Again the stunner conquered the distance, trying to refit her mouth over his. “I’m kissing you. Now kiss me back.”
“No.” Frowning, he set her away from him, and this time, he held her in place. His wings were tucked into his sides, though they arced backward, away from the female. Snowflakes rained from their tips, tiny crystals that formed little piles on the floor. “Why are you kissing me?”
The girl’s sensual confidence died a slow, torturous death. “Because you hunger for me as I have hungered for you these past few months?” A question when she’d probably meant it to be a statement.
“I do not hunger for you, Jamila.”
Ouch. There was such brutal honesty in his tone, even Annabelle flinched.
“But you said…” Jamila floundered. “I thought…”
Oh, honey. Just walk away before he does more than trample on your pride, Annabelle thought, sympathy for the girl momentarily superseding her anger with Zacharel.
“I said nothing to make you think I desired you,” he stated with the same coldness that always infused his words. “You simply assumed. Therefore, now I will tell you plainly. I do not want you. I have never wanted you, and I will never want you.”
Okay, so, wrong again. The man had no feelings.
A sob parted the woman’s lips, and she spun on her heel, her wings expanding in a burst of movement. Hers possessed far less gold than Zacharel’s, but they were lovely nonetheless. She shot into the air and out of the cloud.
He faced the screen Annabelle still watched, and she knew he was headed into her room. Not wanting to be caught spying, she waved the TV screen away. “Go!”
The air thinned, until only the cloud wall remained.
A second later, Zacharel stepped through that wall, seeming to appear out of a forbidden midnight dream far better than the ones she’d entertained. Thick, silken black hair tumbled down a flawless forehead and into a gaze that studied her with unwavering intensity. Though his features had been painted with a brush of youth, he appeared beyond ancient, the wintry green of his eyes seeing everything, missing nothing.
A long, white robe draped him, somehow displaying his incredible strength, and oh, oh, oh, but he had brought the chill of the Arctic with him. She drew her arms around her middle for warmth.
He looked her over. Something passed over his expression, something she couldn’t read, before he carefully blanked his features. “You are well.”
I will not be intimidated, and I absolutely will not be awed by his appearance. Annabelle forced herself to unleash the ire she’d been nursing. “And you are a douche. You made me a prisoner, after I told you I’d rather die!”
Far from intimidated, he said, “That is no way to speak to me, Annabelle. I am in a dangerous mood.”
Like she wasn’t? “Well, well, the mighty Zacharel actually feels something,” she said snippily. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”
“It is not Christmas, and I suggest you sweeten your tone. Otherwise, I might take you at your word and kill you. How about that?”
She gasped, stepped back until she hit the edge of the bed and almost fell. “You wouldn’t dare. Not after you went to so much trouble to save me.”
Stark self-loathing darkened his eyes. “I killed my own brother, Annabelle. There is no one I will not take down.”
Wait, wait, wait. He’d done what? “You’re lying.” He had to be lying.
He snapped his teeth at her, reminding her of an injured animal in too much pain to accept aid from anyone. “I do not lie. There is no need. People lie because they worry over the consequences of admitting the truth. I worry over nothing. People lie because they wish to impress those around them. I seek to impress no one. You would be wise to remember that.”
How was this the same man who had cared for her so sweetly? “Why did you kill your brother?”
“That is none of your concern.”
She persisted. “How did you kill your brother?”
Silence.
“An accident?”