Page 18 of Capturing Sin

“No!” I softened my sudden denial with a weak smile. “I mean… I wouldn’t want to take up any more of your precious time. You both have your own important tests to run, and the quicker we can discover compounds to deter the demons, the more lives we can save.”

The words tasted like ash on my tongue, but the worst part was the element of truth to them. The lines of what I was willing to do were so blurred I couldn’t tell which side of them I fell on.

His stare cooled. “Yes, well, I’ve left you some guidance on proper methodology on the bench.”

I shifted my weight.

I was determined to conduct the tests on myself, and whatever poor soul was trapped in my lab, but the reality would be a blood-drenched nightmare.

A voice in my head yelled at me to run away, to turn back and leave with my veins intact. There was enough darkness weighing me down already.

After a long pause, Martin huffed. “No time like the present, Liliana.”

Biting my lip, I brushed past my passive-aggressive boss, scanning my pass and unlocking the door.

My nerves were a jumbled mess, but I pushed inside, letting determination harden me as I locked away every soft and squishy emotion I had.

I stepped into the room—and froze.

The door clicked shut behind me, trapping me in with a ghost.

His broad form had grown since I’d seen him last, somehow packed with more muscle across his bare chest and powerful arms. He radiated violence, dripping with a vicious energy I’d not felt before.

Charcoal skin seemed to draw in the light, reflecting off the bony spikes topping each shoulder and the violent horns rising from his short hair. The pale strands were only a shade darker than his bleached horns. A tail swayed side to side, flashing over each shoulder and revealing the heart-shaped spade on the end, more spines protruding from it, begging to sink into flesh.

Even his face was designed for battle: short spikes edging his brows, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, square jaw hard enough to take a hit.

Thin tribal tattoos covered every visible inch of his flesh. The intricate white linework almost glowed against the dark backdrop of his skin.

A thick metal collar banded his neck, littered with scratch marks.

The blood demon trapped behind the wall of glass had been the one to set me free.

He’d haunted my nightmares for weeks, a replay of his lifeless eyes staring up at me. Sometimes I dreamed he woke up, and I killed him over and over, even though it was Leo who’d wielded the sword.

Other times, he tore through my arteries like tissue paper.

“How… I thought…” I couldn’t form a full sentence as I struggled under the battering of emotions. Relief. Guilt. Fear. Sorrow. Disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

His upper lip hooked into a sneer. “Waiting for a manicure. What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?”

I blinked at his acidic tone. It was low and raspy, like he sucked down poison to survive rather than blood.

The polar opposite of the demon who’d saved my life all those weeks ago.

I started noticing other things, little details I’d glossed over in my shock.

He was taller, close to seven feet, and thick cut muscle stacked his frame. Every point seemed sharper and every spike longer. Even his curved horns rose higher.

His face was more brutal than I remembered too, the angles harsher, jaw squarer, eyes deep-set. Their colour glowed an eerie silver within their black abyss, rather than the warm yellow I remembered. Starlight, not sunshine.

I stepped closer, getting a better look as my eyes tried to convince my brain that it wasn’t him.

My saviour was dead.

And he’d not miraculously risen from the grave I’d helped put him in.

Chapter 8

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