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Even as my insides seemed to go weightless and do somersaults, I felt a crushing weight of gravity pull me back down. Back to reality. A nervous, jittery adrenaline vibrated in my nerves. Overstimulation.

The aftershocks of pleasure mutinied under my skin and turned sour, leaving a washed-out burn wherever we’d touched, wherever my body had lain against hers. Like smoldering bruises.

What are you doing, Asher?

I just had sex with a demon. I wanted her so badly. Like she could save me from my life.

Too far. I’d taken this too far.

With shaking hands, I reached for my wallet on the bedside table and slid out the photo of Nikki. The photo trembled out of my fingers and fluttered to the floor, along with a burning hot tear. I didn’t pick it up. I refused to face that guilt right now.

That, on top of everything. I couldn’t.

I had just given the last of my heart to the girl who would doom my race.

A demon was a demon. For too long, I’d forgotten. Now I was twisting the knife. In myself. In her. Through that one forbidden act, we hadbothbetrayed our kind.

The mixed emotions raged in my soul.

The shame, the heartache, the white-hot lust for her that had not been sated, but fueled. Like that first shot of heroin, Lana was an addiction after a single hit. Already, I craved her again. Craved her in a way that went beyond sex. I craved her thoughts, her affection, her soft smiles. Craved it all down to my bones. One taste, and I was hooked—hooked and already frantic for my next fix.

An old Leonardo da Vinci quote rang in my ears.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

That was Lana.

Do you love her, Asher?

Because she loves you.

She hadn’t said it yet, but she did. She had chosen me to mate with; love went hand-in-hand with that. We were bonded for life.

I had chosen her to betray.

Cupping my hand over my mouth, I looked back at her—her naked body contoured under the sheets, her flushed, glistening cheeks, her long hair spilling across the bed, gently stirring like it was its own living thing.

Such a magnificent, lovely creature.

Such a seductive, wicked creature.

Yes, I might have loved her in that moment when our bodies arched together, when I thrust myself deep inside her and drew her in close, our broken spirits longing to touch each other... if just for a blissful instant.

The memory alone brought a dull ache to my abdomen.

But she was a demon.

And I was not allowed to love a demon.

I was not allowed to fuck a demon.

I was supposed to kill demons, burn them, eradicate them.

But tonight, I had done the cruelest thing of all: I had let myself have a whisper of hope.

For happiness, for an end to the violence, for a future... forher.

She had almost convinced me, too.