“Wow.” She grinned up at me with reckless abandon. I was so dumbstruck, so confused that I forgot to even respond to her, just stared her down in awe. “It’s beautiful! How did you know I loved roses?”
“I didn’t.” I found my voice. “But to be fair, who hates them?”
Her smile was addicting, just like her voice. She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and shrugged. “Lots of people fail to appreciate the beauty of this world.”
“You’re not one of those people.”
“No.” She spread her arms wide and did a little twirl then faced me. “You’re beautiful too. Angry, but beautiful.”
“I’m not angry,” I snapped.
Her eyebrows rose as if to challenge me.
I sighed. “I’m not. Angry that is. I’m just cautious.”
“Hmmm.” She seemed to find that interesting. And I found the way she reacted to everything fascinating. I reached out to touch her then jerked my hand back.
What the hell was I doing?
“Saw that,” she said without looking up at me. “So I have something to tell you, and I’m not sure how you’re going to take it so I’m just going to say it, all right?”
I frowned. “All right…” Even then, my skin buzzed with the need to touch hers, to hold her in that place, against my chest.
I would have fallen in love with every hair on her head if she let me, with every inch of that body, with every flaw, every success. I would have loved her until my life was over.
My soul knew she was mine.
And I wanted so badly to take.
I focused on the smell of roses, on her inquisitive green eyes, on the way that she playfully bounced from one foot to the other without realizing it.
On the smell of cinnamon as she moved the air between us.
“Okay,” She took a deep breath. “Like a Band-Aid. Just rip it off.”
I smirked. “Is that what you meant to tell me? What’s a… band… aid?”
She waved her hand in front of me, “Never mind, look, I’m not Kyra. I mean I am Kyra and I’m here as Kyra, shit this isn’t going well,” I laughed at her curse, wishing all human women were this adorable, and then realizing it would be death to us if they were. “So, okay, my boss…” She winced. “My friend, the person that…” She frowned. “He’s a demon.”
“Demon,” I repeated, looking around. “A demon is your friend.”
“Right.” She licked her lips, I was momentarily distracted by her pink tongue, my focus was horrible, wasn’t it? “He was cursed. He keeps saying he’s the last of the first or the first of the last.”
I stiffened immediately. I knew what that meant… did she?
“Anyway, he’s dying. He has this tattoo in the middle of his hand. It has an eye and then branches.”
My entire body went still. This was bad, very bad. This meant my father had done the unthinkable. He’d trapped the soul of a god, sending it into hibernation. But why?
“The branches are taking over.” She kept talking. “He passed out, and we were sent to fix what he did wrong, to fix…” Her eyes locked on mine. “…what you did wrong.”
I jerked my head in her direction. “What I did wrong?”
“You.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I’m trying to save you.”
“I’m right here.” I panicked at the sight of her sadness. Was she losing her mind?
“No, the you in the future. You’re a Demon King. You look almost identical save the height, and you said you borrowed a soul to feel, and you kept saying I needed to remember, that we needed to remember, so an angel sent us back. We just have to make a different choice about… something, and you’ll be fine, I think.”