Page 41 of Try As I Smite
“Hold onto me,” Alasdair told her. “And say these words with me.”
Without question, she clung to his solid form and listened, then started to repeat the spell he was chanting. Words of angels and demons. A spell of…light. A spell using their combined powers, but especially calling upon her father’s angel blood now inside them both.
She could feel the power coming. The tingling turning to a building rush, and pressure, as though her blood was turning to crashing waves in her veins. The spell inside them both built and built until, a cry tearing up her throat, gripping him hard and locked in arms that turned to steel bands around her, they both threw their heads back and light burst from them, filling the night sky until the world turned sunlight bright.
A terrible cacophony of shrieks rose up around them, and Delilah managed to force her gaze to the side, watching in her frozen state as the light bursting from her and Alasdair passed from person to person, connecting them all in a web of purity. Every mage surrounding them froze in the same posture, backs arched, and heads tilted to the sky as illumination poured from them.
Then, as fast as the magic struck, it disappeared.
Delilah’s knees crumpled out from under her, but Alasdair managed to hold onto her and keep them both upright, though his body shook so hard with the effort it rattled them both. Slowly that shaking subsided.
“What—” Her voice came out as a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “What just happened?”
She should be exhausted. Drained. Dead even, after that much magic poured from her. Alasdair too. But instead, her body was energized like she’d been plugged into an electric socket. Buzzing with it.
“They’re…gone.” His voice held a note of incredulity.
She blinked, looking around them. Not a black eye nor a whiff of smoke or shadow to be seen. Just the peaceful darkness of the night. In the distance an owl hooted, as though the forested mountains themselves were telling them all was well.
Alasdair’s arms tightened around her, and she raised her head to find him watching her with a heady combination of awe and heat in his eyes.
With a groan, he dropped his head and claimed her lips, kissing her as though tomorrow wouldn’t happen, even though they both now knew it would. A whimper of need escaping her, Delilah gave herself over to the moment. The sheer bliss of kissing him back, of giving herself to him while taking her own pleasure in each frantic kiss.
“Alasdair?” a woman’s voice called from nearby, vaguely insinuating itself into her consciousness. They both ignored it, too wrapped up in each other, and the relief, and the sheer, carnal need building and pulsing between them.
A throat cleared, and the woman tried again. “Alasdair.” His sister, if Delilah wasn’t mistaken.
He lifted his head but didn’t look away, staring into Delilah’s eyes as though the answers to all the questions of the universe could be found there. “Hestia, get everyone back inside. Make sure this is over. I’ll be in touch…after.”
After? Delilah cocked her head in question. After what?
Chapter Ten
Relief and triumph and a soul-stirring need threatened to pull Alasdair under, and he had only one thing on his mind. Claiming this woman once and for all.
Body on fire for her, Alasdair whispered the spell that whipped them away from his people to the footsteps of the one place he never thought he’d want to return to.
He looked down into Delilah’s face as she tilted it up to him. “Here?” she asked. No fear, no wariness, not a wall keeping him out or a snowflake of ice in sight. Just trust…and an answering need that reflected his own.
“My home.” He lifted a hand to trace the curves and angles of her face. “I took it back tonight.”
Giving a shiver, possibly from the chill of the winter air, a soft smile bowed her lips but disappeared quickly. She stared at him with glittering eyes, lips parted, need radiating from every part of her, answering his own. “You should go back to your people.”
Only the frown tugging at her delicate brows told him she hated that idea as much as he did. Even if she was right.
“I need you first,” he said in a voice gone gruff.
There were a thousand and one things he should be doing. Working with his people to assure themselves all the demons had been exorcised. Determining how to prevent this from happening again. Hell, just explaining to the other members of the Syndicate what the fuck just happened would be a good place to start.
But Delilah was in his arms. Safe. His people were safe. And he was buzzing with the aftereffects of the battle, and winning against terrible odds, and her blood inside him, and the fact that she’d been willing to sacrifice herself. For him. For his people.
From deep in a dark, cold place, he’d watched in panic as she’d sliced open their wrists. But then warmth had reached him inside his mind, opening up power. Just in time to keep her from killing them both.
Even now, residual apprehension wrapped around his heart and squeezed like a constrictor. Unconsciously, he tightened his hold on her, but that only served to rub her body against his, press her against him, and blood surged south in pumping, thrumming need.
Delilah blinked at him, then raised her eyebrows, sudden mischief dancing in her eyes. Though something lingered in those soft, dark depths that gave him pause.
“You know,” she said, lifting her arms to twine them around his neck, “I still haven’t gotten my turn to taste you, yet.”
