Howler's Night by Marie Hall Page A

her. I knew what I wanted to say, that the bastard had abandoned her. That he’d stopped searching, stopped believing in her, but I knew those words would crush her.
    “They got orders, little demon.”
    “Okay.”
    She jostled around on the cot for a minute, rustling the sheets, and just when I was sure she’d rolled over and gone to sleep, she spoke my name again.
    I scrubbed my jaw and murmured, “Yes?”
    “What do we do now?”
    Not looking at her was like a slow torture. Damning my desire, I turned around only to find her eyes had been boring into the back of my skull.
    They were no longer cool blue as they’d once been. Only when ridden by Lust had her eyes swirled the lovely lavender I remembered. An icy blue had been her natural color, but now they were darker, somewhere between black and gray, like a twilit sky.
    “What do you think we should do?”
    I asked her because I didn’t have a clue myself. What I wanted to do was rain death on Creatus, but I wasn’t sure that vengeance would serve us well. Even if I took down that hell hole, there were others. The problem wasn’t the prison, the problem was the prophecy and the Triad.
    She didn’t answer the question. Instead she slowly reached out her hand to me, and I was afraid to even blink or move, terrified she would stop. When her delicate palm cupped my cheek, I couldn’t prevent the desperate moan that spilled from my throat.
    “They lied, didn’t they?”
    I knew immediately what she meant. “Pandora, you know me. I chose my side.”
    If I closed my eyes now, I would still be able to recall her features—the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, how her bottom lip was just a tiny bit fuller than her top. Her heart-shaped face and the delicate structure of her jaw line and cheekbones. The way her eyes were spaced just a little bit wider than most, and how they would sparkle whenever I was around.
    “They’ve changed me, Ash. Forever. I’m never going to be the same.”
    I held her steady gaze. “Do you love me?”
    She didn’t answer, and my soul was crushed by the weight of what they’d taken from me.
    I was just about to turn my face aside when her lips found mine. I waited for the pain to come, but instead she ran her tongue along the seam of my mouth, and I opened up to her with a greedy growl.
    Shuffling to my knees, I sat up and cupped the back of her neck in my palm. With one word, this demon could have slain me. She could have ruined me, destroyed me, but it wouldn’t have mattered, because she owned me. All of me.
    Pandora was just as desperate in her touch as I was. Her nails clawed at the back of my skull as her tongue twined with my own. I licked and suckled the sweet honey off her lips, body shaking desperately with my need to do more.
    My cock grew heavy and painful as my blood rushed violently south. I hadn’t held her in over a year, hadn’t touched her. Her scent had left our trailer, and apart from a few items that’d belonged to her, the memory of her had been nearly eradicated from my life.
    I was like a dead man being reborn. This woman, this demon, who’d been crafted just for me, was knitting me back together again, making me whole. The depths of my need for her was almost frightening.
    Reluctantly she pulled back, but her hands still framed my face. My body was in pain for want of her. I wanted to sink into her slick warmth and lose myself in her, but I knew she was not yet ready.
    In fact, that she might never be.
    She pressed her forehead to mine before shaking her head slowly. “Priest?” Her lips feathered across mine.
    I rubbed her back with my thumb. “Demon?”
    “I do love you.”

Chapter 10
    Pandora

    I hadn’t been able to sleep last night. I didn’t want to leave this oasis. True, Death wasn’t much of a roommate—some nights I could hear screams and shrills coming from the other rooms that didn’t sound at all like pleasure. But for Asher and me this place was safe in a way we