Page 38 of Temptation Unleashed (Talaenian Fae #3)

T he temperature dropped with that growled warning.

Goosebumps slithered across her skin and a tremor quaked her to the core.

The familiar breeze that coasted through the walkways of the apartment complex died along with the suffocating humidity, the traffic noise from the streets and parking lots muted.

She felt like she was in a bubble, the fast-flowing blood in her veins creating a whooshing sound in her ears that muffled everything.

Time may have stood still for all she knew, because for the longest moment, it felt like the world stopped.

Everything…stopped.

The barrel retreated from her back. Slowly, with a painful swallow, she finally turned around, pressing her back to the door.

Her eyes were instantly drawn to the ice blues that held her with a steady, lethal gaze.

They glowed fiercely, the only hint to his emotions obscured behind flickering hues of azure and silver.

It was the first time she’d ever seen silver in his eyes, a silver that glinted in time with his blade.

A reflection of his weapon. His face was a mask of pure beautiful ice, not a single hint to his thoughts etched into his perfect skin, but the lack of expression reinforced the threat in his warning.

Faint webs of blue skittered down his blade.

“Go inside?—”

Rich swung his elbow back into Thaddeus’s ribs. Thaddeus shuffled back without a crack in his expression, but Rori swore she felt an echo of pain in her own ribs. Rich swung around, whipping his gun upward.

“Stop!” Rori shrieked, lunging toward Rich as Thaddeus leaned back, out of reach of the attack. A ghostly grin teased Thaddeus’s lips.

Rich cut his arm down, the butt of the gun cracking into Rori’s cheek, spinning her around as she gaped in shock.

The world went gray, stars flashing in front of her. Excruciating pain ripped up and down her head. She gasped, the coppery taste of blood trickling across her tongue. She staggered, somehow staying on her feet as the corridor around her tilted but started to come back into focus.

Numbness suddenly pushed the pain aside.

“The Devil don’t scare me. What makes you think you do?” Rich taunted.

Rori blinked until the gray faded. Half a dozen feet in front of her, Rich held the gun steadily pointing at Thaddeus’s forehead, Thaddeus with the tip of his dagger beneath Rich’s chin.

A potential stalemate, if both were human.

Thaddeus had placed his body between her and Rich, a shield.

His fingers casually readjusted against the pearly hilt of his dagger, those webs of blue magic pulsing with feral life, waiting for their master to give his command.

Did Rich notice the magic-imbued blade? Or was the power of Thaddeus’s weapon glamoured?

“Pretty boys like you are fucking pussies in the face of death. ”

Rori’s gaze dropped to Thaddeus’s slowly twisting fingers by his side. Dark tendrils of smoky magic licked at his skin, curling, coiling, weaving between his fingers. Thickening as they crept up his hand, his wrist.

Rich laughed, another crazed sound as his eyes flashed like a madman. “Come on, pretty boy. What’s your fucking business with my woman? Crossed a line, you did, and you’ll eat steel for it.”

She grabbed his forearm when she realized exactly what his intentions were with his magic. Desperation cinched her chest as he cast her a side-glance without taking his full attention from Rich.

“Don’t do it,” she pleaded quietly. “Not for me.”

Rich snickered, a cruel, evil sound.

The distinct bang of the gun deafened her.

Or was it her scream?

In a fraction of a second, she was in her bedroom with no recollection of getting there, except for the lingering scent of Thaddeus and an uncharacteristic blast of air.

She spun around, searching for him, desperate to know he was okay.

The side of her face remained numb, allowing her mind enough clarity to draw conclusions about what the outcome of this standoff would be.

Thaddeus was ruthless. He was lethal. He took no prisoners.

She’d learned that last night.

And if she dared to gamble, if it came to her safety, anyone who threatened her would end up as all those evil Fae had.

Dead.

The mortal had no time to register the split moment Thaddeus left him to try and escape.

In that fractional time, he delivered Rori to her room and returned, sifting him and the mortal far from the apartments.

A cement jetty beneath an overpass Cael had showed him earlier.

A good place to drop a body without drawing suspicion.

With the bullet spinning slowly at the mouth of the barrel, a plume of powder blossoming at a painfully slow pace, Thaddeus grinned. His lips peeled back from his teeth.

The mortal’s confidence drained, as did the red in his face and the cocky gleam in his eyes. He looked down, his eyes widening. He kicked his legs, which dangled many feet above the river waters as Thaddeus held him suspended in the air.

