Page 18 of The Devil of London

“I didn’t ask if you could, did I? No. I said stand the fuck up so that I can wash the memories of them from your flesh. It wasn’t a suggestion.”

“Ah, there he is,” I whispered through the embarrassment painting my cheeks red. How many times had I longed for him to come to my house and do just that? To wash away the feel of the monsters that haunted me. A thousand times? No, much, much more than that. I rose but didn’t undress for him.

Khaos followed me up from the floor. His fingers slid to the hemline of the nightgown, which barely covered my ass cheeks. It was white, lacy, and doing little to hide my body from his ravenous gaze.

“Lift your arms, love,” he murmured. A sexy, arrogant smile tugged at his lips, even as his eyes smoldered as I yielded and obeyed. The wet material clung to my skin as he inched it up and over my head. The moment I was naked, he made an animalistic sound from deep in his throat. My thighs pressed together as a throbbing began in my clitoris. “Damn, you’re beautiful everywhere.”

I brought my hands down, intending to cover myself from his predatory gaze, but he didn’t allow it. Instead, he caught them and placed my hands on his hips.

“Remove my pants,” he ordered.

Swallowing past the familiarity of him, I bit my bottom lip. I wanted to scream and slap him, but I’d end up chained to a wall as his pet again. I’d tried to fight him enough times throughout our long history to know Khaos was absolute. I’d run away, he’d find me. I’d stabbed him, shot him, and tried to use magic against him, and each and every time, I was the only one who suffered. There was no escaping him or murdering him. If there had been a way to do so, I’d have found it by now. That was why I’d play along with him until his entire empire toppled on his head.

My fingers slid beneath the waistband and as I dropped to remove the wet, plastered cotton from his skin, I feasted on the ink decorating his chest. Masculine scrawl covered the flesh beneath his ribcage, and more was placed beneath his heart. On the other side, more script covered his ribs down to his abs.

“What does this say?” I asked softly as my fingers skimmed the scrawled writing.

“You can’t read it?” he asked with a smugness that chaffed.

“If I could, do you honestly think I’d ask you what it said?” I retorted sharply.

“It says ‘For you, I would burn the entire city down to make certain you remained in the light, my soul’,” he murmured. My fingers slid to the other side, and he chuckled softly. “I am her sword, her protector, and she is my entire world. But, for now, the true queen of darkness bows before her king.”

“Who is the ‘she’ it refers to?” I asked as a lump formed in my throat.

“The only woman I’d willingly burn a city down for in order to protect her from the darkness that reaches for her. She’s the other half of my soul, but doesn’t realize it because the gods made her forget who she truly was. She and I will remain pawns in their game until she remembers who the fuck she was and returns to save us all.”

“That wasn’t my question,” I muttered before going back to lowering his pajamas. I forced the wet material down his hips, too distracted by trying to figure out who he’d been talking about, I hadn’t noticed his cock had sprung free, until after it smacked me in the face. Startled, I fell backward, and he bellowed out a loud clap of laughter. “You just dick-slapped me?”

His entire body shook with the force of his laughter. It gentled the sharp edges of his face, which made him look younger and less hardened. It wasn’t often he allowed me to see this side of him, but I hated that I wanted to see more of it. So, I climbed back to my feet and sucked my lips between my teeth.

“He’s just happy to see you, brat.”

I snickered softly, which turned into actual laughter a second later. The way Khaos stared at me made me self-conscious of my current lack of clothing.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just been a very long time since I’ve seen you unguarded or heard your laughter.” My hackles rose, but he just shook his wet hair, spraying me with the droplets. “Turn around and place your hands on the wall.”

I did, if for no other reason, than I did not want to hear him tell me, yet again, that he didn’t enjoy waiting. Khaos kicked off his pajama pants from around his ankles, then nudged my legs apart. The sensation of being exposed to him was both terrifying and exhilarating. The moment he pressed his body against mine and threaded our fingers together, my breathing paused.

“Did you miss me?”

“No.”Yes.Every moment of every day we’d been apart, I’d felt a giant hole where he’d once been. Where my family should’ve been. I’d spent nights crying into my pillow as I’d fought the need to crawl back on my hands and knees. Only pride had kept me in my bed. That, and the memories of the horrid shit he’d done to me. Knowing that, if I went back, I’d end up hating him beyond what I’d be able to forgive, was what kept me alone.

Witches were not solitary creatures by nature. We longed for connections and the familiarity of people. I’d chosen to leave Khaos, but I’d never thought the others would cut me off too. Sure, he’d warned me of what it meant to cut him out of my life, but they’d been my family. The only family to ever care about my wellbeing, for the most part.

I had needed space to heal, which none of them understood. Trauma had scarred me deeper than any blade or punishment Khaos could inflict on me. Khaos thought by smothering me with kindness, I’d come around. Instead, I had become angrier, toxic to be around, and I’d hated myself for liking some of the things done to me in that hellish place. No amount of kindness was going to heal the self-loathing I felt after coming for those monsters.

Eventually, I’d begun to understand it hadn’t been me who’d liked any of it. My body had responded to stimuli, which Khaos had once tried to explain to me, albeit awkwardly. As the world progressed, I had sent letters to scholars to learn why I’d responded the way I had. Of course, I’d referred to them as men instead of the fiends they’d been. Not that it would’ve mattered, since they’d merely assumed I’d meant something else by the title the few times I’d slipped up.

For years, I’d isolated myself until the first real witch entered our territory. I’d been excited, but then she’d snubbed me as if I were nothing. She’d entered my shop and declared it plain and unquestionably unfit to meet her apothecary needs. For months after, no one dared shop there. Not until Merikh had strolled in and bought a ton of items without nary a word spoken. It had been as if he hadn’t even remembered who I was. It had hurt deeply that he’d treated me like a stranger. He’d been my Shadow for so long, I’d missed his silent, brooding face the most.

“You are inside that pretty head of yours, brat. I didn’t offer to wash this beautiful body of yours so you could return to the past. Stay with me,” he ordered in a raspy tone, which scraped over my naked flesh. Lips brushed against my shoulder before slowly moving toward my neck. My eyes closed as pleasure tingled down my spine, pausing in my abdomen to form a white ball of frenzied need. A softly whispered moan fell from my lips as he reached my neck, and his hands left mine to grip my throat. He jerked me back against his body before he turned me to face him and pushed back against the wall. “Hands up above your head. Don’t move them until I grant you permission to do so.”

“Fine,” I stated in a bored tone, pretending I wasn’t about to explode as I did as he demanded. Khaos’s finger found a droplet of water, then trailed his finger down the path it took toward my abdomen, his touch teasingly light.

“They tried to break you, but only you decide who breaks you, right? Do you remember telling me that? Because I do, and I was damn proud of you when you spit them at me.”

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