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And speaking of which . . .
“As much as I can appreciate your enthusiasm, what’s with all the— Mmph!”
She drew his shirt over his head, stealing his question as well as his few remaining protective barriers. “This is all my fault! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I should have brought you here immediately and not have wasted time fighting with my father while you stood there, bleeding and brave as you were.”
“Clara, for the last time, I’m fine. I’m immortal, remember?” He tried to grab up her arms, but she was already kneeling over his shoulder, pressing him back into the mattress, with some foul-smelling salve in one hand and a fist full of gauze in the other.
“Oh, this one’s not too bad, actually. It looks like the skin’s already begun stitching closed. Fascinating,” she said, and he had to hold back a chuckle to keep from rocking his body any closer to her breasts, which swayed behind those laces that would take no more than a bite to sever. Maybe two.
Stay still, asshole. Stay absolutely perfectly sti?—
“Who is Polina?” Clara’s voice took on a quiet resonance. “And why is her name tattooed over your heart?”
Chapter 16
Clara didn’t move. She wasn’t sure whether her joints locking up was out of fear of what those six tiny shimmering letters on Bronze’s skin represented or due to the plane of tense muscle supporting them. A damning heat prickled her skin, and she tried to avert her gaze. But where? She was practically lying on top of the male. Every corner her eye searched out only came away with more of that smooth, taut skin stretched over bounding muscles that jumped beneath her fingers every time she prodded a tender patch.
And tender it was. The slashes from the coyote bite that extended down his shoulder and over his collarbone weren’t particularly deep—or, at least, they weren’t any longer—but they left a precarious trail toward a tight disc of a nipple. One that seemed to tighten further beneath her labored breaths.
Somewhere between the travesty of the coyote’s cruel marks and the tempting treasure that kept a taut rein on her awareness lay the scrawling script of another female’s name.
Then the hot talons of mortification sank into her.
He had a sweetheart. Another female. True, they’d both made it clear that affection was not a factor in their agreement, but she’d never considered that the reason they hadn’t discussed it was because he already had a female who satisfied his needs in that regard.
The realization flooded fresh heat to her cheeks. Honestly, could you be more of a fool if you tried?
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.” On weak arms, she pushed herself off the bed, already regretting that her shame shone clear as day on her face.
He grabbed her wrist and tugged gently. “No, it’s all right.”
Bronze sat up and shifted so he made space for her beside him. His tightly packed abdominals contracted beneath the weight of his hunched shoulders. Then he ran his fingers through his hair, and that strange flash of citrine sparked in his gaze. A gaze that was notably not directed at her.
“Polina was . . . a sister.”
“A sister?” The confession surprised her, though it shouldn’t have if she’d been better at following the threads of her most recent experiences more closely. After she awoke in the angels’ infirmary room, Bronze had formally introduced himself and the others. How had he referred to them? His brothers and extended family. So it shouldn’t be strange he also had a sister, right?
The realization should have been a comfort, but then why had her muscles ceased to relax?
“Before my brothers and I landed in the mortal realm, we resided in the Empyrean, Heaven’s highest realm, as I’ve mentioned before. The angels you’ve met at our den are all sentinels like me, except for Rhode. He was the seraphim commander in charge of the most elite intelligence unit but is a brother just the same.”
Clara nodded her understanding and was doing her best to stay focused. There were just so many words and phrases she’d never heard before. It was a hard-to-swallow pill of just how small her world had been her whole life and what she thought she could absurdly stumble into and maneuver unawares.
“I had a dear friend, Malik. He was a seraph in Rhode’s intelligence unit, but the male made for a shit spy. He knew it, I knew it, and so did everyone else. However, he’d learned he had other skills that lent themselves very well to the spy game.”
“Who were you spying on?”
“Cyro. The ruler of the demon charmers.”
“Demons?”
“Yeah. Soul-suckers who eradicate mortals like pests and have a huge hangup over the Empyrean’s Eternal Flame, which is the source of all light and life in the realms. Cyro can’t tolerate the stuff. He and his cronies—who can eat, sleep, have sex, and generally commingle with the rest of the human race so they assimilate more easily—can only reside in darkness. Any light whatsoever, be it celestial or solar, torches them out of existence. That’s why Cyro’s been trying to snuff out the root of his grudge for eons, and we’ve been doing our best to prevent it.”
“Demons,” she whispered to herself, trying to shake off the shock of it all. Then another horrid thought occurred to her. “Was Polina one of these demons?”
“No,” he quickly assured her. “No, Polina was . . .” His eyes got that faraway look to them again and seemed to dip lower under the weight of a past Clara was struggling to comprehend and dying to know more about. “She was Malik’s younger sister. A real brat and a half during her early years, but a truly sweet and wonderful female once maturity set in.”
“She sounds charming.”
