Demon's Embrace by V. J. Devereaux Read Free Book Online Page B

she’d believed in love at first sight, had somehow always believed she’d find it, despite the relationships that hadn’t worked out. As insane as it might have sounded to someone else, somehow she knew he was the one for whom she’d been waiting.
    It was strange but oddly comforting to have someone be so protective of her.
    “This is all real?” she said, abruptly.
    As weary as she was, it all seemed strangely surreal.
    Ash reached out and drew her to him. His body was warm, solid.
    “As real as I am.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
    Warmth filled her, eased her anxieties.
    Miri slid her arms around him. There was strength and power in him, and not just physical but mental as well. She rested her head against his chest, listened to the steady rhythm of his heart, and sighed.
    For a moment he stroked her hair, then he slid his fingers into it and tipped her head back to look at him.
    His eyes were lambent in the darkness, sparks of gold and red danced in them.
    When his lips brushed hers the touch was heartbreakingly gentle.
    “You should sleep while you can,” he said.
    Taking a deep breath, she nodded.
    “Why are you doing this?” She looked up into his glowing eyes.
    “At first because my people needed you,” he said, honestly. “But now because I do.”
    It was enough.
    The sleeping bag was thickly padded, downy, not quite as comfortable as a bed, but better by far than the ground. She looked at him, his shoulder propped against a tree. Her eyes drifted shut as her visions of him ran through her mind like dreams. Not all of it had been bad. There were other Daemonae in them, some he was close to, one in particular. In distant memory there had been a woman with eyes like his, and in recent memory, a woman with silver hair and piercing blue eyes.
    She slept.
    Ash, his hearing as preternatural as his eyesight, listened as Miri’s breathing evened out. The light from the streetlight cast enough illumination to see her curled within the sleeping bag, only her face and that brilliant hair visible. One hand was tucked by her cheek, the fingers curled. He couldn’t see the golden dusting of freckles across her nose.
    In the darkness, unseen, he shook his head. He’d long given up on finding a mate. It wasn’t just his body that was scarred but his soul. To find her now…
    A part of him couldn’t really believe it, even as a rush of protectiveness, of tenderness, spread through him like a tide of warmth. It was impossible, and yet he couldn’t deny what he felt.
    He could face all manner of battles, even his own death, he feared what she promised more. Or rather, he feared she wouldn’t have him.
    Deliberately, he turned his thoughts away from that, concentrated on the matter at hand.
    She would be hungry when she woke and he was hungry now. With a gesture, he conjured up a box of energy bars from his pantry at home. As much as he liked to cook, he hated to do it for just himself, so such things were almost all he ate unless he took meals with some of the others or Asmodeus and Gabriel.
    They were relatively tasteless but taste was hardly a concern. He ate about ten. Absently he balled each wrapper up and unerringly tossed the little wrappers into the nearby trashcan. It was hardly a challenge.
    He stuck a few in his pocket, reserving them for Miri when she woke.
    It was just a little while before dawn with the sky still dark but the horizon growing a little light when he first saw the cars approach.
    Traffic at that hour was thin and the two cars whipped in and out of the lines of vehicles.
    Knowing that he liked to do much the same if the road was clear enough, Ash held still, observing.
    They flashed by, two dark-colored cars with no distinguishable markings, tinted windshields and a lot more power beneath the hood than most would suspect.
    Just as suddenly, he saw their brake lights flash, even as the flow of traffic caught up to them once again – and that at least partly because they’d slowed