Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 118374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
She made a sound of sheer exasperation. “You only like it because you know no other male demon will dare touch me while I’m branded.”
He gave a careless shrug. “All you had to do was agree not to let other men near you while we were sharing a bed—something you could have done, since we both know you wouldn’t juggle two males at a time; it would feel like betrayal to you. But you fought me, so my demon took what measures it felt were necessary to be sure no one else touched you. My advice? Don’t fight it or me again on this, or you probably will find yourself getting branded again.”
He watched her warily as she glared at him through eyes that were dark with indignation, her flushed face getting redder and redder by the second, until he was honestly worried about her blood pressure.
She snarled. “I don’t know why women have a thing for alphas—no matter the species, you’re all a goddamn pain in the ass!”
“I hear the love in your voice, kitten.” He quickly caught her wrist when her claws sliced out and she tried swiping at him. “Christ, baby, why do you always go for my eyes?”
*
Mouth slack, Khloë stared down at Devon’s wrists the next morning. “Oh, Lord.”
“Fingerprints?” Raini eyed them closely. “Tanner’s demon did that?”
“Uh-huh.” Devon tugged down her sleeves, casting a quick glance at the front door of the studio. Clients would start filtering in soon, and though Devon knew it wasn’t likely that she’d be able to hide the brands from everyone—her luck just wasn’t that great—she intended to give it her best shot.
Leaning back against the checkered partition near her station, Harper blew out a breath. “And I thought Knox’s demon putting a ‘K’ on me was possessive.”
Raini’s brow wrinkled. “It put a ‘K’ on you? Where?”
Harper averted her gaze. “Um, never mind.” She looked at Devon. “How do you feel about the hound branding you?”
A whole host of things. Shocked. Bewildered. Ticked off. Honestly, she was still struggling to wrap her head around it; she just never would have expected his demon to do such a thing.
Okay, maybe a small, girly part of her liked it—the same part of her that enjoyed romance novels, was a sucker for corner-of-the-mouth kisses, had crushed on him for far too long, and believed in the concept of soulmates. Hey, if there were such things as psi-mates and creatures that could wield a shitload of power, the idea that people might have a soulmate doesn’t seem so fanciful. But no one else needed to know that a silly, hormonal part of her was secretly thrilled by the brands.
“Well, obviously, I’d like to ring the entity’s neck.” She really didn’t need or want the kind of attention that these far from inconspicuous brands would bring her. Sighing, Devon raised her hand, palm out. “I blame this damn mark—it made the hound all possessive, and now it’s behaving like an idiot.” Branding its natural enemy was nothing short of idiotic.
“And your feline?” asked Raini. “How’s it feeling about this?”
Devon absently rubbed at her arm. “It’s weirdly disinterested.”
Harper’s head jerked back. “Disinterested? How can it be disinterested about being branded? That’s not exactly a small thing in our world.”
Devon shrugged, absolutely flummoxed. “It’s like my demon just doesn’t take them seriously. Like it finds the brands beneath its notice.”
Eyes narrowing in thought, Raini said, “Which Tanner’s demon will no doubt sense, right?”
“Right,” Devon agreed.
“Then maybe that’s why your feline’s being so dismissive of the brands; it wants to piss the hound off,” suggested Raini. “Which is sort of their normal type of interaction, isn’t it?”
Hell, yeah, it was. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the feline’s just toying with the demon for fun.” Noticing that Harper was staring at her with an odd expression on her face, Devon frowned. “What is it?”
Harper’s shoulders lowered. “I’m worried about you. You think we don’t know that you care about Tanner?” she asked, her tone gentle. “You think we don’t know exactly how much it’ll hurt you when this fling ends?”
Suddenly feeling incredibly vulnerable, Devon let her gaze flit around the room.
“You might not like these brands,” Harper went on, “but when you see them start to fade, it’s going to hurt, because you’ll know it means his demon’s losing interest. You’ll know it means your time together is coming to an end.”
A sharp pain struck Devon’s chest. Yeah, she knew this thing she had with him was a dead end; she’d never once let herself forget it. But she couldn’t claim that being prepared for the end would spare her any hurt.
Slumping against the wall, Devon weakly threw up her arms. “I tried to push him away.”
Harper gave her a wan smile. “Tanner’s not a guy who can be pushed anywhere he doesn’t want to be.”