Demon's Kiss by Eve Silver Read Free Book Online

think; he just moved. Two steps and he was close enough to catch a shimmering curl between his thumb and forefinger. With a gasp, she turned her head, her brown eyes bright as she studied him. She didn’t pull away, and he sensed her confusion. She could not understand her body’s call, the desperate drive to touch him, the half-crazed need that gnawed at her.
    Hell, he barely understood it himself. Such was the stuff of legends, of faded dusty tomes from a time before the Pact, before even his time. This link between souls could only happen between two of magic synergy. But Clea Masters was human. . . .
    She could not possibly be other than human.
    For thousands of years, the Compact of Sorcerers had guarded the realms, standing against the demons, holding fast to the Pact —the agreement of protection forged between ancient beings so powerful that they defied even Ciarran’s understanding. Long-dead tribes had called them gods.
    Sorcerers were not human; they protected humans. In all his life and all the lore, Ciarran knew of none who had walked over the line from human to immortal. A child of two sorcerers was born a sorcerer. Such a birth was a rare and unusual occurrence.
    When a sorcerer procreated with a mortal—an equally extraordinary occurrence—the child was invariably human. A kernel of magic might bloom, the faintest spark that might allow for a small amount of precognition, but the child was mortal.
    Which made Clea Masters something of an impossible anomaly. She was human. And not human.
    He still held the glossy strands of her hair, and she still held his gaze.
    Surprise, he thought wryly. He’d come north in pursuit of the minor demon, Darqun’s mention of the dead grandmother and the girl a vague, gnawing issue that Ciarran intended to deal with once the immediacy of the demon-keeper was addressed. Now it turned out that the two concerns had melded into one.
    Christe. Clea was the damned conduit.
    The minor demon had not meant to feed upon her; it had meant to take her to the gate. She was the instrument, the key. This was no surprise. He had surmised as much from the demon’s babble.
    No. The surprise was inside her. And inside him.
    He knew her, was part of her. Certainty bubbled through him. On a dark, deserted road with death hanging heavy in the air, he had made a mistake, a miscalculation. Not enough to damn the world. Just enough to damn himself.
    Just enough to cost him his hand. And a chunk of his sanity. He flexed his fingers in their leather-and-alloy prison.
    Slowly, he let go the strand of Clea’s hair, and she exhaled on a sigh. Shifting his touch to her cheek, he healed the burn with a thought and a subtle touch of magic, felt the smallest quiver in her body. Not fear. Desire. His touch made her tremble, and he felt the answering tension low in his gut.
    How could he explain this to her? How could he explain it to himself?
    Clea Masters was his. His by right. His by ancient claim. His by the bond that pulsed between them, hot and wild. And his because she wanted it so. She allowed this attraction to him, which made his own need swell.
    He had marked her, branded her with one rash act when, in a reckless moment of lost concentration on an empty road some two decades past, he’d broken every rule of the Pact and saved a human child from death.
    No, that was not the truth.
    The truth was that the human child had reached out, seeing what she should not possibly be able to see, catching his magic in her tiny hands, dragging it from him, using it to heal wounds that should never have healed.
    Stealing his power while he watched, dumbfounded.
    The human child had saved herself, while he had battled an ancient demon. And lost.
    And now the grandmother had died, and Darqun had sent him to find the child.
    Only she was no longer a child. Here she was, all grown-up, sitting on the edge of a rickety desk, watching him with a sultry hunger that made him feel a dark and aching lust.
    Clea Masters.