“Stop.” He pressed me down and folded me into the blanket again. A heaviness settled beside me a breath later. Two large arms wound around my body, tugging me closer, his chin resting on my head. He looped a leg over my hip, securing our connection.
He felt like fire. And I was already burning. I tried to roll out from under him, aiming for the ground. I wanted to crawl under the floorboards and bury myself in the earth like an animal deep in hibernation. Wrath’s grip never faltered; I was trapped against his body. And, with his supernatural strength, no amount of struggling would break his grasp if he chose to hold on. Survival kicked in—I became a feral cat clawing at the one trying to cage me.
Wrath’s arms were twin bands of steel.
“Get off me.”
“No.”
“Didn’t your maker teach you proper ways of treating women?”
“Live through the night and I’ll respect your wishes then,” he snapped.
“You don’t understand…” I was mad with fury and wild with the need to move. His arms tightened around me, but never painfully so. “I need to be in the earth. I have to go below ground now.”
“That’s a common symptom of hypothermia. The feeling will pass when you’re stable again.” He slid an arm behind my shoulders and angled me up. “Sip this. Now.”
His tone indicated that he’d pinch my nose and force it down my throat if I didn’t listen. Coddling nursemaid he was not. I took a tentative sip of warm liquid and held in a scream. Everything was too hot. Wrath lowered me back onto a pillow and slowly pulled another blanket on me. It was featherlight but hurt tremendously. Pain intensified until it was all I knew.
I clamped my teeth together, trying to force the chattering to stop. Blessedly, mere moments after drinking the liquid, I drifted in and out of various degrees of consciousness. I wondered what he’d put in the drink to make me drowsy but couldn’t muster enough energy to feel threatened. If he wanted me dead, he would have let nature handle that deed.
Movement drew me out of my fevered battle with lucidity sometime later. I forgot where I was. Who I was with. Warm light gilded a large silhouette.
I squinted, wondering who had sent an angel. Then I remembered. If the heavenly being staring down at me had ever been an angel, he was something other now. Something to be feared and avoided. Something that made hearts pound and knees quake.
He was as forbidden as the fruit offered to Eve, but somehow even more tempting.
In a dreamlike state, I watched Wrath perform the most peculiar tasks. Refilling a mug of warm liquid. Helping me sip it until a honeyed heat slowly spread through me. Peaceful and calming, a direct contrast from the inferno I’d felt earlier. He fussed with more blankets. Stoked wood in a massive fireplace across from a bed made of midnight. The sheets were the white and silver of shooting stars. They were strangely familiar, though I’d never seen them.
At one point I rolled over to face him and stared at a sheen of sweat glistening on his bare skin. Sometime during the night he’d removed the two amulets. He was tucked into the blankets, too, arms wrapped around me in a comfortable embrace, his body heat fueling mine. He was extraordinary. And it had nothing to do with his physical appearance.
I dragged my attention up to his eyes. Black flecks dotted his gold irises like tiny stars circling his pupils. He watched me inspect his features, his focus scanning my face in the same intent way. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me, how he felt.
“Sometimes,” my voice came out scratchy and soft, “sometimes I think I want to be your friend. Despite the past. Maybe aligning ourselves, our separate Houses, is something to consider.”
His jaw tightened, as if the mere idea of friendship or an alliance was appalling. “Rest.”
Fire now blazed in the room and my lids closed as if he’d commanded them to obey. The world grew foggy. “Wrath…” I wanted to say “thank you” but my words were stolen by sleep.
He spoke in whispers and hushed tones. Smoothed hair from my face with his big, tattooed hand. It felt like he was sharing a secret—something vital. Important in a way that would forever change my reality. I burrowed closer, straining to listen. His voice rumbled through me like a distant storm, trying to shake something awake before it went slumbering again.
I couldn’t retain anything and drifted off once more.
The next time I awoke, Wrath’s side of the bed was empty. Without his massive body, and constant glowering or not-so-gentle fussing, the room felt too big.
A room.
I sucked in a sharp breath, instantly alert. The worst of my delirium was gone, and reality felt like a mountain crashing down on me. Wrath had taken me to… I wasn’t sure. I didn’t get a good look at where I was yesterday. I wiped the remnants of sleep from my eyes and stared up at a smattering of constellations. They were wholly unexpected.
I blinked at them—the ceiling had been painted to look like a sky full of stars. Though that wasn’t quite right, either. On closer inspection, the constellations were actually tiny lights glowing softly in a ceiling painted a bruised shade of dark blue.
I swept my attention around the chamber. It was enormous. Elegant.
The walls were a pure snowy white with panels of decorative molding and trim, and the massive fireplace across from the bed was edged in silver that reflected the flames in its shiny surface. A giant, ornate mirror hung above it. Silver sconces sat to either side of the mantel. Another identical set was on the wall behind the bed. I was surprised to see silver and not Wrath’s signature gold, though I had a suspicion the metal was actually white gold.
A dark blue rug exactly matched the hue of the ceiling, and the bed seemed to be carved from the same gemstone that surrounded the gates of Hell. Layered on top of the dark carpet was a yellow rug woven through with gold thread.