She pressed his amulet to her lips, then let it fall on its chain to rest between their two bodies. “We could leave here,” she said to him. “We could run away together.”He frowned at the stars, the bubble of peacefulness that had settled around them after their lovemaking now ruptured. “I run from nothing and no one.

Hunter and hunted. There are so many ways in which a man can destroy a woman.” Her handmaid sighed. “When it comes to matters of the heart, immortals know nothing.

Wishing for something doesn’t mean you should have it, and saying something doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Her demon had pursued and seduced him. She hoped he hadn’t placed too much importance on that.

Another man’s property or not, Creed could not walk away from this and ignore it. He draped an arm around her and drew her to him so that her cheek rested against his thigh. His other hand stroked the top of her head, his fingers tangling through her soft hair. He was large in comparison to her, and he did not wish for her to be frightened by him again, so he sent a faint tendril of compulsion to belay her fear while he whispered a few nonsensical words of comfort.

Creed must have responded in kind, because with a gasp, she broke off the kiss. Time crawled to a standstill, then shifted to a sprint. Nieve shoved the gun lodged between them into his ribs. His hand still covered hers, and with the well-trained instincts of an assassin, he jerked the gun to the side so that the bullet she fired embedded into the ground, kicking up dirt, and not in his heart.