Eliza sat back on her heels, while Adam merely
stared at her as though he had all the time in the world. “Fine,” she said.
“Three weeks. I free you and you help me.” She gave him a warning look. “I’ll
need your word that you will help me, that this” she waved her hand between
them, “isn’t merely a way to trick me into freeing you.”
“This business was your idea, woman,” he said
with affront.
“Nevertheless, I’ll need your word.”
The demon’s nostrils flared with a sharp
exhalation. “My word then.” Eliza did not look away from him, and he glared
back in obvious exasperation. “What now?”
“I’m merely considering if I ought to trust
your word,” she said.
A low growl rumbled in his chest as he bared
his teeth. “I keep my word, whether I want to or not. My word is my bond.
Honor, Miss May. Unlike you, I have it.”
“How dare you—”
“How dare you?” He craned forward, the muscles
along his shoulders bunching. “Not so long ago you broke your promise of
fealty. To me!”
“Oh, yes, how quick you are to remind me.”
Eliza leaned close, grinding her teeth to keep in a shout. “You enjoy being
quick, don’t you?”
His thick, dark brows furrowed. “What in the
bloody blazes are you talking about?”
“You gave me all of ten seconds to make a
choice.” Eliza’s fists ached from clenching them. “And what a choice. I was
dead, my body sliced open, my blood on the ground. I would have done anything, anything,” she thumped her fist to her
chest, “to get back my life.”
“So that makes it better?” he snapped back in
outrage. “Desperation gives you leave to go back on your word?”
“No. That is not what I meant.”
“Then you agree that you bloody well have no
honor—”
“You never explained what was involved. You
never said I’d be chained to you, like some animal, for the rest of my days,”
Eliza shouted. “I was told I would be a GIM. I was ready to serve you in that
manner. You knew full well that’s what I believed. If anything, you swindled
me!”
All at once, he sagged, though he still eyed
her with resentment and distaste. Well, she had a healthy helping of those
feelings for him too.
“Tick, tock, Eliza,” she mimicked. “You rushed
me because you didn’t want me to think things over.”
When he broke eye contact, his hard jaw
twitched.
“I’m correct, aren’t I?” Ire and a red rage
surged up within her. “And you have the brass to sit on your high horse and
talk of honor. Well let me tell you something, demon. There is little honor in
forcing a person’s hand. Or using your power to coerce those weaker than you.”
A black scowl twisted the demon’s face as he
glared at some distant point. “Fine. May I continue, or have you more
complaints to heap upon my head?”
“Please do continue,” Eliza granted.
His golden gaze flicked back to her. “I want to
kiss you.”
“No.” The word burst out of her with force. “Absolutely
not.”
Unfazed, Adam shrugged. “Unless you have
something to offer in exchange for your freedom, Mellan and Mab will, as you
say, merely hunt us down, and you’ll be back to where you started.”
“Then I shall find out what he wants.” Eliza
straightened her back. She could do that. She must. Like hell was she going to
kiss this demon.
Adam simply gave her a slow, wicked half-smile.
“Fortunately for you, lass, I already know what he wants. What they both want.
More than controlling you. More than torturing me, even.”
“Then why in blazes haven’t you used it to
secure your own freedom?” Eliza blurted out.
“I’m only alive because they cannot break me
into revealing where this item might be.” The belligerence burning in his eyes
was gone in a blink, replaced by a look of pure cunning. “However, I might be
persuaded to help you use the knowledge. All I require is— ”
“Fine,” she snapped, irritation getting the
best of her. “I’ll kiss you.”
Silence fell, and Adam stared at her with those
eyes of his. Devil’s eyes. Eyes that made a woman forget herself. Heat rose up
over her breasts and crawled along the back of her neck. Eliza grasped her
skirts, her fingers twitching. She would kiss him. Kiss a man who had brought
her nothing but irritation. Maybe she’d bite him to boot.
His chest, gleaming with sweat, rose and fell
in a soft pattern. A bead of perspiration broke free from the top of his
shoulder and ran down along the firm rise of his pectoral muscles, straight
toward the dark nub of his nipple. All this time arguing with him, she’d
forgotten his state of undress. Not so now. She’d have to press up against those
hard muscles, touch his skin. Eliza wrenched her gaze back to his face, and his
sinful lips curled in a knowing smile.
“You know,” he said casually, “I believe I
shall pass for the moment. I’d rather it be when you aren’t wearing such a sour
face. Kills a bloke’s ardor, you realize.”
Eliza blinked. And then his meaning hit her.
“Why you…rutting…cheap, trickster…”
He laughed, a flash of even teeth. “Come now,
Eliza, fret not.” He stopped then, that obnoxious smile growing and heating
with promise. “I’ll take that kiss soon enough. ”
She rose to her feet in a rustle of skirts.
“And I’ll be sure to bite that wicked tongue when you do!”
She marched out of the cell, slamming it behind
her, as he began to laugh again. Bastard. She might just leave him here to rot
after all. His laughing taunt echoed through the dark. “Now that I know tongues
are involved, I’ll be sure to collect.”
About Kristen Callihan-
Kristen Callihan is an author because there is nothing else she'd rather be. She is a three-time RITA nominee and winner of two RT Reviewers' Choice awards. Her novels have garnered starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, as well as being awarded top picks by many reviewers. Her debut book, Firelight, received RT Book Reviews' Seal of Excellence, was named a best book of the year by Library Journal, best book of Spring 2012 by Publisher's Weekly, and was named the best romance book of 2012 by ALA RUSA. When she is not writing, she is reading.
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