Page 28 of Glimmer and Burn (Unity #1)

She narrowed her eyes, hoisting up her chin in defiance.

“Don’t,” he ordered. “I know that look, Miranda.”

And in a battle of wills, she had a feeling hers would win. He met her stare, holding on longer than anyone else might have.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said through her teeth. There was nothing he could say that would stop her. She was not going to leave him, again , to fend for himself. Not when she could help.

He hung his head. “You are going to be the death of me.”

She brightened, fluttering her lashes coyly. “Promise?”

“This is not a time for jokes, Miranda. These are likely Graves’s assassins here to kill me. And you’re begging to be in the crossfire.”

“I know,” she snapped, shaking her head. “If you just shut up and let me help you, we might have already finished this.”

“No, no, sweetheart.” He held up a finger. “We are not finished. Not in the slightest. As soon as this is over, we’re having a long chat about needless heroism and you thinking you’re in charge of every waking moment when, in the real world, you control very little.”

She rolled her eyes and that made him seethe, his jaw clenched so tight she heard his teeth grinding. “If you’re done lecturing me, can we just do this?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “ Fuck .” He closed his eyes for a moment, possibly trying to recover some of his composure.

He rounded on her with force, adding, “Swear that if anything happens to me, you’ll get out of there.

Immediately. Don’t worry about the damn building or saving me or getting even. You get out of there.”

She locked gazes with him again. This time, she was the one who retreated. It was a fair enough request, since she didn’t plan on allowing that to happen. “Fine. I promise.” She pushed past him and out the door that connected his apartment to the club.

“No, please, after you,” she heard him grumble as he followed her.

They entered a room where people dressed in black continued to destroy and smash everything they could see. Miranda’s heart stopped at the destruction and chaos. This was a message. They’d gotten too close to Graves.

Devin followed Miranda into mayhem. The door led to the gaming room, where he first saw Miranda days ago— had it only been days ?—most of the sturdy, green felted tables were destroyed. The chairs tossed about like a child’s toys.

Clothed in black, their faces covered, Graves’s enforcers tore apart everything. At least a dozen, if not more if the noise from the other room was any indication. Devin’s home, the one thing he had built for himself or took any pride in, was being ripped to pieces.

He must have stood silent much longer than he realized, because the next thing he knew Miranda had yanked him from the path of flying debris.

While Devin found his footing, Miranda rushed forward without a thought or care, brazenly approaching one of the masked enforcers and punching them square in the face.

Devin shook off his stupor and focused on the enemy. Focused on stopping them from doing further damage, instead of fixating on what was already too late to save. He unsheathed a knife from his boot as he ran for Miranda, enforcers converging on her.

“Your left,” he said, swinging the knife. Miranda slipped out of range and Devin caught an incoming punch with the blade. It slipped between the fingers of the enforcer’s fist and out the back of their hand. They screamed. Blood sprayed. They took the damn knife with them as they jerked away.

Miranda was grinning, her cheeks flushed. She wiped at a bloody lip.

“They’re strong,” she said, dropping low and sweeping her leg out to knock another enforcer to the floor. Once their face was at the right height, Devin kicked straight into it, bone crunching under his heel. “Very, unnaturally strong,” she finished.

She shared a look with him that he understood.

These were Graves’s new soldiers. The experimented fae who were now fueled by the blood of the Divine.

And if the Divine's blood made humans equal to fae when they created the guardian subrace, then these fae were currently the most powerful beings in the city.

He must have been further along in his research than the note suggested.

A pair of enforcers charged. Miranda used her foot to flick a fractured chair into her hands like a shield and rammed it forward into the attacker so the fragmented legs pierced the enforcer’s chest with a sickening squelch. Blood dribbled from their nose as they slumped to the ground.

“Strong, but untrained,” she commented as she tossed the skewered enforcer aside.

Devin had used the other enforcer’s momentum to thrust them up and over, landing them on the last intact table. He winced at the destruction to his property. Things that had taken months to procure all destroyed in a moment.

“Behind you,” Miranda shouted.

