Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2) by LeAnn Mason (book club reads .TXT) 📕

to understand, to acknowledge, to accept her role. “You belong with us. With me.”

When had his hand moved to her hair, fingers twisting the soft strands? Gliding along her pale cheek, a finger continued its wayward exploration as if Seke were merely a passenger in some runaway freight train… but this one might be headed for a cliff.

“Seke…”

His name on her full lips was enough invitation. He hadn’t dared hope when she called for him that she might not hate him, might even want to be with him still. He’d tried not to read too much into the kiss they’d shared in the gym. But here, now, his emotions were too much, and she had just given him the final push he needed; craved. She hadn’t forgotten about him, hadn’t moved on.

Grasping the nape of her neck, he pulled her to where they would meet — halfway. Control gone, eclipsed by the fear of losing her for good, he smashed his mouth to hers. The god’s normally calm, gentle demeanor was nowhere to be found as he seduced, ravaged, encouraged. He bit at her lower lip when it failed to open to him, soothing the sting with a lick when she gasped in pleasure.

The floodgates opened.

Aria struggled to crawl across the seat to meet him without separating their searching lips. When she was halfway over the console, he wrapped large hands around her pert ass and lifted her over him. She settled in a straddle across his lap, legs bent beneath her, allowing every inch of their bodies to press together.

Even when her rear pushed against the car horn, they didn’t stop. She let out a soft giggle that nearly made him groan. The noise spurred him on. He felt a thousand years younger, rebellious and spontaneous. He’d fallen into a cadence in life, moving, doing, being, but not really present. Everything about this woman revived the ancient god.

She was so soft and smooth; he couldn’t keep his hands from roving across every available inch as their tongues tangled. When her hands embedded in his hair, fists curling enough to tug at the strands, he could not curb the growl as he moved his lips to her jaw then down her throat. A hint of salt from her previous nerves added fervor to his attentions. He needed to clear the fear from her body, to purge it.

A sharp rap startled the pair from their unbridled haze, and their dazed gazes swung toward the window nearest them.

Seke noted with a hint of humor that the vehicle windows were all heavily fogged and nothing could be seen beyond the glass. They panted, their breaths the only sound within the confines.

Another tap, tap indicated he had not, in fact, imagined the intrusion.

“Time to move on, Mister Seker, unless you want me to charge you two with indecent exposure, lewd misconduct, or even public indecency.” Agent Lowe’s grating voice droned threateningly from beyond the fog.

Seke watched with annoyance as lucidity returned to Aria’s chiseled features and, with it, shame and regret. This time, she did not giggle.

Clambering from his lap as if it were a pit of vipers, and not one charmed python, she flung herself across the car into her former seat. “We should go. I’m tired.” She went about righting her clothes and buckling the seatbelt across her lap. Finger-combing her hair, she looked anywhere but at Seke.

He let out a heavy sigh and put the vehicle in reverse. The blood still hadn’t returned to his head as he drove from the lot and officially ended the most enticing encounter he’d had in a long, long time.

He had Aria safe, but he still didn’t have her, might never have her. Not since he had sent her away.

15

Cold, black eyes stared at me as empty and inviting as a bottomless pit. Just like a dank, dark well, slippery and wet, I couldn’t seem to crawl out of the inhuman depths. They were rimmed in skin as white and bloodless as a corpse, and below that, in my periphery, I watched lips lift and spread into a wide smile. A shiver trickled down my spine. The mouth would have been equally pale and lifeless if not for the thick layer of ruby-red that could have been mistaken for a coat of lipstick, without the droplet actively seeping from one corner and slipping down over his chin.

“I killed your parents,” the vampire’s voice sneered, his tone cold but smug. “We killed all the banshees. And you’re next.”

“No,” I heard myself moan. I couldn’t seem to move, just stare as he raised a knife and plunged it down. Blood spurted across my vision though I felt nothing.

The vampire laughed, and like breaking free from an invisible chain, I was released from my stupor, stumbling back and staring as he plunged the knife into a prone body over and over.

The corpse’s head turned toward me in a jerky movement that went against the normal shift of a spine. The druid’s dead eyes stared up at me, and her mouth opened. Eerie and tinny like the voices of the souls we escorted across the veil, the old woman spoke in a husky whisper. “Don’t get caught.”

Her face transformed as I gawked, shifting into my mother’s then my father’s then Seke’s.

“Why did you let yourself get caught?” His hazel irises glistened, and his baritone voice echoed strangely in my ears. The vampire continued to slash and hack, and droplets of crimson spattered Seke’s glorious face as he spoke calmly. “Why do you disregard the lessons?”

“I didn’t. I don’t,” I gasped, tears springing to my eyes as I trembled.

I launched forward, grappling at the vampire’s arms, trying to pull him off the body.

He vanished from beneath me as if into thin air, and I fell onto the body. Staring into my own ice-blue eyes, vacant and glassy, I let out an ear-piercing scream.

Seke’s face returned, and I let out another scream.

“Aria! Remember