90. Rafe
Chapter Ninety
Rafe
S ix hundred and seventy-four freckles on her face and neck.
One hundred and thirty-seven individual eyelashes on the left eye, one -hundred and twenty-nine on the right eye.
I stroke my hand over her hair, watching the way the silky strands slip through my fingers.
I have to admit I am a little obsessed with the fiery mane and the way it sways down her back, the ends reaching the bottom curve of her ass.
Her hips have marks from my claws, and her neck and ankles bear bites from my fangs. There is barely an inch of her skin that isn’t marked by me, my fangs, my claws, my touch.
She shifts in sleep, rubbing her face against me. The spiced scent of her skin is in every breath I take, clouding my senses. My arm tightens around her, seeing the start of the sunrise on the beach.
Time is up. All Souls is ending.
She’s going to leave. I’m going to leave. Our time is coming to an end, and after I’ve just started to feel like I am worth something. I lean in to brush my lips against hers.
“What time is it?” she murmurs against my lips.
I shrug, shifting so she can’t see the rising sun through the window. Maybe I can convince her we still have time, and we can stay here together.
She stretches against me. “I have to go.”
I shake my head and kiss her again, groaning into her mouth.
My hands tighten on her, reluctant to relinquish her.
She groans and digs her nails into my back, dragging them slowly up to my head to grab my horns.
I groan and roll to put her beneath me, the heat from her hands radiating through my body.
I knew demon horns were sensitive, but the way they’re connected to my skeletal and nervous systems is unexpected.
She pulls back, looking up at me, her eyes flickering with the now-familiar flames.
“We have to leave today,” I whisper, hating the words as soon as they leave my lips. Mira somehow draws the thoughts I normally keep to myself from my lips.
Her eyes flicker, and she moves her hands to cup my cheeks. “I have to leave now.”
“Right now?” I say, my stomach sinking.
She nods, and I settle more of my weight on her to keep her pinned beneath me. Now she can’t leave. Problem solved.
“I’m expected home soon,” she says, smiling up at me.
I sink my claws into the mattress on either side of her head, and she wraps her legs around my hips, locking her ankles at the small of my back.
“And home is?” Please don’t say Pyrrhos. Let it be an open realm I can travel to with ease. Not that I could even do that with Uncle Lu just waiting for me to step outside Avalon at the moment.
“Pyrrhos.”
Fuck.
“And will you be able to leave?” I ask. Yesterday, she said we’d have a good conversation about what happened next. There is no such thing as a good conversation if she can’t leave Pyrrhos because I can’t travel there.
Unless I take my place as heir. Then I could travel there whenever I wished. Pyrrhos is closely allied with Hell. Instead of answering, her lips meet mine, and she tightens her thighs, forcing me onto my back. She straddles me, pinning me beneath her.
Right as I’m losing myself in the kiss, she pulls back and sits up. She grabs one of my shirts and pulls it on, lifting the collar to her nose and inhaling deeply.
“I’m taking this,” she says, sliding off me and climbing off the bed.
I prop myself up on my elbows. “Am I going to see you again?” I ask, watching her pick up the burned soles of what used to be her shoes. She sighs and tosses them in the trash before turning to look at me.
“I hope so, demon,” she purrs, and somehow the word demon doesn’t make me recoil when she says it. “But that doesn’t mean you should wait around for me.”
Wait, what does that mean? I stand and wrap an arm around her waist. “How will I see you again?”
She didn’t answer about being able to leave Pyrrhos.
Phoenixes are exceptionally rare outside their source realm for a reason.
Mira looks up at me and brushes a lock of hair from my forehead before turning in my hold.
She doesn’t pull away as she reaches for the pen and notepad on the small desk.
Writing down her number, she rips it away and slaps it against my chest.
“Text me?” She smiles, but there’s a flash of vulnerability in her eyes that doesn’t make any sense to me. She can’t doubt that I want to stay in contact with her. Even the thought is absurd.
“Kiss me again,” I demand, covering the paper on my chest.
She pauses, biting her lip. “Promise you won’t wait for me.”
“No,” I answer honestly.
Her lip trembles. “Rafe.” She throws her arms around my neck, kissing me again, deeply, passionately. Desperately.
Foreboding shoots through me even as I return the kiss, cherishing every bit of her she will give me. This can’t be the end, can it?
“You’re incredible,” she breathes, her voice unusually shaky. This female is one of the most confident beings I know, and it terrifies me to see her so shaken. “I could see myself falling for you so easily.” Her lip trembles in that odd way again. “So easily.”
“But?.?.?.” I whisper, my hands tight around her, not willing to relinquish her. “It sounds like I’m never going to see you again.”
She said we’d have a good conversation when I asked between bouts of sex if we had a future after this. She said we would have a good talk about it. This is not a good conversation, not by any means.
Her eyes sparkle, looking up at me, but there’s something guarded there. Something that tells me there are things she’s not saying, things she has no intention of telling me.
“Well, you have my number. Let’s see what you do with it.” She kisses me again, long and still flavored with that tinge of desperation. She pushes back and saunters out of my room, leaving in just my shirt .
My hand tightens on the scrap of paper, the one with her number scribbled across it.
She was trying to tell me something, and I’ll find her again. No matter what it takes.
“Mine,” the demon snarls.
And for the first time, we are aligned.