Devin side-stepped and caught an arm with an incoming blade— his blade—and with a slight twist he brought the arm down on his shoulder, breaking it at the elbow.

Miranda dove in front of him. Caught the blade as it fell and twisted into the slide until she was on her feet to thrust it into the eye of another.

Devin straightened his shirt as, for now, there were no new enemies to dispatch. “We seem to work well together, Mira.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.” She grinned, twirling his knife in her skilled hands and his thoughts drifted toward a better use for those skills.

He swallowed.

Was it wrong to be turned on right now? Probably. It’s not like he could sweep her in his arms and kiss the smug look off her face. And now that he’d had a taste, his body was screaming at him to indulge. If he thought her mere temptation before, she was close to irresistible now.

He avoided locking eyes with her, too afraid he’d see the same spark of desire mirrored back at him.

Would she force him into a wall, hands like claws in his shirt or down his back, nails just starting to bite at his skin as she kissed him?

This was hardly the time to imagine Miranda ripping through his clothes like paper, pinning him with her body or commanding him exactly where she wanted.

The same way she’d been forceful and commanding a mere hour ago, taking her pleasure with a ruthlessness that made his blood run too hot.

His eyes landed on her. Unable to resist.

And lust bloomed in her gaze.

He could forget the loss, forget that the damage around him was devastating, for just one more stolen moment to hear her breathing hitch as she came undone against him.

More commotion from the other room broke the tension. Devin glanced around, a shield of numb emptiness settling over him as they moved to the next room. Miranda tossed him the knife and he caught it, but barely.

“You need the protection more than I do,” she teased before entering the rooms devoted to his clienteles’ baser interests.

This room was normally cast in shadows and dim, warm lighting.

But that was during club hours and the sun was rising fast. The softer touches of velvets and satin were in shreds.

Enforcers threw benches and chaise lounges into a heap.

Another doused the growing pile in a clear liquid.

They were going to burn the place down.

Miranda grappled with an enforcer, no match for them in strength, she was easily tossed aside. Devin started forward, but hadn’t a chance to move before she nimbly rolled into the fall and snatched an end table as she stood.

Once again he was riveted to how her lithe body moved. How she smashed the solid table into the enforcer’s side, sending shards of wood flying through the room. The enforcer was unfazed by the blow, but her intent had been to get close enough to leap and toss a leg around the enforcer’s shoulders.

Using the momentum of her jump, her thighs twisted around their head before using her entire body to offset their balance and send them both crashing to the ground.

Miranda popped to her feet and slammed her foot down on the enforcer’s head.

For a moment, Devin's only thoughts were of her thighs clenching around his face…

Devin tore his eyes from Miranda. She hardly needed his assistance and there had to be something productive he could do aside from standing there gawking.

Though, it was now clear that adrenaline was tunneling his thoughts, blocking out the greater picture, and intently focused on Miranda tearing a slit in her dress so she could roundhouse an enforcer into a wall.

He had barely taken a step when the bigger picture started to put itself together. An enforcer flicked a match and tossed it into the sopping wreckage. They were burning the place down now , right now .

Time was up.

He ran for Miranda.

Devin was behind her when she dodged a punch that hit him square in the shoulder, sending him spinning onto the floor. Devin opened his eyes to an unbalanced ceiling—or perhaps that was just his vision that was unbalanced—and his shoulder burning.

Miranda helped him to his feet and every movement sent waves of hot acid through his arm and chest. His shoulder was out of alignment.

“You’re hurt—”

“Doesn’t matter…move,” he pushed her forward with his good arm, urging her away as flames erupted behind them.

With all the wood and the amount of starter fluid drenching things, they’d be engulfed in minutes.

The enforcers stopped fighting and started retreating, their work done.

Miranda didn’t leave his side, instead letting him lean on her as they cleared the room and he guided her toward a back exit.

Once outside Devin was blinded by the sun. His propensity for the moon made it all the more painful to stare daylight in the face. He got himself to a crate of supplies, stacks of them lined the back alleys of the club, and closed his eyes to the throbbing in his shoulder.

Miranda approached, tentatively looking without getting too close to him.