Page 61 of Demon’s Snack

The ember lines beneath his skin pulse strongest whenever the bond tightens. His breathing steadies fractionally when I move closer and roughens again when I stop. The infernal current inside him keeps circling without direction, searching for somewhere to discharge safely.

Anchor proximity alters surge pattern.

My own note returns to me with uncomfortable precision.

“Look at me,” I say.

He does.

The raw restraint in his face nearly steals the next breath from my lungs. He looks exhausted, furious, frightened, and unbearably careful all at once, like a man holding a starving animal shut inside his own ribcage.

“You are still regulating around me,” I say softly.

“Barely.”

“But successfully.”

“I almost turned toward civilians.”

“You did not.”

“I wanted to.”

The shame in the admission cuts through the room sharper than anger could.

I lean closer despite myself. “Corin.”

His eyes close briefly.

“That thing in the alley,” he says quietly. “When you touched me, the energy changed.”

“Yes.”

“It stopped tearing through me.”

The words send heat through the bond immediately.

Something lower, warmer, and more intimate moves beneath the lingering infernal burn.

I become abruptly aware of how close we are kneeling in the dim archive chamber, of the rough sound of his breathing, of the heat radiating from him strongly enough to warm the cold tunnel air between us.

Corin notices my awareness the same instant I do.

The bond surges.

His hand flexes hard against his knee.

“Careful,” he says, and his voice has gone rough in a different direction entirely.

“Interesting,” I murmur.

He gives a strangled laugh. “Woman, if you start academically narrating my impending breakdown again, I may throw myself into the canal personally.”

“You dislike precision only when it embarrasses you.”

“You are currently very embarrassing.”

The heat beneath my skin deepens because despite everything else tearing through him, the hunger still bends around me instead of through me.