Page 21 of When Monsters Fight
“We take to the air.” Kabiel reached for me, but Gabriel hooked his arm around me first.
“I’ve got her,” he said to the watcher. “You can take Jilyana.”
Kabiel’s silver eyes flashed with annoyance, but he inclined his head and reached for the djinn.
Gabriel’s gaze dropped to mine. “It’s not a long flight, but it will be easier if you wrap your arms around my neck and your legs about my waist.”
Shem had always carried me facing away from him, but he’d had the larger frame of a watcher, and his hands had easily spanned my waist. He’d carried me with my back to his chest, the vibration of his voice rippling up my spine. My eyes heated, and I dropped my gaze.
Dammit. Now wasn’t the time to reminisce. “Whatever works.” He gripped my hips and lifted me up so I could wrap my legs around him and get into position. His scent filled my head, and I allowed myself to sink into him. He wasn’t Shem. No one was Shem. No one wouldeverbeShem, but it was all right to have this contact with him. It didn’t mean anything.
I held tight and closed my eyes. “I’m ready.”
He took a breath as if he was about to say something, and I tensed, waiting.
But in the end, it was his wings that spoke, flaring and beating at the air to take us high into a rapidly darkening sky.
My heart sank because in my world when the sun set, shit got bad.
Chapter 12
We flew over a long stretch of barren land before a settlement of huts came into view far to our left, behind it forests and a river. These must be home to the Gehennans Thanatos had mentioned. A little farther, and we flew over one of Thanatos’s pits, where the souls inside swayed to a tune only they could hear.
What would happen to them now that Thanatos was gone?
Was he truly gone?
He’d said gods were eternal, but what did that mean exactly? If hewastruly gone, then he was another life lost to our cause. He was another soul that we owed.
We couldn’t fail.
Iwouldn’tfail.
My mind whirred, skipping from thought to thought, anything to stop it acknowledging how well my body fit against Gabriel’s, how right it felt to be this close to him, and how his bergamot scent made my insides warm.
This attraction was nothing new. We’d spoken of it in theGolden City, and he’d assured me it was nothing to do with the bond between us—something that would have been out of my control. Which meant I could temper this. Pull back whenever I wanted.
He could bedazzle me, though. Use the bond to make me want him. To render me compliant to his attentions, but I trusted him. Trusted that he wouldn’t abuse the connection we’d been forced to forge.
It wasn’t him that I had the issue with; it was myself. Because although my mind was against it, my thoughts with Bastian, my emotions tangled in the loss of Shem, my body had other ideas.
I didn’t need the complication. It was draining.
Gabriel’s grip on me flexed, and he turned his head so that his lips brushed my ear. “It’s all right, Rue. You’re allowed to relax around me. I would never take advantage.”
His warm breath sent a shiver across my nape, and my eyes fluttered closed at the intimacy of the caress. “You said you couldn’t read my mind.”
“I can’t. But the bond allows me to sense your reservations, and it’s not a leap to deduce what you’re feeling from your body language. You’re drawn as tight as the string of a bow.” He massaged the small of my back, his large hand spanning it easily, and I bit back a moan.
“Stop that.”
He did so immediately. “Relax. I won’t bite. Not until you ask me to.”
The latter part of the sentence was said with a joking tone, but a shiver of promise skated up my spine regardless. I bit the insides of my cheeks to quell it, my eyes heating in frustration at myself. “That doesn’t make me feel any better, Gabriel. All it does is tell me that youwantto bite me.”
His sigh sent another warm breath skating over my skin. “Wanting something and taking it are two separate things.”
But he wanted me, that much was clear. “It’s the bond making you feel things. I thought you said you’d put up shields. Make them stronger.” There was a bite to my tone because I didn’t need this. Not now and probably not ever.
