More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
To everyone who cannot find themselves in a world full of people, Being lost is a hard prologue, but a much beautiful story awaits you. Find the courage, and turn the page.
Fire. Heat, warmth, and light. Heat, destruction, and death. The nature of fire
The caretaker of the orphanage had said it was because he had demon eyes, because he was a demon child. He had named him after death too.
Perhaps that was why she caught his attention. Maybe it was because she emoted more than he had ever seen anyone emote. Maybe it was the flame in her hair. Or maybe it was because she had bound them with something she couldn’t take back.
Whatever it was, from the moment her fire had found his, her fate was sealed.
Though she wasn’t a blaze yet, only an ember, she was his. He watched her, intently focused on the nuances of her face. One day, she would be an inferno, and he would be the devil who controlled it.
“Into this wild abyss, the wary fiend stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while.” —John Milton, Paradise Lost
"Eyes, flamma." Her eyes flew open, shock, something else filling her system as she tilted her head back. Devilish, mismatched eyes locked with hers through a mask, and her breath caught. He'd come. He'd come for her. He'd killed for her.
"I didn't think you'd come," she whispered in the space between their lips, her body overcome with the emotions she'd felt in the last few minutes. His gaze intensified, and he leaned down, speaking right against her mouth, his words brushing her lips but barely, so close she felt them on her skin, a promise and the threat all in one sentence both claiming and capturing her. "I'll always come for you."
Luna caine Or layla blackthrone
She held her breath, her eyes roving over the dark corners of the room, unable to see the silhouette of the devil in the shadows, one who was both the bane and the blessing of her cursed existence.
Zenith :(
They all looked at her but no one saw her, none except the man who watched her like it was his religion.
“If I stay away from you, you’ll miss me, flamma.” Fuck him.
'Your voice makes my atoms sing.’
Something was broken within every single one of them, and while that was a point of commonality, it wasn’t a point of companionship.
“Your emotions will get you killed here.” He said that as though she was afraid of dying. If someone pointed a gun at her head, she would probably welcome the bullet. And the devil that he was, he knew her thoughts. “How will you find your answers if you don’t live, hmmm?”
“The world isn’t ready to see who I would become if this—” his thumb pressed on her pounding pulse “—ever stops.”
“Do you want me to cut his hand off or burn it?” Lyla shuddered at his words, and not entirely in revulsion. Something inside her, something dark and deranged, wanted to see him do it, see him sever the hand that had touched her without her permission. And it scared her, that side of her. She swallowed, basking in the power of that choice. “Cut it.”
The mark he had given her had been pleasure and tenderness and deliberation. It was a gift, a claiming for her to remember she was his, that no one could get to her as long as he was there. And to someone who had been owned but never belonged, it meant everything.
“T...they drugg...gged me.” “And they will pay.”
“I trust you,” she managed to whimper as a bolt of heat ran through her body, making her spasm. “That’s exactly what sealed your fate all those years ago.”
“Your trust, flamma, is the most addictive drug.” The quiet words penetrated her hazed mind as she looked down to where his voice was coming from, seeing nothing, almost like an invisible man was touching her. The Shadow Man. Her man. “I won’t give you more of it,” she told him in her split second of clarity and felt his teeth on the inside of her thigh. “You will. Every atom in your body sings for me too.”
He was going to be her last and she would be his first in so many ways.
She had spoken to him, to warn him, to save him. Despite all her anger and hurt, she cared for him. Soft-hearted little fool, but his fool. She was rare, the fire of life, of warmth.
He had seen the feed from her room coming online and known within seconds it was a trap for him and she was the bait. They didn’t know she wasn’t the bait he would bite, she was the prize he had already won in this bloody game—he just had to claim the winning.
Hector…
“Touch her and you die,” he remarked quietly. “Touch her worse, die worse. It’s a simple thing, isn’t it? I don’t know why you didn’t understand it.”
“You.” Her voice was barely audible, her body slumping as he picked her up in his arms. “Tell me... tell me where he is...” “Live for me and I’ll tell you,” he bargained as always, tucking her body close to his torso. He was cold and warm at the same time, and so, so solid. She wished she’d had him to hold on so many nights. Tears fell down her face, and she tucked her nose in his neck, breathing in his distinctive scent. “Please. It’s my last wish,” she cried softly and felt his arms tighten around her. The delusion-him was nice too, he almost made her believe he was concerned for her. “You
...more
“You have been, you are, and you will always be my only obsession, Luna Caine.”
Fuck , even in rereads i can never go through this scene without hving goosebumbs … FUCK !!!
Too fucking close. He had almost lost her, and for the first time in his memory, something livid lay breathing in his chest. Emotions weren’t something he felt, but he was feeling. Mainly, at himself for not finding her sooner, for taking so long to wrap up loose ends. Also at her, for thinking he would let her go, for even contemplating that she could and he wouldn’t bring her back from the jaws of death itself. It couldn’t have her, nothing could have her, not until he released his claim.
