Wicked Burn (Realm Enforcers #3)(31)

She slid into the bed with a soft sigh and took inventory of small hurts. Bruises and cuts from the run through the cemetery as well as the sex against that brick building. Well worth the slight pain. She turned her face into Nick’s pillow.

The dream caught her almost immediately.

Nicholai had just left her after she’d all but begged him to take her with him. So cold and so . . . gone. Even when he had been standing right in front of her, it was as if he no longer saw her. She didn’t exist any longer in his world.

She’d sat on the ground near a stone ledge, at a nice picnic spot away from her mother’s home. The day was sunny and bright, and all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole and pass out.

Her mother found her sobbing into her knees. In a rare show of maternal compassion, Viv had gathered her close.

“He’s gone,” Simone had said. “Forever, he said.”

“Shhh.” Viv ran a hand down Simone’s hair, tucking her into her neck. “He hurt you because you let him.”

“I know.” She’d completely opened her heart as well as her body. Never in her entire life had she felt the weakness now slicing her apart.

“You’ll know better next time. This is a tough world for women, and the only way to survive is to gain your own power. You can do that, Simone.” Viv had rocked her the way she had as a baby. “You’re going to be on the Council, and someday you’ll run it. Make your life on your own merits and not with a man who’ll leave.”

Simone had looked up, tears blurring her vision. “When will it stop hurting?”

Her mother had smiled. “Soon enough. For now, let’s get you to work.”

They’d both looked up as the eldest Enforcer, Daire Dunne, crossed the meadow, fury on his face.

Simone stood and wiped her tears. “I’m fine, Daire.”

“I’ll f*cking kill him.” Daire reached down to assist Viv up. “Right now. I’ll go find him.”

Simone shook her head. “He’s a demon, and I should’ve known better.” Yet her cousin’s concern and anger warmed her freezing heart a little. “It’s over.”

“No.” Daire turned to go.

Simone yelled at him, more than prepared to eviscerate the male who’d hurt her so badly all by herself.

Her shout in the dream woke her up to the present.

“What?” Nick rushed into the room, his knife already out.

She gulped in air. Hell. What had she been thinking to have slept with him again? Her mind was mush. “Bad dream. Sorry.”

He paused and ran a hand through his thick hair. “Oh.” The doorway framed him, so tall and broad. He was wearing a loose pair of sweats; his bare chest spoke of a deadly soldier, one well trained. Yet she knew, without question, that Nicholai Veis’s true power lay in his brain, in his massive intelligence and his ability to treat the world as if it were a game of chess.

He declared checkmate every damn time, and he probably always would. Right now, he was on her side, but what about the future?

“You’re thinking awfully hard there, Simone.” He crossed into the room, all grace and power.

Her lungs compressed in direct proportion to every step he took. So deliberate, as if giving her every chance to stop him.

She straightened her legs, shoving the bedclothes to the end of the bed. “You were right to end us so long ago.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. It wasn’t. Hurt like hell.” He studied her, reaching the end of the bed, his eyes glowing with a hunger he did nothing to hide.

That was the first time he’d mentioned his own pain. So there had been pain. She shook her head, trying to stay in the moment and not escape into a fantasyland where everything worked out for her the way it did for her cousins. “Right now, things are looking dismal, Nick. You have to admit that.”

Arrogance was stamped hard on his chiseled face. “If you mean the trial, I agree. If you mean that I have one scintilla of a plan to let you be beheaded, you’ve f*cking lost your mind.”

She gaped, and not just because she had absolutely no intention of letting anybody kill her, either. But a demon didn’t get to negate her people or her laws. She’d do that herself. “Coven law is absolute. You have no say.”

He smiled then, and she saw the legend who was whispered about far and wide. “Simone, I’ve always adored your allegiance to your people, and I’ve admired your self-possession.”

“Ah, okay.” Her breath started to come faster. What was he getting at?

“But if you think I’m going to allow you to be taken from this earth, taken from me, by a setup, then you don’t know me. Hell, even if you had committed treason, I wouldn’t let you pay for it by being executed.”

The determination, the absolute conviction of his tone, shot awareness down her back. “What in the world are you saying?”

He took another step, putting his knees flush with the bed, his masculine form towering over her. “I’m saying that you will not die. If I have to kidnap your ass, I will. Fight me or not. I’ll win.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

No. He looked like a warrior about to wage war . . . and come out victorious. “I don’t think it’s your place to make that statement.” Her mind was spinning, but she figured logic was the only way to get through to him.