“W-what the fuck?”

“You talk too much, human.”

Thaddeus manipulated the man’s mouth and tongue, pulling the muscle from between his lips with simple magic.

His mouth curled as he sliced his blade, cutting out the man’s tongue.

Blood poured from the severed flesh, a fountain of red over his chin.

The man tried to slap his hand across his mouth, but Thaddeus held his arms frozen in place, one holding the gun in the position he had fired it, the other at his side.

A howl exploded through the night.

Thaddeus chuckled. He dangled the severed tongue in front of the man’s face. His pitiful tears fed a sickening fuel to Thaddeus’s dark heart.

“ You crossed a line this eve.”

He magically reattached the mortal’s tongue, but made certain the pain of the amputation continued at full strength.

He flipped the dagger in his hand and brought the edge of the blade to the mortal’s throat.

The man tilted his chin up, trying to escape the pressure Thaddeus applied.

Slowly, he began to draw the blade across the mortal’s neck, flaying him open.

The man’s eyes widened further as he gurgled on blood.

Blood in his mouth. Blood filling his throat.

A river of red.

“ No one harms my woman.”

Thaddeus leaned close to the man, balancing on the edge of the jetty.

“Let me make one thing clear. I am not your Devil.” Thaddeus began to break down the glamour hiding his true appearance from the mortal as he healed the damage of his blade.

He’d be sure this disgusting creature suffered in his final moments, and the fear that rose in his eyes as he witnessed the impossible assured Thaddeus the bloody bastard would scream in his mortal Hell for eternity. “I’m far worse.”

“W-what are you?!” the man screeched. His legs kicked wildly, his shoulders shifting in an effort to release his arms from the magical restraints.

“I believe you’d call me…”

He manipulated the man’s gun hand, twisting his wrist until the barrel and its leisurely expulsing bullet aimed at the mortal’s temple. The man thrashed, huffing, whimpering, his eyes flicking between the bullet and Thaddeus.

“Death.”

He released his magic from the bullet and guided the scalding steel straight into the mortal’s temple, an agonizing pace to anticipate one’s own death approach.

The ice in his blood consumed him as he held the mortal’s fearful gaze as the bullet touched his skin and burrowed through his skull, his brain, and out the opposite side of his head.

He watched the life snuff from his eyes, his pupils dilating, his last breath shuddering from his lips.

He tilted his head, observing the dead man hanging limp in the air, a thin stream of blood trekking to split on either side of his nose.

“Hm.”

With a flick of his wrist, the body plummeted into the water with a sharp smack.

Worry needled back into his mind as the ice melted and his magic ebbed. He sifted back to Rori’s apartment, her room, and bloody near panicked when he didn’t find her where he’d left her. Rushing into the main living space, he tore through the apartment.

“Rori!”

Goddess, why couldn’t he calm himself? Why did his heart beat furiously, muddling his thoughts? What were these feelings? This desperation?

He backtracked to the bedroom. Relief, dizzying relief overwhelmed him when Rori burst from the bathroom, wet hair a fiery cape of waves around her pale face and narrow shoulders, dressed in flimsy cloth that barely covered her.

Her top sat disheveled, dipping low over one breast, lifted at one hip.

Steam followed her out of the room like a train as those pillowy lips parted on a gasp and she rushed to him.

Rushed. The unfiltered concern in her eyes created a cacophony of emotions, all funneling through his chest.

She grabbed the opening of his shirt where he’d left it unbuttoned and tugged it down, exposing the light scars over his chest. Her fingers brushed over his skin, hot and wet from her shower, but his attention shifted to the blossoming purple bruise over her swollen right cheek.

He lowered her hand from his chest and cupped her face, swallowing down the darkness he’d realized spread every time danger threatened his woman.

His lips tightened as he fed his healing magic into her wound .

My anam cara.

“You need to take care not to make a target of yourself and get hurt .”

He all but growled the words, unable to restrain the fury her injuries induced.

The bastard human was dead, but his woman bore marks left by his hand.

The moment the gun hit her cheek, Goddess help him, he had nearly lost control of himself, his magic.

He was ready to destroy the entire building over her pain.

’Twas solely because of her he maintained his control.

Her plea not to use his magic, the magic that would have destroyed the mortal in a vile manner.