Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy #1)(29)

She threw down her stick and stomped passed me, kneeling to collect an open book from the ground. My heart lurched as I realized it was the grimoire, the urge to rip it from her making my fingers twitch. That book was my ticket to freedom. All I needed was for her to hand it over.

Hand it over willingly. The protective spells on the damn thing meant I couldn’t take it by force.

“Fucking weirdo,” she grumbled, shooting a glare over her shoulder as she collected her camera and tripod. “Who the hell does this shit? You’re lucky I’m not calling the cops!”

Oh, what I would have given in that moment to see her expression if I revealed my true form. I wanted to see that righteous indignation melt from her face, I wanted to see her fall to her knees in terror.

“Why don’t you?” I taunted. “Call the police, Raelynn, if your phone even has any service. I’d love to see how you manage to explain why you broke onto private property, and into a private building.” I chuckled, stepping easily out of the remnants of my poorly drawn summoning circle. She stepped back hurriedly, stuffed her camera into her backpack, and held up her phone. She was recording me; likely a smart move if circumstances had been different.

A smart move if I’d been human.

“Is this the attention you wanted?” She glared up at me as she blasted the phone’s flash in my face. “Well, now I have it on video that you’re a creep who follows women into the woods. Good luck keeping your job after this!” Her heart was pounding a million miles a minute. I could smell the sweat on her skin.

Her gaze moved toward the door, contemplating an escape. Then she looked down, to the dark stain on the floor where her chalk markings had been. She stared in confusion, her belief that I’d only pranked her not aligning with what she was seeing.

“How...how the hell?”

Before she could make a move, I grabbed her wrist and yanked her phone down, taking the annoying light out of my face. I shoved her back until she was pressed against the pulpit, among all the candles and the Libiri’s vile trinkets to the Deep One. It was too easy to forget how quick humans would crumble under my strength; reigning it in, especially when I was frustrated, took no small amount of willpower. I was certain I felt my disguise slip for a second as I grabbed her — although she couldn’t have noticed the flash in my eyes with her light pulled down.

Her eyes were like saucers as she stared up at me, her breath coming in nervous gasps. I leaned down, my face within inches of her, the scent of her flooding me. Fuck, earthly bodies were far too reactive to stimuli. My heart beat faster, saliva increased around my tongue, and my cock gave an interested twitch as her alluring smell surrounded me.

“I warned you, doll,” I snarled. She needed to learn, and if scaring her was the only way to do it, then so be it. “Didn’t I tell you to behave? I told you not to come here, not to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Now you’ve really done it.” With one hand still pinning down her wrist, I grasped her chin with the other. My hand fully encompassed her jaw and pressed against her throat; I could feel her thumping heart, pattering like a rabbit’s.

“You...you can’t tell me what to do,” she said, all the fierceness gone out of her. I grinned triumphantly to see her shrinking. This was no mere game to be recorded for internet fame.

This was life and death. This was my freedom on the line.

“You’re messing around with shit you know nothing about.” I pulled her forward by the jaw, forcing her to gaze up at me with those defiant eyes. “Curiosity can kill you, Raelynn. What you’ve started here isn’t easily undone.”

Her eyes flickered over my face in shock. “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m warning you, Rae.” She was pressed right up against me, her legs between mine — a dangerously tempting position. The feral desire to claim her — all of her, body and soul — roared up in me. I wanted to see her fall to her knees and beg forgiveness for her mistake. I wanted to feel her soul meld with mine in offering. I wanted to taste her come undone on my tongue.

Something must have shown on my face, because she began to struggle in my grasp. The wiggle of her body between my thighs made my grip tighten instinctively, a growl rising in me, and her eyes swelled when she felt me restrain her.

But not with fear — with arousal.

Oh. So that’s how it was going to be, was it?

I took both her wrists in my grasp — such breakable little bones — and pinned them above her head, right against the carved wooden cross on the pulpit, making her twitching fingers a blasphemous Christ. I traced my finger along her stubborn jaw, pausing where I could feel the eager ba-bump, ba-bump of her heart.

“You’re very lucky, Raelynn,” I said softly, holding her gaze, “that I don’t bend you over this pulpit and teach you a real lesson about not fucking with things you don’t understand.”

A little whimper burst out of her. Somewhere between disbelief and desire, she grit her teeth and growled back, “I’d like to see you fucking try, asshole.” She ground her boot down on my foot, as if she could hurt me. I chuckled, as my fingers reached her chin and the tiny, delicate dimple right below her pouting lower lip. She went still as I brushed her mouth, tracing the contours of her lips, her breath shuddering over my skin.

“Don’t tempt me,” I growled. “Just be a good girl, give me the book, and go.”