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But Kaos wasn’t the least phased by his rage. “Tell me,” he said, voice quieter. “What did this demon-angel do?”

Her entire face flushed and she lowered her head. “I definitelycannotsay.”

“I thought you were telling me your secret?”

“I did!” she shot back, flustered. “You’re just digging for more.”

He angled a look at her. “Your toes are what’s digging for more.” He lifted her foot and pulled it in his lap. “Tell me without telling me.” He slid his thumb firmly over the arch of her foot, memorizing every single detail he felt. “Use your colors and special paint brushes.”

She gave a moan that electrified his cock. “Wow, that feels amazing.” She scooted lower onto the couch with a sigh, adding her other foot to his lap. “My colors and brushes,” she mumbled, oblivious to what her little gift did to him.

He captured it in his other hand, giving it the same finger worship.

“Fine,” she said with a soft sigh. “But you still can’t laugh. It’s probably just some dumb wish-fulfillment thing.” She exhaled slowly, eyes fluttering half-closed. “Okay,” she prepared. “If I’m painting…” Her toes flexed in his hand, like the memory lived in her body more than her mind. “It started with red. Not soft red—the deep kind. The kind that stains your mouth after biting into something forbidden.” She swallowed. “Then gold… like I was glowing from the inside out. Like his hands lit candles under my skin.”

She drew a slow breath then let it go.

“Then it all turned dark. But not an empty dark.” Her brows pulled together a little. “Like rich, dark-chocolate-dark.”

Her voice dipped lower. “He touched me like I was sacred. Like his fingers were reading scripture.” She paused with flushed cheeks, gaze down. “I couldn’t see the edges of myself anymore. I just… dissolved. Like he’d painted me with fire until all that was left was light.”

Her soft words stilled everything in him.

“And then…” she whispered, her breaths thinning. “He remade me into something that doesn’t quite fit inside my skin anymore.”

Kaos’s hands were locked in the fire with the rest of him. His Lust and Rage merged into a power that had his blood quaking. Shoving and demanding at the door of every cell. He held himself very still.

“But… it was just a dream,” she muttered. “And yes, it’s the one I’d trade my real life to have.”

Kaos’s voice was low, almost reverent. “And why do you think he did this?”

Her gaze dropped to his hands on her feet, to the memory seared behind her eyes. She swallowed, her face becoming a sculpture of pain. “I… wish I knew.” Her toes curled in his hands, and he pressed every finger into her tiny feet, the fragile crack in her voice piercing his chest. “Before the dream faded… he said I’d forget. But he wouldn’t.”

She captured her lower lip with her upper one then slowly released it. “I didn’t forget,” she swore softly, head shaking barely. “I will never forget.”

Kaos sat motionless as his true form clawed against his human skin, demanding freedom, threatening totake it. He inhaled through his nose, slow and sharp. Kohl wasn’t her salvation, Kaos was.

Kaos’s jaw flexed. Kohl’s voice came out. “So you just… gave yourself to him?”

Her head snapped up, eyes wide. “What?”

He felt the shift. Her shock, her pulse. But it didn’t stop the human venom.

“You let some devil-angel claim you like it was fate,” he said, quieter now. Sharper. His voice wasn’t his own anymore. “He touched you like you were his. And you let him.”

“It was a dream, Kohl,” she said gently, like that explained the fire still on her skin.

He looked up and locked her in his stare. Kaos moved behind his eyes now. The man and the god staring at her. “Was it?” Kohl accused.

Her breath hitched and they both caught the flutter at her throat, the way her body didn’t know whether to run or reach.

“You’re jealous of a dream?” she whispered, barely incredulous.

He exhaled as ice filled his human veins. “Not jealous of a dream,” Kohl said. “Pissed you gave yourself to one.”

The hurt in her eyes kicked up the fire in Kaos’s spiritual bones. His Rage shoved through Kohl’s grip and leaned toward her. “And now I get to live knowing the shape of your breath when you break for a god that isn’t allowed to be.”

Chapter Ten