom door flew open.
“Problem!” Salvatore’s chest heaved. “Big fucking problem. Witches are outside, and they are about to light up this whole building!”
Witches now, too? They’d decided to join the party? Devereaux dressed in a flash.
Salvatore’s gaze whipped to Lark. “She okay?”
“Her body is transforming. The last thing she needs is for witches to send a fire in here.”
“I sent Max and Wyn to get the other humans out of the building. The witches won’t attack them.
But if we try to take Lark out the front, if they see her—” He raked a hand over his face.
“They’re going to torch her. You know they will.
Unless you’ve wed her, unless she’s bound to you, they will attack. ”
“I’d like to see them fucking try!”
As if in response to his words, fire suddenly streaked across her bedroom walls, melting the paint and making the small, glowing bulbs that Lark had so carefully hung in her room—making them burst and shatter.
Rage churned in his gut. Oh, hell, no. “They don’t destroy what she cares about.”
He stalked to the window. Glared down below at the full coven. A coven out in broad-freaking-daylight. Someone felt bold.
Someone was about to get an ass kicking.
“Uh, Devereaux, you know that fire can make us all turn to ash.” Salvatore’s voice was halting.
“Then I guess I’m burning because they are not destroying her home.” He spared a glare for his friend. “Stay with her until I get back.” Dammit, he’d promised Lark that he wouldn’t leave her side and now…
Now he was preparing to launch himself through a window.
He rushed back toward the bed. Pressed a kiss to her lips. Too still. Hurry back to me, love. “I’ll be back before you open your eyes.” He looked up. Salvatore was frowning at him. “What?”
“Your voice changed when you talked to her.” Salvatore eyed him suspiciously. “What’s that about?”
“Screw off.” It’s about me, and it’s about her. “If anyone but me tries to get to her, you rip the jerk apart, got it?”
“Got it.” A brisk nod.
The flames were spreading. There was no time to waste. The fire was supernatural, so it couldn’t be eliminated by normal means. The only way to stop it would be to stop the witches who were stirring the flames.
So he leapt through the window. Glass shattered around him as he plummeted to the ground. And Devereaux landed right in the middle of the coven. The witches and warlocks spun to face him.
He gave them his best smile. The one that flashed his fangs. “Who wants to bleed first?”
No one raised a hand. Figured. Since there were no volunteers, Devereaux just attacked the nearest warlock. When his fangs sank into the SOB’s throat, the others started to scream. And run.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the flames begin to flicker and die.