Her Sinful Angel by Felicity Heaton

desire to see the stars?” He didn’t look at her, not even when she nodded.
    He looked taller in the shadows, wrapped up in them, with only the flickering light of the torch illuminating his face. He looked as if he belonged in the inky black with them, and she began to feel he had been asking about more than the valley when he had asked why she desired to see the darkness.
    “I do want to see the stars, Lucifer,” she said and his golden gaze fell to her, narrowing slightly, as if hearing his name leaving her lips had been as thrilling as when she heard hers leaving his. She pressed on, wanting to get her point across before her nerve failed. She was sure she might offend him, but she couldn’t let fear of that deter her. She wanted to talk to him and the valley had opened up an avenue of conversation. She also wanted to know why this place remained as it was. “I want to see the stars but that wasn’t my point. My point was that nothing changes in this valley. I’ve been here fourteen hours by your calculation and nothing has changed. It all remains the same. The temperature. The position of the sun. The sound of the river. The breeze. Everything here is static.”
    “Static,” he murmured and stared across at the mountains. His expression darkened, the black slashes of his eyebrows drawing together, turning his golden irises a full shade closer to amber. Those eyes slid down to her, piercing her with their intensity and stealing her breath. “Not everything here is static. You are not. You are changed.”
    Nina felt keenly in that moment that she had. Seeing the valley and discovering more about Lucifer had changed her. She was no longer afraid of him or the castle, but she didn’t understand why. Perhaps understanding was part of the reason. She felt she knew a piece of him now. She felt there was a part of them that was the same.
    They were kindred spirits.
    “If I show you the stars, will you be inclined to leave this place and dine with me?”
    Her eyes leaped to meet his, her heart stuck on the part where he had asked her to dinner while her head screamed at her to focus on the first part of what he had said—the part about the stars. The logical part of her won and she looked up at the blue vault above her.
    “I would, but is it really possible?” Her eyes scanned the scattered clouds and their backdrop. A star could never penetrate such light. Not even a planet had the brightness to shine through the strength of the sun here.
    But Lucifer had said she could see the stars. He had offered to make them shine for her but she still wasn’t sure how that was possible.
    He moved behind her and she looked back at him, her chest aching as she caught the sorrow in his amber eyes as he stared beyond her at the valley. He raised his left hand and she wanted to press hers to it, wanted to feel his fingers slide between hers and close over her knuckles, needed him to know that he wasn’t alone.
    She was here with him.
    He pressed his palm to the invisible barrier that stopped him from entering a valley of his own creation and closed his eyes. The muscles of his jaw popped, his sensual lips compressing into a thin line as he frowned, his eyebrows drawing tight together. His nose wrinkled, his top lip drawing off his teeth in a grimace that spoke of pain.
    Pain she wanted to ease.
    He was hurting himself with whatever he was doing.
    Why?
    Nina took a step towards him but stopped dead when his canines lengthened. She blinked, sure she was imagining things, but they remained longer, almost like small fangs.
    Lucifer grunted and made a sound that was close to a snarl, and she swore the shadows in the tunnel flickered and moved, dancing around him like smoke.
    The light dipped.
    She whirled to face the valley, her eyes growing enormous as a shiver ran down her spine and thighs.
    It was changing.
    Her lips parted, the shivers growing in intensity as she stood on the brow of the hill, awed by the sight before her.
    The