Page 2 of Veradel
To my surprise, the afterlife feels nice. Someone is stroking my hair.
And I’m being held. Cradled. It reminds me of my childhood, in the arms of my mother after a particularly nasty nightmare. Except the fingers that graze my forehead now are much too large, the skin too callused, to belong to her.
They also tremble, as if brimming with barely-restrained strength.
I crane my neck, a happy sigh leaving my lips at the thought of those hands curling around my throat, and open my eyes.
A gasp shoots out of me at the face that blooms in my vision.
Striking amber eyes pierce me with an intensity that makes me feel impaled in the best of ways, pupils wide and all-consuming as they race up and down my body. Thick, furrowed brows frame his golden bronze face, his dark hair mottled with waves of lighter brown. His strong jaw clenches, his powerful neck muscles tightening as I let my gaze travel down the length of him, to the muscled arms holding me against his heaving chest.
His heavingchiseledchest.
This is, without a doubt, the finest male specimen I’ve ever laid eyes on, even in the thinning light of dusk. And I think I know who he is, even though I never could have imagined the Monster looking this way in any form. There’s just something about the tether pushing and pulling between our locked gazes that feels completely foreign and completely familiar all at once.
“Lucan?” I whisper up at him.
An awe-struck expression clouds his face. “Yes, baby?”
Scratch that. The afterlife isn’t just nice… it’sheaven. Even though I know this isn’t the real Lucan—he couldn’t have possibly followed me into death so quickly—my imagination is doing a phenomenal job at conjuring up a fantasy version of him that already makes heat flood through me, tingling my nerves. That voice, such a rough, deep tone, settles right between my thighs.
Smiling now, I reach up a hand and run my fingers along his jawline, marveling at the sharp shape of it. Lucan’s eyes widen even more, then close briefly at my touch.
“You,” I breathe, “are even sexier than I could have ever dreamed of.”
One of those thick, gorgeous eyebrows cocks up, and his mouth twitches.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.” I nod up at him fervently, content to lie against his chest forever. “To be honest, I didn’t even know if the afterlife was real. But if I could come back to life and preach to everyone about it, I’d tell them dying isn’t so bad, actually.” I finally manage to rip my eyes from his face for two seconds to glance at the scenery around us. “I mean, look at all these trees! The smell is invigorating.” I take a big inhale, and a giggle escapes me. “And I’m more turned on than I’ve ever been in mylife. I mean,lookat you.”
“More than in the bathtub?” Lucan teases.
His mouth stretches into a genuine, smirking smile, and I inhale sharply at the flash of canines. That’s strange.
The inhale filled my lungs with air so quickly, it hurt.
Almost like my ribcage is bruised.
But the afterlife shouldn’t hurt, should it? Out loud, I say, “Death feels more real than I thought it would.”
“You’re not dead, little nightmare,” Lucan says, his voice grazing me in all the most sensitive places again. “You’re just outside the Wall for the first time in your life.”
The smug glint in his eyes tells me he’s never going to forget my comment about him being sexier than I could have ever dreamed of. Or the turned-on thing. Or…
“Wait, wait, wait.” I try to scramble out of his arms, swearing under my breath when an ache shoots through my ribs again. But Lucan’s grip doesn’t relent, and I go still, caught in his snare without a chance of escape. “I’m…” I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of the Wall rising up behind me, of the mist overhead. “I’m alive? I didn’t…”
Splatter into a bloody heap on the forest floor?I can’t get out.
“No.” Something carnal and ferocious seems to swirl in the amber of Lucan’s eyes, but his throat bobs as he swallows it gruffly down. “I don’t know how you survived, Saskia, but you did. I caught you. And you’re just as alive as I am.”
For a moment, we stare at each other. Every part of my body heats and tightens, true sensation flooding through my system again as I realize…
I’m not dead. And this isn’t even a dream.
Lucan—the Monster—is here, in the flesh, pinning me in place with those eyes, his body so physical and rock-hard against me that I can barely breathe.
Then embarrassment creeps up my cheeks as I remember what I told him. How I traced his jawline with my hand. How he’s holding me against his chest like I’m the prey he’s finally caught. And when his lip curls up in another smirk, my eyes snag on his canines again. They’re not as sharp or needle-like as Arad’s, but longer, thicker, and somehow more masculine.
