Sins of the Flesh

“Funny, I wouldn’t have thought we were anything alike, but I’m a no-strings sort of guy myself.” His eyes glittered. “Until now. I want you, Calliope. And not for an hour. I want something more, and I have no idea how or why that happened.”


And she had no idea what she wanted. Because everything was upside down. The certainties she had lived with for decades had evaporated. The Asetian Guard was her job, her allegiance, her life. She’d spent a hundred and fifty years believing that soul reapers had murdered her family and stolen her childhood.

In her reality, soul reapers were the enemy.

Suddenly, she had to get used to a new truth. She was on her own. Several weeks ago, a soul reaper, Dagan Krayl, had saved her life. And now Mal had done so again. Two debts she owed to those she had long imagined to be the enemy of her kind. Her personal enemy.

“We don’t have to plan the whole future, Calli. We can just live one moment at a time. They’ll add together into an hour and then a day, and slowly we’ll build months and years. Building blocks.”

“Why?”

The smile he offered was so taut, she thought it might split like an overwound guitar string. “This is going to sound majorly fucked—” he held up his hand palm forward “—but hear me out. I was in love once. A long time ago. Her name was Elena. It was before I knew that I was Sutekh’s spawn. Back then, I just thought I was one dumb-lucky mortal. I went away. She disappeared. I didn’t know she was dead and I looked for her for ten years before I found out she’d been raped and murdered within a week of my leaving.”

The look on her face said it all.

He accepted her sympathy and continued. “I mourned her. I missed her. But I wasn’t eternally scarred by her loss. I didn’t play the melodrama card. But her death shaped me.” He paused and stared hard at her. “I couldn’t protect her. And she couldn’t protect herself.”

A band tightened around her chest and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe and her heart couldn’t beat. He couldn’t possibly mean—

“I can protect myself,” she said, the words sliding free though she ought to have held them back.

“Yeah.” One corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s exactly my point.”

He held her gaze for what felt like an eternity, then he went on. “I was one hell of a slut after that. Hard-core. One woman. Two. Hell, I’d bed five at once. They had fun. I had fun. They didn’t care about me. I didn’t care about them.”

Something inside her unfurled at his words and tone.

“You didn’t think less of your partners.” She let nothing of her emotions leach into her tone.

“And they didn’t think less of me.”

Seconds ticked past, and then she said, “I thought less of myself. I had no choice if I wanted to survive. It was blood or sex.”

“And with the memory of the demon drinking your father’s blood guiding your choices, you went for nameless, emotionless sex.”

“Yes.”

He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers, watching her intently. “With me, Calli, you never have to choose again. Blood and sex. With me, you can have both.”

His words and his tone seduced her. He made it sound so easy.

She looked directly into his eyes, pewter and ash. She drank in his features. Firm lips, Straight nose. The thin, white scar that cut through the dark stubble that shadowed his jaw.

He was incredibly beautiful.

After all she had lost, she supposed she owed herself that. His incredible beauty.

Perhaps in a different time she would have made her excuses. I’m not really this sort of girl. I don’t usually do this.

But, really, what was the point?

At this precise, perfect moment in time, she had no one to answer to but herself. And there was no question but that she wanted him.

Her gaze slid down his body. His shirt clung to his leanly muscled torso. His pants fit to perfection. She was left with no doubt as to his inclination. There was a solid ridge outlined beneath the cloth.

“You’re mad. We—” she made a gesture to encompass both of them “—this isn’t anything. It’s your male pride. Because I walked away from you that first night. Because I left you disappointed. You want payback.”

“You think?” He bared his teeth in a smile that was positively savage. “Then let’s get that out of the way and prove your theory, because I disagree. This has nothing to do with my bruised ego and everything to do with you.” He gestured back and forth between the two of them. “Us.”

“There is no us.”

He laughed. “Yeah. There is.”

In a blink, he had her backed up against the wall, his fingers curling around her hips. He dipped his face to her neck and breathed in against her skin, and her whole body clenched in response.

“Push me away,” he said. “Tell me no. This is the one chance you get.” He drew back enough that she could see his eyes, the pupils dilated and dark, leaving the irises a thin gray rim. “After this, I’m in charge.”

She knew all the things she should do. Say no. Push him away. Get as far from him as she could.