Bannik whipped around, hand raised toward Mason.
“No!” I ran in front of my friend and held out my hands, fully aware that I wasn’t going to do anything to physically stop him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
Demons growled behind me as Bannik’s hand came into contact with my cheek, searing pain exploded from the side of my face as I stumbled against Mason’s chest.
And suddenly I was jerked away from Mason.
By Alex.
Alex
London, England
1915
“LONELINESS IS DANGEROUS,” Sariel whispered.
I ignored him.
I ignored him a lot these days. I just had no idea why I felt so empty, so alone. Every time I slept with another woman, I was satiated for maybe half a day before I was hungry again, before I needed to be touched. I wasn’t stupid enough to crave love. The idea itself was repugnant.
Love?
It didn’t exist.
“Alex.” Sariel jerked a chair from the table and sat down. He rarely sat and had talks with anyone — sometimes I imagined he really cared — that he was my friend, not an angel. “You have to choose what you will become. You are powerful beyond anyone’s understanding, and yet you allow yourself to be this—” He grabbed the lapel of my dinner jacket in disgust. I was dressed like every other wealthy nobleman.
I was an imposter.
An intruder.
I was a perfectly polished and well-mannered gentleman on the outside, with a hunger for sex on the inside.
A hunger that made me mindless, crazy.
Dangerous.
“Yes,” Sariel whispered. “You are more dangerous than you could possibly imagine, and yet, I want you to reach that full realization, I want you to reach your full potential so you finally understand that it will not rule you, not if you don’t let it.”
Empty, so empty. I stared into my glass and shook my head. “Absolute power isn’t for me, Sariel.”
“You will need an anchor.”
“Am I in the Royal Navy now?” I joked, winking at a woman who passed, her breasts on full display for all to see.
Then again.
I was in a brothel.
It was where I’d set up camp ever since the elves died.
My fault.
All my fault.
“Think.” Sariel thumped me on the head with his hand. “Mary was pregnant with an abomination, with Bannik’s child. She was being consumed by darkness — you may have failed in protecting them, but she failed her race the minute temptation knocked, and she invited it in.”
“I am temptation.” I gulped.