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I will not inch away I will not shoeakness "Sorry, it’s just, you’ve been around a long ti" She paused, waiting for his confirle nod "I’athered a lock of her hair between his fingers, rubbing the strands together The contrast between the blue-black of the lock and the sun-kissed sweetness of his skin was ical

If she wasn’t careful, she would throw herself at him And she would find herself rejected and eirl

She had to releh, she wasn’t sure how she would even react to a man’s advances

While rape had never happened, plenty of other things had Hands, wandering Fingers, usted and sickened her And the fact that Fitzpervert had pictures of her…

Might voh about the pain he had caused her?

"What’s wrong?" Zacharel asked

She forced herin front of her He had released her hair, had backed away fros, the air now so frigid little goose bu," shefoul "You lie"

"So?" See? Already darkeverything

"So? I tell you the truth, yet you lie to me That is intolerable, Annabelle, and I will not allow it"

And how did he plan to stop it? "Let’s just say that if so, it’s none of your business" Just then, only one thing mattered Answers "Before, you told e of subject with a soft "Yes"

"And he did this to clai eyes She re her parents to death She remembered the way he’d kissed her--the worst kiss of her life

"Yes He must have seen you, desired you and decided to keep you, even if he couldn’t take you with hi to you?"

"Only classic B movie stuff You know, I love the sound of trouble And this is gonna be fun"

"He didn’t ask you to belong to him, and you didn’t say yes?"

"Hardly But he will come back for me, won’t he?" She’d alondered She’d always feared And, according to Zacharel, fear was a draw for all kinds of evil

Ato fear any to prepare "Well, I plan to kill him when he finds me So, on that note, I have one ive me one of those fire swords?"

ZACHAREL PEERED DOWN at the human woman who had made him feel more in the span of five minutes than anyone had in the centuries since his brother’s death He did not understand this, or her, or as happening to him

Those otherworldly blue eyes were filled with sosecrets He wanted to plu she tried to hide And he wanted to…touch her Was her skin as soft and smooth as it appeared? He’d held her, but her clothes had prevented hi the texture of her skin Would her war him and consume him?

He wanted to kiss her, to discover if her taste would match her succulent scent Wanted to know if her kiss would differ from Jamila’s Wanted to know if she would enjoy his kiss as much as she had enjoyed the former boyfriend’s And he hated that others had touched and kissed her without pere to maim and kill the culprits

He had not wondered about these things before, had not cared who did hoinable, had never even conteh about anyone to experience any type of jealousy

Until now Until Annabelle This girl was brave when she should cower, vulnerable when she should be hardened, kind when she should be cold Exactly as Hadrenial had been

But others had been brave, vulnerable and kind, as well, yet Zacharel had never reacted this way to any of the him of his brother should have doused any flah he’d never preferred a physical "type" before, he clearly did so now At the top of his What I Find Irresistible list? Blue-black hair, crystalline eyes and soft pink lips Oh, and skin that appeared to be dipped in bronze and dusted with dia his thoughts, he knew that, but he had no weapons to coainst anything like this Soh, he had to find a way to resist her He also knew that once a man feasted at the table of teain and again