Through Flame and Blade

Ch. 10 A Dark Flame

*Logan

Logan couldn't sleep. Didn't want to, either.

All the things he could be doing—with Chiara, if they were free from this hole—kept running through his head. He shifted his position on the floor, wishing he could take matters into his own hands, so to speak.

He knew from watching her every day what her body would feel like against his. Eons of experience was a bitch. He saw her muscles flex and his hand told his brain what it would feel like to touch her as it flexed. The warmth of her skin. The taut power underneath the skin. The firmness. The softness. He could practically taste her as her scent floated in the air, taunting him, and it was driving him mad.

All the more so, because his fantasies of what he would do to her in his bed were only that. Fucking dreams.

He ached to free her. To get her out of here. More and more it was clear that his original half-baked desires of finding a deep, dark hole to curl up in and introduce her to the sinful pleasures of a demon lover were not going to pan out.

Damn it.

Fuck.

He grunted in anger, allowing himself this indulgence since Dirk and Zeigfel hadn't arrived yet and Chiara was asleep.

"Nightmare?" she asked, her voice slithering and cold.

He jerked involuntarily. That was not her voice. The mind games Zeigfel played with her didn't work on demons of Logan's class, but they worked terribly well on angels. He cleared his throat.

"No, I'm not sleeping. I'm ready for the day to begin, that way it will end sooner."

"So eager?" she hissed, her head still facing down.

Nausea stirred in his guts—him, the Dark Flame, who hadn't flinched when the Reversed Tower was decapitated and legions of Angelicum—angels in their angelii form—stormed in. One thing he hadn't considered was that she could change when he was chained to the wall with her—become tenebrist in the dungeons. She would tear him apart and devour him in seconds, according to the tales he'd heard of the last tenebrist.

"Chiara, look at me," he said. Gentleness wasn't a tone that came naturally to him, but he tried, for fuck's sake. He had to pull her away from choosing the darkness. "Look at me."

She stirred, as if waking up. Frowning in confusion, she took in the room with a quick glance. "Is it time?"

"Yeah, they'll be here soon," he said, hiding his relief. She was with him, his Chiara.

His Chiara.

His own thoughts cut razor sharp in his chest. What was he doing? What the fuck was wrong with him? She wasn't his, and never would, never could be. Angels considered demons as worthy only of receiving death at their swords.

She pulled herself slowly to sitting, every movement bringing a whimper to her lips. "Then let it begin."

"No," he said. "Listen to me. You will do as I say for once. This game of yours to push Zeigfel, to make him angry at you ends now. I can take it today and tomorrow and the next as well. I can help you, but you have to be quiet. Don't beg, don't cry, and whatever you do, do not goad that son of a bitch."

Chiara leaned back on the wall, the dirty shift she'd been given to wear barely covering her. "Why should I do what you tell me?"

"Because I will help you. I will get us both out of here."

"No," she whispered. "I don't think you will."

"Chiara, listen," he snapped, voice dropping. This was the tone he used with his brother before the end. "I can—"