Ziel’s an illusion. For both of us.
He’s who I might have been if I hadn’t had leadership thrust on my shoulders one goddamned day because Kastros had decided he’d had enough.
Katrina stops walking a few feet from me, uncertain. I can see from the way her eyes flicker back and forth to each of mine that she’s waiting for an explanation.
I grimace and shove my hand over my face, yanking off my magic like it’s a mask, lifting my illusion, erasing the red cape that I donned in her dreams when I wanted to be her Superman.
“My name is Raziel.” My words come out husky, tense.
I hear her gasp, and I swallow the lump in my throat as I meet her eyes. I bristle, waiting for an attack.
But instead, all I get is a plaintive sob.
I rush forward and scoop Katrina into my arms. “Princess,” I croon into her hair, not quite sure what to say. Inside, I’m fucking beating myself to a pulp, throwing punches, roundhouse kicks, wishing for half a second that I had Akor’s pain magic so that I could punish myself sufficiently for making my girl cry.
“You’re real. I mean…he’s not real. He’s you. And you’re an asshole. A real asshole.” Her words come out punctuated by sobs and then hiccups. I pat her hair, and she clings to me, fingers digging into my back just below my wings, hugging me harder, even as she berates me. “You’re so mean. Letting me think he was real. I can’t even believe all the stuff I told you!” She swipes at her face, which has gotten red and blotchy. “How much do you—” Hiccup. ”Remember?”
Her eyes look up at me, all covered in tears and sheen, and I swear, right then and there, that Lucillania’s right about the universe. Love trumps all. I’ve known it for ages, known that one look from Katrina could send me into a tailspin. But seeing her in my arms, sobbing her eyes out because of me…that’s what makes me more certain than anything.
I’d take on the entire canyon of murderers in Hell. I’d destroy God’s garden of worlds. I’d do anything to make Katrina smile at me. It wouldn’t matter what.
“Please,” I growl, hands tightening around her as my throat tightens, and I can’t shove the damn words out.
I need her to stop crying. But I’m not Ziel, dammit. Not really. I can hear Akor’s wings flapping outside the balcony, wondering what the fuck is going on, and I growl. This is my moment. I turn her away from the window and spread my wings so the fucker can’t see her.
That’s when I spot one of those en suite doors, the kind that hotels use to let you travel between rooms. I let the claws come out on my right hand, and I swipe right through the side of it, ripping out the handle and any locking mechanism. I toss it aside and shove the door open.
There’s a couple inside the next room, but one look at me and they’re awake, screaming, running out into the hall, terrified. As they should be.
I shoot magic after them, letting them see monsters wherever they go, so that the manager thinks they’re just another pair of meth heads who’ve rotted their brains out.
I glance backward, worried all the commotion has woken Adam. But his little mop of hair is motionless on the pillow. Good.
I turn back to the adjoining room, with its king size bed and white duvet cover. I shove Katrina down onto the mattress on top of the comforter, and her pink curls splay out above her like a crown. My little princess.
I owe her an apology.
But I suck with words. So I just lean over her and show her I’m sorry with my mouth.
It’s not a sweet, tender apology, because I’m not playing Ziel right now. I’m apologizing for that shit. My lips claim hers in a rough kiss, and I press my entire body against hers. I want so desperately to pin her hands over her head and apologize with my mouth, until she’s come so many times that she’s forced to forgive me.
But my little princess needs it slow. I know that about her. I know everything, more than she probably wants. I break off the kiss and rise up on my elbows, so that I can hover over her and study her expression.
Her eyes are still rimmed in tears, but no more are falling. I gently swipe them away with my thumb and then kiss her forehead with the softest brush of my lips.
Forgive me, I mentally order her. But I’m smart enough not to say it aloud.
“Why, Raz? Why did you pretend?” Her voice cracks on the last word.
“Dreams—well, nightmares—are my job. I’m a nightmare demon. I can transform. And I can…” I wave my hand to show her my magic. The walls around us morph until ghosts appear to climb out of the high-end textured wallpaper, their gray green bodies translucent, eye sockets empty. They glow a slight whitish green in the dark room.
Katrina’s head turns, and her eyes widen, and I quickly wave my hand to dissolve the illusion.
“One night, I was hiding out, taking a break. You just showed up.” At first, her soft little body trembles under mine, but I let out a growl that’s halfway a hum as I trace my nose up and down her neck. “And the second I knew you were mine, I knew I’d never give you up. Even if it meant we had to be a secret. Even if it meant I couldn’t really do this…” I suck on her neck hard, pulling her tender flesh into my mouth and marking her.
Mine.
I can’t wait to stare at the bruise that will be there tomorrow, marring her perfect skin, knowing that I put it there. I want to mark her body in so many different ways.
But I feel her rapid heartbeat as I slide a hand down her ribcage, and I pull myself back again, checking in with her.
Her eyelashes are still clumped together with tears, but the look she gives me is anything but sad. It’s fierce. And damn, is her anger hot.
Katrina’s tiny hand reaches for me and caresses my face, even as her eyes blaze like blue flames. Her narrow fingers filter through my hair before she gives it a rough tug.
My dick throbs in response.
“All those times. All those secrets… Did you tell anyone about the fight I had with that door when it was supposed to be push and not pull?” Her tone is deadly serious, and immediately, my mouth quirks up. I remember her telling me that story. Katrina had buried her face in my shoulder as we sat in the clouds, and I’d hardly begun to revel in that sensation when she confessed the most humiliating experience of her life that day—she’d fought with a glass door a full two minutes at the movie theater, yanking and pulling on it, before a guy inside took pity on her and pulled it open from the interior.
She’d immediately left the theater, abandoning the movie she’d planned to see with friends. I’d wanted to laugh but settled for squeezing her tight and loving the fact that my innocent girl didn’t have a care in the world bigger than that. I hadn’t known about her parents then.
I gaze down into Katrina’s eyes and tell her, “No one gets your secrets but me, princess. They’re mine. You’re mine.”
I love how her body becomes soft and compliant at those words, even if her eyes are still searching.
I lean down and lick a line over her collarbone, just above the hem of this fucking joke for a sleep shirt she’s wearing. It’s a white tank top that lets the delicious points of her nipples show. I let a finger drift up and graze her nipple through the shirt, circling lightly.
“I met you in your dreams, and even then, you were perfect,” I tell her as I slide down one strap of her tank and free the rosy bud. Hell, her breasts are gorgeous, the pale, soft skin and dusky brown-red nipples. Two little freckles dot the top of her right breast, and my fingers can’t help but touch them both, like they’re destinations on a map that my mouth intends to travel to. “I couldn’t let them hurt you. And then…you summoned us and I was living my own damn nightmare, so fucking scared the others would sense you were our Center and want to kill you when I was already…”