Page 180 of Curse of Darkness
The call of battle rouses within me, the call of the warsworn flooding my body with aggression. Heat and fury merge in my abdomen, and suddenly an opening appears. I’m moving before I can think it through, driving beneath her sword and slashing hard. Eris leaps back, the tip of my sword skating past her abdomen, close enough to slice through her body armor.
The sight of it does what nothing else could do.
I skid to a halt, reigning my battle instincts in hard. No.No, I won’t do this. Not toher. “Eris—”
Rage gleams in her eyes.
A boot drives toward my face. Windmilling back, I take it in the chest and the force lifts me off my feet.
The second I hit the ground, I roll, the tip of her sword sparking off rock. Right where my fucking chest was.
“That would have hurt,” I point out as Eris comes for me like a wild, battle sworn goddess of fury.
Her eyes are completely gold now. No sign of the woman I…. The woman I call friend. “You want it to hurt, little fae?”
I force a smile, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder at the retreating armies. It’s working. I just have to keep her distracted long enough to let our people escape. “Depends on precisely what you mean by that.”
The daemon in Eris’s body stills. Her head cocks.
I shift the sword between hands. “I don’t mind a little pain, E. Teeth. Nails. Maybe a bit of light bondage. I’m probably drawing the line at knife play though.”
“What about these?” She holds up her claws and smirks at me.
“Claws… can be discussed.”
“Oh, you are interesting, little fae.” The daemon’s sword lowers, and she tilts her ecstatic smile toward the sky. “You should feel how hard she’s fighting me right now.”
“Put the sword down and I’ll think about it.”
She saunters toward me. “Make me.”
Grabbing a fistful of her leather body armor, I haul her toward me.
And I kiss her.
Hot. Hard. Furious. Tasting the blood on her lips. Hoping she doesn’t rip out my tongue.
For a second, all I can taste is her heat. She stills against me, fingers curling into my chest plate as if she’s not sure whether to haul me closer or shove me away.
And then she’s kissing me back. Throwing herself into the action as if the walls to some dam finally broke. I sense Eris in the challenging way she claims my mouth. The heat. The fury. Maybe the daemon reigns ascendant, but she’s still there, deep inside, clinging to me as though I’m the lifeline she needs.
There you are.
Thank fuck.
She tastes like everything I’ve ever hoped for. I stab my swords into the ground. Capturing her face between my hands, I deepen the kiss, claiming her mouth with both intent and fury. Need drives up within me. Want. The rest of the world vanishes. The war, the battle, the fact that the woman in my arms just might rip my throat out if given the chance. None of it matters. I’ve wanted her for so fucking long, it feels like every nerve within me is scraped raw at the mere sensation of her lips beneath mine.
And if this is the only way to get her back, then so be it. I’ll pay whatever penalty needs to be paid if I can just bring her back to me.
To us.
Daemon or not, she’s no longer focusing on our allies. I step back, breathing hard, prepared to run the second she comes for me.
But there’s a look in her eyes that I hadn’t expected.
For a second, Eris stares back at me, looking like I’ve slapped her. She touches her lips, her eyes round with surprise.
And then gold steals through those gorgeous dark eyes.
