Page 25 of Thane's Demon

“It’s you,”she whispered softly. Her voice trembled not with fear, but something far more dangerous…recognition.It was as if she already knew me, and the demon purred because of it.

‘Stay.

Hold her.

Keep her.’

I should have stepped back. I should have let her go. I should have done anything but stand there, sinking deeper into the heatof her proximity. The scent of her skin, the way her fingers clung to my jacket like she had been waiting for someone to catch her all along.

But I didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

Not until she finally pulled her hands away as if suddenly aware of how closely she was pressed to me. She murmured a soft and breathless apology. Her cheeks flushed with a warmth that made my demon coil possessively beneath my skin. She stepped back, but only barely, as if unsure of how to distance herself from whatever had sparked between us.

My voice came out lower than I intended, roughened by everything I was holding back.

“You should watch where you’re going.” A weak deflection. A pathetic attempt to ground myself. A coward’s way out of admitting how she actually made me feel, protecting myself against the hurt and rejection that she had the power to inflict. Power I knew she already held, but one that I was determined to hide behind a veil of indifference.

She nodded quickly, flustered, the movement tugging loose a curl that drifted across her cheek. She didn’t notice it, but I did.I noticed everything.Yet, no matter how abrupt I was with her, she didn’t turn away and run from me.

Her eyes lifted again. They were wide as she searched my face with a boldness I had not expected from someone who trembled like a frightened heartbeat in my hand’s only seconds ago.

She swallowed hard, her voice unsteady but earnest as it broke the charged silence between us.

“Were you… following me?”

The question wasn’t angry.

It wasn’t frightened.

It was uncertain, as if she didn’t know whether she wanted the answer to be yes or no.

Something in my chest pulled tight, a sharp twist of instinct and hope I never allowed myself to feel. I should have stepped back. I should have denied everything. I should have been the monster she thought she bumped into by chance.

But her gaze held me still.

Her warmth lingered on my palms.

Her scent curled through the air.

Her heartbeat echoed in my skull like a distant drum calling me home.

Fuck, but I wanted her! I wanted her so badly it felt like my insides were churning, and that part had nothing to do with my demon, even as it still spoke to me now.

‘Ours.

Touch her.

Claim her.’

“Well?” she asked, actually folding her arms and arching a brow as she looked up at me. The action made me smirk and decide right then and there to be honest with her, which was why my reply came before I could stop it. One that was nothing short of a challenge, as I told her…

“And if I was… what are you going to do about it…”

“Little prey?”

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