Page 67 of Samhain Savior

The artifact that Asmodeus had sent me hunting for which I couldn’t give a single solitary fuck about, because my witch was bleeding and she wouldn’t let mehelp her.

“Delilah, just let me—” I coaxed, reaching over her shoulder to pluck the small diamond from the ground, but she swatted at my arm, hissing like a cat.

“I said it’s mine!”

“Alright,” I relented, the venom in her words surprising me. “It’s yours.”

“You can’t take it from me.”

I could, but not without hurting her, and for some ungodly reason, I was most reluctant to do that. Instead,I simply stepped back, trying to show her that I wasn’t a threat.

“Finally,” she breathed, her delicate fingers hovering over the diamond where it lay on the ground. “After all this time.”

When her fingers connected with the relic, she gasped, her whole body going stiff for a moment before she shuddered in relief. Letting out a sigh, Delilah shook her head, the rage and vitriol that had been pouring off of her a moment ago seeming to vanish in an instant.

It was as though all the fight had left her, and I wondered just how much influence the piece of the Fallen Key had been exuding on her.

“Please don’t take it,” she whispered dejectedly, sounding so very tired.

“I won’t take it, little witch, I just want to know if you’re alright.”

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t. The blood running down her neck from where fucking Helena had cut her proved that, but it appeared to be slowing, so I let it go.

For now.

“Witch,” I growled, my words quiet in the strange silence that surrounded us. “Look at me.”

Delilah finally raised her head, and I could see the exact moment she registered what she was looking at.

Me, in my true demon form.

She started at my feet, no longer encased in the expensive loafers I’d been wearing. Now, they looked animalistic, the thick tendons tracing down my ash-colored skin and ending in claws on each toe. Looking higher, she caught sight of my claws, the darkened skin she was already familiar with now reaching nearly to my shoulder as the thick black nails gleamed in the low light. Her eyes widened as she finally looked at my face, taking in the very obvious horns that now sprouted from my skull.

“You...you’re—”

“A demon,” I finished flatly, trying not to let her shock wound me. “You knew this already.”

“I—I know, I just never expected...” She trailed off, licking her lips and swallowing heavily as she continued to stare at me. It took everything I had not to fidget under her gaze. I hated that I didn’t know what she was thinking. Was she disgusted by me? Did seeing my true form make her want to run screaming into the night?

Or was I imaging the way her pupils dilated and her heartbeat began to quicken?

Needing to know for certain, I stretched my wings, widening them behind me with a sharp snap.

“Fuck,” I groaned, the sensation foreign after so long earth-side. While I could access my demon form on the earthly plane, it wasn’t something I did often. It felt good to finally work those muscles again, and I arched my back, letting the feeling of having my wings free again fill me.

As I worked them, Delilah let out a soft gasp, her mouth popping open, and my gaze zeroed in on it. I’d been thinking of almost nothing else since the kiss I’d stolen only hours earlier, my mind not ready to relinquish the memory of the taste of her plump lips against mine. How had I become so fucked up over her in such a short time?

And what the fuck was I going to do when she rejected me?

“Archer,” Delilah breathed, but instead of the revulsion that I had expected, her words were filled with quiet awe. “You’re...beautiful.”

I froze, wings still wide, my mind not fully registering her words.

Beautiful? Was it possible? In all my years, in all my interactions with partners of differing genders—and several of different species, as well—I’d been described many ways, but I didn’t recall beautiful ever being one of them.

Rolling the word around in my mind, I found I liked it.