The Dark City Chronicles ⁓ Book Three
The apocalypse looms ever closer! Steamy romance, heart-stopping action, seductive vampires, magic that defies nature, sprinkles of dark-humor, and, as always, the everlasting bonds of friendship.
Hannah's strug...
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Sitting propped against an evergreen tree, Hannah stared at the dark sky. Hundreds of stars twinkled back at her. They were so bright away from the city.
"It was a long time ago," Valrus said after a long pause that had left them in silence for an entire minute. "You didn't ask for a history lesson, so I will not force you to sit through drivel." He shifts slightly, and his shoulder bumps hers. "You must know that the mages were not always organized or politically powerful. They were killed regularly by humans who believed us to be corrupted simply because of our powers."
Hannah looked at him carefully, searching for signs of a lie, and he was watching her intensely in return. The patter in her traitorous heart made her want to chuck him in the nearby lake. Not the necklace, him. The handsome demon of a man who had haunted her for years and did now, with his silvery eyes, gave her the strange notion that, at a mere glance, he knew her deepest, darkest desires.
No, that wasn't true.
Valrus was only a man.
She'd learned that over the last week. Valrus was human, even if he did everything he could to come off as wickedly demonic. Admittedly, he was an infuriatingly sexy man who made her breath catch and her thighs clench. But he was mortal once. Now that she knew he wasn't a demon coming to steal her soul away, she felt, since that fateful day he'd made her sign that fake contract, that she held the power.
He needed her.
He'd spent years making her believe that she was the one who needed him to survive when it was always the other way around.
"Didn't anyone fight back?"
Valrus looked away, his gaze fixed on the dark trees. "A cockroach is not a danger by itself; even if it fights back, it will easily be squashed and forgotten. Take a hundred—a thousand, and it's a different story."
"You said on the beach that you helped free the mages from their oppressors."
The sharp glare Valrus gave her made her breath slow, and her chest rose shallowly. "I freed them from their oppressors," he said hotly. "Understand that the world you live in results from my sacrifices."
"Oh?" Hannah replied sarcastically. She shifted away, not caring that she was sitting on twigs and rocks. She couldn't be close to him. He made her feel irrationally angry and infuriatingly hot. She couldn't deal with that cocktail of a mess right now. "I owe you, then. For this wonderful world I live in, where I'm hiding from vampires that want to kill me and everyone I care about."
Valrus scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. He had a knee bent, and his shoulders were propped against the tree trunk. Even in his relaxed posture, he looked ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. "The vampires chasing you are mere whispers of what their brethren were in my time."
The air grew cold. Hannah hunched further into the engulfing leather jacket that she hadn't had a chance to give back to Lucas. She was shivering despite being dressed for the weather in a pair of black joggers and lace-up boots.