She could never be anyone else’s. She’d been claimed by a devil in the shadows long before anyone could bring her to light.
And after what they had done, The Syndicate was going to fucking burn.
“What do you see?” he prodded again. Lyla saw herself blink in the reflection. “You behind me.” She startled as he leaned in, his reflection joining hers closer, his face beside hers. “Exactly. I’m always behind you, even when you cannot see.”
know you, flamma,” he reminded her. “The deepest desires of your heart, the softest secrets of your soul, the meanest moments in your mind. I know them all, I own them. Every desire, every secret, every thought.”
“How long have you lived here?” “A few months.” She took a step closer. “And how long have you had it?” “About five years. It took a year to build.” That was a long time. Stepping closer to the railing, heart racing at the nothingness beyond, she gripped the blanket. “Why not live here before?” He turned his neck to look at her. “You weren’t here.”
“You’re a liar.” “I am,” he agreed without a pause. “But I don’t lie to you.”
Throat dry, she asked. “What are you watching?” “A romantic movie.” The answer, coming from him of all people, felt so ridiculous that a bubble of laughter left her throat, the sound strangled halfway as she recognized it. Her hand went to her neck, her eyes flying to him, only for her body to freeze as she saw the intensity of his gaze on her. “I... laughed,” she murmured, still stunned. “Do it again.” “What?” “I want to hear it again.” It was ridiculous. “I can’t do it again.” Before she could blink, she was flat on her back on the couch and he was looming over her, one of his hands pinning
...more
“Say my name,” he ordered her, and she suddenly blinked. “I don’t know your name.” It was so ridiculous after everything they'd been through. His hands paused on her words, their gazes locked as she held her breath. “Dainn.” Dainn. Dainn Blackthorne. She knew his name. She remembered something he had told her once. “That’s the name you got in the orphanage you were in?”
“I found one of the three.” Her heart stopped. She knew, immediately knew, what he was talking about. One of the three men who had abused her. Her arousal began to simmer down at the memories. One of his hands gripped her jaw, rooting her to the present. "I ended him.” His nose found her nose, brushing it once in a gesture so soft she wanted him to do it again immediately. “I cut his hands off—” his nose went down her neck “—then his tongue—” down her breasts, his breath on her rigid nipples “—then his little dick.” All parts that had touched her.
“You saw it,” she whispered, horrified, humiliated. He stepped between her legs, his hand tilting her jaw and his thumb tracing her mouth in a move she recognized instinctively as his. “Every. Single. Second.” His thumb pillowed her lower lip, his eyes intense on hers, his body pressed against hers, everything about him fierce and powerful and so dark she wanted it all for herself. “I was with you. You didn’t go through any of that alone.”
She didn’t need a good man telling her he loved her; she needed a dark devil to tell her she was his.
“I will set the whole world on fire before I let anything hurt you again.” The dark promise full of violence made the black hole take a step back. “Give me your eyes, flamma. I want to see the fire in them. Show them to me.”
“What did you feel?” he asked, his hypnotic dual eyes snaring her in its trap. What did she feel? He didn’t experience emotions as she did, and knowing he wanted her account of her feeling things made her heart race. “I felt—” she stopped, looking at him, her throat working “—angry. So, so angry.” “Why?” he prodded, leaning slightly toward her. “Because I thought you’d chosen her,” her voice wavered with her words. “I thought you were keeping me on the side, making a fool out of me, giving me little nothings, and giving her everything. I felt angry. I felt hurt. I felt jealous.” “Why?” he
...more
One word. Just one word and everything felt right in the world for a second. She took a deep breath, calming herself. Taking her seat again, she gulped down the water in her glass, aware of him watching her. “Your heart isn’t stupid.” His words, again quiet, made her look at him. “Soft, yes. Stupid, no. I think it’s quite smart to believe me when your mind doesn’t.” She didn’t know what to say to that. “There’s been no one for six years, Lyla.” His words made her straighten in her chair, the disbelief evident on her face. His lips twitched. “Believe me or don’t, fact is fact. I haven’t fucked
...more
When the Shadow Man decided to watch over someone, they were safe.
better man would let her go and let her find some happiness with another. A better man would let her go and let her satisfy her cravings somewhere else. He wasn’t a better man. Fuck, he wasn’t even a good man.
If he'd been ready to burn the world for her before, it was nothing compared to the destruction he would cause now.
"How can you become new if you haven't first become ashes?" —Friedrich Nietszche
“What did the man do to make love to her?” he murmured, taking a step forward as she took one back. She looked into his eyes, those mismatched eyes that had held her captive since the first time she saw them, and gave voice to the deepest desire of her heart. “He touched her soul.”
