CHAPTER NINE : The Fire Beneath Her Skin
Lilith didn’t want to sleep.
Not with him so close.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZauFyoC9XB
Not when dreams might betray the fragile calm she was pretending to hold.
But Daniel…13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGVKbIKZGez
Daniel was touching her again.
Careful fingers brushing her temple, wiping blood from her nose, tracing the edge of the burn on her ribs.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered.
She opened her mouth to lie.
But the truth ached too much.
“Yes.”
“And still you came?”
She nodded. “Because you whispered my name like a prayer.”
He looked at her like she wasn’t human.
And she wasn’t.
The second time he touched her, it was her hand.
Warmth met frost.
His mortal skin. Her cursed flesh.
And something inside her shifted.
Her pupils glowed for half a second.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxkzdp3YpUs
A memory flashed—
A throne room made of glass.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQfO2nIu576
Chains.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ZQW4dvgt7
Feathers ripped from her back by a hand that once loved her.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡumKt8kCA3n
A voice:13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeC5HPRExaX
“Fall, then. Love them, if you dare.”
She jerked away.
Daniel caught her wrist.
“Show me,” he said.
“No.”
“Lilith—”
“No one survives knowing who I was. Who I am.”
“Then let me be the first.”
So she did.
She placed his hand over her heart—her scarred, beating, wounded soul.
And opened herself.
For one moment, he saw everything.
Her fall.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmZcETYECFI
Her first love—a human priest who chose heaven over her.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAesgb6YwmZ
Her punishment.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ95Gkk0fvLm
The centuries of silence.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyA6Um32xpG
The curse that every time she loved, it would burn her from the inside.
He gasped. Staggered.
But he didn’t let go.
Not even when fire curled around her shoulders.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR4TuC09lqZ
Not even when her skin began to glow.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he whispered.
And for the first time in eternity…
Lilith believed him.
But above them, cloaked in the dying moonlight…
A watcher spoke into the wind.
“One more touch, and she dies. Let him choose.”
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