Page 67 of Hellbound

“Quid pro quo, shadow man. Why did you lie to me? That was no key. It was a knife.”

Stifling stillness fell over them, and like in the meat locker, Marian suddenly wasn’t sure if the demon was going to kiss her or throttle her. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes, as if she’d been caged with a panther rather than a demon masquerading as a man.

He leaned down as Marian glowered up at him. Something conflicted passed through his eyes. She couldn’t even begin to explain what she’d seen when he pulled back and glided over to where his jacket lay. He looked away from her and unrolled his sleeves.

“Elio Ramirez lived for several days after he brought you back from the dead. Multiple witnesses saw him alive and ambulatory.”

Marian stopped breathing. Her heart swelled. Never mind the dispassionate way Mr. Vale spoke; she had the information she needed.

You didn’t kill him. The Remnant didn’t, either.

“He was comatose in his home on the third day according to his cousin. He was taken to a hospital and declared brain dead. An aneurysm.”

Her heart sank despite the fact that this was ultimately good news for her. She stared at her floor as she disappeared into her thoughts. Elio had revived her from her subsumption by the Remnant, and was brain dead three days later?

You don’t believe in coincidence, remember?

“You should rest.”

Marian looked up as Mr. Vale disappeared out her front door, leaving her to stew in confusion. He’d given her the information she’d bargained for. But it made no sense.

She hadn’t kept up her end of the deal.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The absence of her own screams should have been Marian’s first clue that something was off about this dream. Her second clue should have been the sense that Vale was almost certainly in her apartment. A presence felt, but not seen.

A hand splayed between her shoulder blades, pressing her into the mattress. Her eyes were too heavy with sleep to open. She had to be dreaming, no matter how wrong it felt, how atypical a nightmare it was. Instead of formless fear, there were soft lips against the shell of her ear.

She gasped, lost in the dark.

“Did you really think I’d leave you like this?” Crooned sin itself from above. That deep, accented voice fucking wrecked her every time. “My little bundle of conflict.”

“Vale?” she rasped, startled and blind as could be. His familiar scent wrapped around her as if in affirmation. Whiskey, woodsmoke, and something dangerously other. Something that stoked a long-dormant fire within her back to life. A scream built in the back of her throat.

“It’s alright,” he soothed. The words smoothed through her, taming her fear into something pliant. Wanting. Ready. “I’ve come to give you what you need.”

Arousal throbbed between her legs without warning. She should have sent him packing. Asked how the fuck he managed to get back into her apartment. But she didn’t want to do any of that. She was painfully empty, and Vale was the only being on the planet who could make it better. The only one who knew how twisted she was.

“I don’t need you,” she lied. “I don’t want you.”

“No?” He murmured.

Vale remained a delicious weight pinning her down. It should have frightened her, this powerlessness—and how he was somehow back in her apartment when she had no memory of letting him in. Instead, his proximity ignited an inferno of desire that left no room for cogent thought.

Marian’s full-body shiver laid bare the truth. Velvet darkness dragged her soaked panties off her hips and down her thighs. She gasped as his fingers dipped into her cunt to smear her wetness over her clit.

“Good girls don’t lie, Marian. You’re dripping for me,” Vale laughed—a sound so deep and devious, it stained the soul. “You think I can’t see right through you? That I can’t tell the difference between true fear and this ruse you’ve manufactured to deny yourself what you desire? A shield of lies is a brittle thing. You’ve made me your nightmare when you know full-well I could be so good to you.”

“I—”

Fingers trailed down the back of her neck and slipped beneath her, gripping her throat with just enough pressure to elicit panic. And more inexplicable arousal.

Vale spoke before Marian could untie her tongue.

“It’s a terrifying thing, being known. I know you’ll never ask for what you want. But you’ll never have to. Not with me.” A teasing, deceitful sound wrapped in soothing words.

“That … that doesn’t make any sense.”