Page 63 of Samhain Savior

Again.

“Now,” Helena said, oblivious to the chaos in my head. She pulled back on the blade, forcing me to either follow her movement or slit my own throat. “You’re going toopen that little trinket and give me what’s inside or else I’ll paint these hallowed grounds with your blood.”

“I can’t.”

“Liar,” she shrieked, the fist my hair giving a painful yank. The blade against my throat quivered as she shook with anger, and I could feel the shadow collar stirring again, like a tiger restlessly pacing its cage, waiting to pounce and my body nearly sagged with relief, grateful to have its steady presence restored. “Give it to me!”

She was unhinged, her grip on my hair bringing tears to my eyes and the blade at my throat a dangerous brand against my skin.

But still, even with all that...all I could think about was the pulsing magic from within the golden bulb on the ground before me, begging to belet out.

“If you can’t open it,” she hissed, her lips at my ear, her foul breath hot against my skin. “Then I guess you’re of no use to me. After all, it’s your blood they want, and I can take that with me.”

The pressure from the knife increased, and I could fee the burn as the wickedly sharp blade sliced through the tender skin under my jaw. I tried to pull away, to wrench myself out of her grip, but with her fist at my hair and her body against my back, I was trapped, stuck fast like a butterfly in a jar.

“Back away from my witch!”

Archer’s voice boomed across the cemetery, his words sending a shiver down my spine beneath the soaked material of my dress.

My witch.

I should have hated it. I should have hated his possession, the claim he had made on me the moment we met.

I should have hated his words and his kisses and his collar around my neck.

But I didn’t, and I hated that, too.

“She didn’t seem like your witch when she was running from you as fast as she could, demon.” Helena’s taunting words filled me with a bizarre sense of guilt, and as I stared at Archer where he was cresting the hill before me, I could see that I probably should have been feeling fear.

Because Archer was pissed.

And not just a little. He glared at me, his dark eyes narrowed on the place where Helena’s knife rested under my chin, and the longer he stared, the angrier he appeared to get.

His demon was riding close to the surface, his eyes nearly completely black, his fingertips darkening as they lengthened into the claws I was now very familiar with. Behind his lips—the lips that had kissed me with such rough passion only hours ago—I could see a row of teeth, theirsharpened points now residing where his straight, white teeth had been before.

In his hand he held a silver knife, the ornately carved handle decorated with jewels, and the blade flashed dully in gray afternoon.

Archer was huge and hulking and more dangerous than I could have ever imagined.

And that did something to me on a visceral level. Something about knowing he was coming for me—feeling such passion for me—it changed me.

My thoughts had been careening from one extreme to the other for the past hour, my emotions completely out of my control in a way that I couldn’t explain. But suddenly, none of those early thoughts of betrayal seemed to matter in the least when I looked at his hauntingly beautiful face, so stern and angry.

He was coming for me, and I was so ready for whatever he had to offer.

“She is a slippery little witch,” he acknowledged, his narrowed eyes telling me that he would be punishing me for my little stunt, and I shivered in anticipation. “But she ismyslippery witch.”

As he stalked my way, his confident strides eating up the ground between us, I came to the conclusion that I was desperate for much more than a single kiss.

I wanted him. All of him.

But first, I had to stop a crazy witch from slitting my throat.

Sure. No problem.

Chapter twenty-eight

Delilah