Page 18

Kaos tilted his head toward the door. “What is that?”

“I ask you a question, then you ask me one. No thinking. Just first thing that comes to mind. Stop at ten. Deal?”

Questions and answers? “Begin.”

“Okay,” she said brightly. “Question one. What do you want that you think you don’t deserve?”

Kaos didn’t hesitate. “Redemption.”

That earned a breath from her, soft and full of weight. “Your turn,” she prompted.

“Question two,” he said, numbering the way she had. “What do you fear more—being seen or being ignored?”

“Seen,” she answered, then laughed like she hated how true it was. “Damn. That came out fast. Number three,” she said, regaining control. “If you could destroy one memory, would you?”

“No. Pain is proof.”

A pause. Then a splash. “God, that’s hot.”

“Question four,” he said. “Why do you touch everything like you’re trying to save it?”

“Because I learned very young that my touch has power, so I touch everything. Question five,” she hurried. “Why is your destiny pain and destruction?”

Kaos’s jaw tightened. He stared straight ahead. “Because it's why I was born. Question six. Tell me of a time when you used this touching power.”

She paused, just long enough to make him wonder if she’d answer.

“There was a boy in the orphanage—George. He fought a lot. Was angry all the time. Everyone avoided him like he was contagious.” Her tone softened, shaded in memory.

“One night, he got punished for fighting again. They locked him in the furnace room—no blankets, no light. Poor thing was crying like he was next door to purgatory. So... I sat with him. And hummed to him until he stopped crying and felt better.”

Kaos angled his head toward the door, his Rage uncoiling, his Lust quiet. “That's not touching.”

Water splashed softly behind the door. “It most certainly was,” she countered. “My hands have power. But my power doesn’t need hands.” She wrapped the words in happy wonder. “Question seven. Wait… is it seven?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Tell me then… why do you keep pain for proof? Who are you proving it to?”

Her delicate, demanding voice slipped right past the prison doors inside him. “I keep it for me. To remind myself of my destiny.”

He pushed his power closer to her, pausing right before the tub.

“That’s... kind of beautiful. And sad,” she added in a small voice that floated out with the steam. The water splashed around. “Okay, number eight. Who would you kill slowly, if there were no rules?”

Kaos chuckled lightly at how she’d stolen his turn without blinking. “Whoever made you think you had to shrink,” he said, voice low, final.

That silenced her. Utterly.

Water dripped. Breathing slowed.

“Nine,” he said. “What would break you completely, right now?” Kaos again glanced at the door when she didn't answer.

“If... you didn't see me.”

Kaos closed his eyes, feeling his pulse answer in ways language couldn’t.

“Ten," she whispered. “What are you ashamed of?”

“That I would forsake divine purpose just to be hers.”

Her gasp was sharp.

“Eleven,” he growled. “What are you doing to me?”

The silence burned through his every breath as he waited. “I’m… waking you up.”

They both breathed through the stormy confessions.

“Twelve,” she dared softly. “Would you come in here if I asked?”

“Yes,” he said. Instantly.

He sat there, his heart thundering. Moments passed.

Water stilled. Then the soft shuffle of a towel against skin reached him.

A few seconds later, the door opened just wide enough for steam to curl into the hall.

She stepped out barefoot, fully wrapped in a thick burgundy robe that clung to the steam.

Kaos rose to his feet, pulse thrumming beneath the surface. She didn’t look at him right away. “That,” she said softly, tying the robe at her waist, “was the most sacred bath of my life. I will never be the same.”

Kaos remained still. She brushed past him gently, the edge of her sleeve catching his hand for half a second. His fingers twitched, tempted to hold on. She didn’t stop, but she glanced back with a knowing smile, like maybe she’d felt it too.

He followed her into the main room, watching her cross to the counter where the cookies still waited on parchment.

She picked out several and set them on a small plate.

Then she pulled a clean glass from the drying rack, poured milk, and carried everything carefully back across the room to the studio couch.

She set the plate and glass down on the coffee table before sinking into the cushions with a sigh of contentment. Then she pointed at the far end. “You. Sit,” she ordered, mouth full of cookie.

Kaos didn’t move at first. He realized she enjoyed bossing him around as much as he liked being pushed around by her chaos.

There was something pure and less cursed about it.

He settled on the opposite end as instructed.

The couch was barely long enough for her to stretch her legs, which she did—long and warm, her toes coming to rest lightly against his thigh.

She chewed in silence for a few seconds, then leaned back.“It’s secret-sharing time,” she announced, licking a crumb from her lip. “We tell each other one thing about ourselves no one else knows. I’ll go first.”

He waited while his mind focused on the feel of her toes—pressing against his thigh with an eager, unconscious rhythm.

“Sooo,” she began, dragging the word with juicy warning.

“I have really crazy dreams. Not like nightmares. But real and vivid . Like I’m actually living two different lives in two different places at the same time.

” She paused and laughed softly. “Only… not at the same time. Because I’m not really living this one while I’m asleep!

” She grinned, amused by her own contradiction.

“Sometimes I dream things that come true,” she went on. “I dreamed about you and Kildare coming to my house—and you did.”

Her voice softened now, just slightly. Still casual. Still her.

“Sometimes I wake up and forget which version is the dream and which is my life.”

She looked at him then. “Okay. Your turn. One real secret.”

Kaos didn’t move or blink. “I was a god in another life… then I craved to kneel before another.”

Two seconds, then a snort. “Please don’t bring your queen into this and ruin my night.”

He turned and locked gazes with her till the air sizzled between them. “I didn’t,” he said, low and final.

She didn’t flinch as she stared back, toes curling slightly against his leg.

“Tell me,” he said, the connection between them tighter. “Which of your dreams was the most vivid? Which did you wish was your real life?”

She swallowed after a second, her eyes fluttering downward the moment shame and guilt arrived. “You’ll laugh maybe,” she barely tested, toes digging.

“I won’t,” he assured, anticipation stirring his cock.

She took a deep breath, angling her gaze to the coffee table. “There was one, ” she began. “A… man… came to me. Not someone I know, but… I seemed to remember him the second I saw him.”

Kaos tilted his head slightly, his pulse thundering. She remembered him.

“So… this is the part that’s kind of crazy,” she warned, her smile hinting at the edge of her perfect little mouth. “I’m just going to say it quick, and you can’t laugh.”

“Say it,” he urged as her toes pressed nervously.

A big breath and she set her plate on the table then plopped her hands in her lap.

“I can’t look,” she said, raising them over her face.

“So, first,” she said behind her tight fingers.

“He had big black wings, black as night. And he had black horns too, and his eyes were nightmares with fire, and yet they were kind and…beautiful,” she finished softly.

“Uuugh, I told you it was crazy,” she said, dropping both hands into her lap, toes drilling.

He could hardly focus while wanting to capture her foot and put it on his cock. “Sounds like you encountered a demon,” he said, feeling his two selves clashing now.

She considered that with a grimace. “No,” she said quietly, head barely shaking at the air between them. “He was definitely an angel.” She added the barest smile. “And he was mine.”

A single sharp breath escaped him as something hot surged in his chest. Possessive, raw, dangerous.

His rage didn’t know whether to growl or kneel.

His lust... it wanted to mark her deeper.

Bind her harder. Ask her what it would take to be that again—hers.

And Kohl was ready to rip his own head off for having her before he did.

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 definitely cannot say.”

“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 to take 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.”