Ecstasy Unveiled(89)

She jerked her gaze up to his, and she nearly bit her tongue at the desperation haunting his eyes. Clearly, he hadn’t done what she’d thought he’d done in the shower. “Lore? Are you okay?”

“Answer!” he barked. His hands flexed at his sides, and his dermoire writhed angrily.

She should be furious at his command, but she suspected that at this point, his control over his behavior was tentative, at best. “It depends on what kind of angel our mother is. My mother is vivificus, a restorer of life.”

He ran a trembling hand through his wet hair, leaving deep grooves. “I want to know more. But…”

She took a step toward him, but a warning growl froze her in place. “You’re on edge.”

Strikes of gold lightning splashed down in the black pools of his eyes. “I’m being set up so my brothers will slaughter me, I have to kill Kynan or my sister will die, but if I do kill him, you lose your wings, some evil asshole is doing God knows what to my nephew, and I’m in agony and on the verge of rage because of you. So yeah, I’m a little on edge.”

Agony? Rage? “Because of me?”

His chest heaved with the force of his panting breaths—the kind of breaths one took when one was trying to control pain or anger. He’d done the same before, while in the throes of rage, and even now, glints of red joined the gold in his eyes.

“Why—” she licked her suddenly dry lips, and his laser gaze fixed on them “—why aren’t you taking care of yourself?”

“I… can’t.” His cheeks flushed, as though he were ashamed. “I need you.”

“I don’t understand. You said—”

“You did something to me.” He stalked closer, and it became a struggle to breathe, not because she was afraid, but because alongside the fury in his gaze, there was a smoky possessiveness that was aimed directly at her. “You made me need you. Crave you.” He reached out with his right hand. At the last second, he snatched it back, and cursing nastily, he stumbled backward.

“Lore!” She caught his left wrist. His entire body jerked. “You won’t hurt me. Just let me touch it—”

“What?” He leaped backward so fast he hit the side of the house. “Stay away from me!”

“And then what?” she shouted. “You rage out because you’re too stubborn to let me touch you?”

“I’ll kill you!” he roared back. “Don’t you get it? I will put you in the fucking ground, and I can’t live with that!”

She threw up her arms in frustration. “Then what do you want from me? You want me to get on my knees and blow you while you do a repeat of the incident with the prostitute whose name you didn’t even know? Is that what you want?” God help her, she’d do it, wanted to put her mouth on him and taste his passion, but not until he got an earful. “Because I can invest in a quality set of knee pads. We’ll probably be doing that for years, since I’m your Memitim and I have to keep you alive, so let’s get to it, okay?” She patted the side of the house, her palm making a sound as hollow as his voice against the wood. “How do you want it? Hands here? Yeah, that’ll work.”

“Please… I’m sorry.” A sound of anguish bubbled up from deep in his chest. His entire body was trembling, and his clenched teeth were bared. His panting breaths hissed through them, and she had a feeling he was beyond being able to speak anymore. But then, somehow, he managed a raspy, “Chain… me.”

Her heart bled. She didn’t understand why or how his condition had changed so he couldn’t take care of his needs himself, but he didn’t understand it, either, and he was the one who was suffering. She was only making it worse.

“I’ll chain you,” she lied. “Just stay there, okay?” Casually, she moved to his left, so as not to spook him… and then she flashed to the other side and grabbed his arm, right over the odd swirl on his wrist that looked like a twisted sundial.

“No!” Lore threw himself away from her, but she held on, nearly getting her shoulder dislocated. He bucked and spun like a rodeo bull.

“Lore!” Her teeth clanged together so hard her skull vibrated. “Stop!”

The fact that she was touching him and not dead sank in, and he froze as suddenly as he’d exploded into action.

“See?” She could barely hear her voice through the ringing in her ears. “Nothing happened.” Except that something was happening. A strange energy buzzed beneath her palm. It focused and moved up her arm, tracing lines from her fingers to her shoulder, and she drew a sharp breath when she realized that the energy was settling into her skin in the same pattern as his dermoire.