Chapter Thirty-Two
Kara
Present
I sucked in a deep breath, lungs burning.
It was like someone had held a pillow over my face while I slept.
My head pounded intensely for several seconds as I blinked.
I saw his broad back first. The crack in the center of his back, revealing the orangish glow, pulsating.
He sat on the edge of the bed. With his head forward, Luke’s horns pointed toward the ceiling.
The pain receded as my power continued to save me. Hades. Had I been on the brink of death? My body ached everywhere.
I remembered what I saw.
Quietly, I sat up, studying the Devil. Shadow slipped inside him.
Walked right into the monster as if he belonged to him or was a part of him.
My heart roared in my ears. The sound seemed so loud that I swore I didn’t see how he didn’t hear it.
The Devil continued to sigh deeply and hang his head low, oblivious to the riot consuming my chest cavity.
Everything about Shadow clicked into place. The shadowy presence suddenly made sense. His reasoning, his existence in my life. For the Devil, being a shadow was nothing. He belonged to the night. He was the darkness in everyone’s corner.
My head reeled with assumptions and truths. Dad had mentioned the Devil visiting me as a child with plans to harm me. When he couldn’t harm me, he became a shadow in my life.
I reached out, my eyes stinging as I didn’t dare blink. He was right there. If I leaned in just a little more, I could trace the madness beneath his skin. Would he be honest if I asked?
My chest tightened. Somehow, I already knew that answer.
I lowered my hand and shut my eyes. Behind my closed lids, I returned to my high school, recalled the crappy goodbye, and how swiftly Shadow left me with confusion and hurt.
A sudden pressure on my side startled me. I opened my eyes and found myself crushed against Luke’s chest. He scooped me up, pulling me into his lap the rest of the way with the other. He lifted my chin up, and when his eyes flashed crimson, I wanted to scream. Why didn’t I realize sooner?
The color was the same as Gregory’s eyes back then.
“Why didn’t you return the second your powers disappeared?” Luke asked.
My eyes widened. “My family—they…” I breathed deeply and slouched the second I sensed their essences safe and alive.
“Their safety depends on you,” Luke muttered, squeezing me tightly. “What do you think I’d do to them if you went and died before I said so?”
I pushed against his chest, but that seemed to make him hold me tighter. “You’re not the only danger. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“This game. This back and forth.” I gestured between us.
“Nothing about you is a game to me.” He always revealed honesty before he found a way to crush it. The same as when he was Shadow. I couldn’t refer to him as a thing anymore. Not when I knew his flesh and how male he was, even if monstrous.
“Yet you lie to me again and again.” I stared at the pulsating crack straight down his chest before placing my palm there. He ran even hotter in those spots. “You lie to yourself too.”
I didn’t miss the slight tension in his body before he loosened his shoulders. “Humor me, Kitten. What am I lying about?”
“You should know better than I.” I tried to twist around in his lap, but he kept me cradled against him. “Look at the way you hold me.”
“I hold all my prisoners like this.”
I shook my head. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“You always do this.” Anxious knots took root in my stomach. “Whether you’re Luke or… Shadow.”
He went eerily still, masking his features so quickly. “… Shadow?”
“Don’t,” I started, but he had already plucked me off his lap and stood. “I know you’re Shadow. I should have realized sooner.”
“By Shadow… Are you referring to this thing?” He walked to the darkened part of the room and swiped his hand. He strode back to me, holding a shadowy form by the throat.
Panic zinged through me, and doubt filled me. Maybe I was wrong. The thought lasted only a second. Luke was so determined to fill me with hate.
“Is that how you visited me all these years?” I asked. “You can separate yourself.”
His jaw ticked. He hadn’t expected me to remain so calm. “Do you care for this thing?”
“You already know that answer.”
“I know that he’s been by your side too much.” Luke squeezed his fist, and Shadow burst into hundreds of tiny shadows before dissolving completely.
“Why do you do that?” I could feel my calmness washing away. He was stripping everything from me until all that remained was anger.
“He’s not coming back,” Luke muttered.
“He never went anywhere. I’m looking right at him, and he’s a real piece of work.”
“Enough.”
“Yeah, enough!” I shoved at his chest. “Stop lying to me and to your fucking self.”
“Kara.” His voice was low, but dangerous.
“I saw the shadow slip right into you before I passed out,” I continued.
“Kara.”
“You love that name, don’t you?” I couldn’t stop myself from misbehaving.
I wanted to be bad like him. “So, what was it? You couldn’t kill me as a child, so you started stalking me as a shadow instead?
Let me guess. You were trying to get rid of me, and somewhere along the way, you started to care.
I don’t know the why or when, but you’ve been protecting me this whole time. ”
“Protect you?” He didn’t scoff. Or try to deny it. Just said it in a way that gave nothing away.
“Yeah. You protect me. You hug me so desperately every time I’m hurt, like you’re scared,” I said smugly.
His eyes brightened as he loomed over me. “Is that what you think?”
“I know you, Luke. You’re going to say anything to downplay what I’m saying. What I don’t know is why. Why won’t you give me anything real? If you care like I think you do, why do you try to make it seem like you don’t?”
“You think I care? I can’t even stand the sight of you.”
“Which probably means that you do like looking at me, right, mate?”
The scenery changed so quickly. Before I could blink, Luke pushed me against a brick wall. His hands were gripping my hips as he wedged a knee between my legs. Ecstasy unfurled through me, welcoming his touch, no matter how wicked or rough.
“You think you know everything, Kitten, when you don’t have a clue.” His breath felt like a caress as he spoke near my ear. He inhaled sharply. “But I’ll tell you this. I desperately want to smell you again.”
I moaned as he dragged his mouth down my neck, leaving goose bumps.
I pulled him in and nearly came undone when he shoved his fingers down my pants and speared me with his index.
“Fuck. I can’t even feel if you’re wet.” He leaned back a second and studied my reaction.
It was like he was worried about hurting me with the intrusion. Almost like the fucker cared.
“I’m so wet,” I mumbled as I squeezed his arm, trying to get him to touch me more. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“Fuck,” he said again as he pushed another finger in me.
“See? You sheath your claws like a good, protective monster, so you don’t harm me.”
“Kara…” He groaned and covered my mouth with his giant palm. “How about you be the good one and take the punishment?”
I most certainly would. His punishments were so terrifying that my legs quaked. The world truly was ending. Every second in his arm, I forgot how to care.
Need scorched me. I humped his arm as he thrust his fingers into me.
“I want to see it,” Luke whispered into my ear before kissing it.
A delicious shudder raced through me.
“And hear it.” He let go of my mouth, and I whined desperately, feeling the first dip in my stomach right before the plunge of ecstasy.
After I finished falling apart, I sagged against Luke and the wall. He pulled his hands from my pants and put his fingers in his mouth.
Seeing him do that gave me a ridiculous urge to lean forward and kiss him. I barely got to graze his lips with mine before he wrapped his hand gently around my neck, pulling away.
He was panting as he met my gaze.
“What?” I baited.
“You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I wanted to see what I tasted like on your tongue,” I said huskily. “You might not taste, but I can.”
His breath was ragged as he pushed away from me and turned.
“And Luke?”
He didn’t respond, but I still said, “If you’re trying to make it seem like you can’t stand me, you are and always have been terrible about it.”