Enchantra (Wicked Games, #2)

by Kaylie Smith

For the brave souls who burned the bridges between themselves and their demons. And for those still trying to light the match—we’ll wait for you.

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” —Emily Dickinson

Hell was made of swirling darkness and secrets just like the man in front of her.

“Love. Loathing. Same passion, different names,” he told her. “And how easily and swiftly the line can be blurred, don’t you think?”

Bargains with Devils were not simple agreements. They were rooted in deep magic, with dangerously specific terms that bound both parties. Devils used them to prey on the desperate or weak-minded.

“some people are poisonous that way. They touch you once and somehow infect every little thing you do thereafter.”

“Do not ever call me yours again.” A flicker of an emotion she didn’t recognize flitted over his expression, but he didn’t offer any response. She took a deep breath. “When someone says those words to me, I want them to mean them.” He looked away from her as he dipped his chin in a nod and vowed, “Deal.”

“If you wanted to be choked, all you had to do was ask,” he murmured as he crouched before her, reaching up to brush the pad of his thumb over the tender skin of her throat. “I wouldn’t have left any marks.”

“It’s never easy to realize that the people who are supposed to protect us are the ones who can create the deepest scars.”

“You’re such a self-centered bastard.” She scoffed at his presumption and poked a finger into his chest. “I deserve to be the center of my own story. I was not made for you.” “Truth, truth, lie,” he told her. Her heart skipped a beat. You’re such a self-centered bastard. Truth. I deserve to be the center of my own story. Truth. I was not made for you. Lie.

“Then maybe I was made for you,” he implored, as if he were angry about that fact. “How else have you managed to get so deep under my skin in such a short amount of time? Why is it that every time I try to imagine what it would be like to sever our vows, I feel like the Hunting Blade is piercing my heart? Fifteen years I’ve lived for everyone else around me. I’ve withered away in this damned place. Until you showed up and you made me laugh. You gave me hope.”

“Shadows can only be seen in the presence of light,” he told her, the words agonized. “I worry when you leave, there will be no one left to see me.”

“Even without any of my memories, I felt drawn to you. We could be enemies, or husband and wife, or just fucking, but never nothing, Rowington Silver.”

“Before you, I was going to spend my eternity alone, in the darkest parts of Hell. I’d much rather spend a single lifetime in your light. Or, at least, for however long you’ll have me.”

“I want you to know, I really would have waited for you, right here, forever if that’s what it would have taken. I would have stood in this spot until I could no longer distinguish my own soul ...