The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,24

to run its course.”

I swallowed. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Once I absorb the Source, it will fade and I will be…” A pause. “A little scary, but normal, and not this completely terrifying, inhuman version of myself.”

“Get out of my head.”

“I can’t help it. You’re in me.” Two incandescent hands pressed into the bed, a mere foot from my feet.

“That sounds … slightly disturbing.”

“It is … different,” he said, his voice still tinged with unfamiliar undertones. “The Source has an imprint of what drove it. I can’t see what you were dreaming, but I feel it. I can taste your emotions.”

I locked up, eyes going wide. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. While I’d wanted him to understand why I’d lost so much control, I didn’t want him to gain such intimate knowledge of that choking, suffocating heaviness.

“It tastes like blood and terror,” he said, and my breath caught. “Humiliation and defeat.”

I was so caught up in what he was saying, I hadn’t realized he was closer, on his hands and knees, prowling up the length of my legs.

“I can taste the residue of hopelessness,” he continued. “What caused those feelings are still hidden from you—from me. Whatever he made you do during the time you were with the Daedalus does not matter. Only this does. I won’t kill him, Evie. There will be no simple, quick death for him.” Luc’s hands were at my hips, and my back was pressed to the mattress. His head and shoulders were level with mine, and when he spoke, his words dripped fire. “I will flay his skin from his body and then shred his muscles and tendons until he cannot even lift a finger. I will slowly tear him apart, at the most sensitive parts, limb by limb, and then, when he sees death looming, he will see you. You will be the last thing he sees before you deliver the killing blow.”

I shivered, a little scared by his words.

And I was also sort of … turned on. That probably meant there was something wrong with me. Okay, not probably. Most definitely there was something twisted and disturbingly wrong with me.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Luc said. “It’s not the idea of violence that makes you feel that way. There’s no one who deserves it more than Jason Dasher.”

He was correct, but I shouldn’t wish that kind of death on anyone. I should be better than that or some crap, and besides that, I shouldn’t want to kiss him after hearing him say that.

Luc’s head gave that odd little tilt again. “It’s also because you know I’d do exactly what I said, that I would do all of that for you, and you also know how badly I want to be the last thing Jason Dasher sees.”

Breathing turning shallow, I knew he was right.

“Humans are messy, Evie. Complicated and layered beings who sometimes find themselves in that uncomfortable, moral gray area,” he said in that strange, power-heavy voice. “Just because you aren’t exactly human doesn’t mean you’re not just as messy.”

I wet my lips as my pulse pounded. It hurt my eyes to stare into the light, but as close as he was, I could see he looked nothing like a Luxen, who in their true form reminded me of liquid glass. Beyond the intense glow, I saw the almost perfect lines and planes of the face I still itched to capture to film like I’d done one afternoon in his club. “And you?”

“I am the mess,” he stated.

I didn’t understand what that meant, but he spoke before I could ask. “I wish you did not fear me now.”

“I don’t fear you.”

“Your mind is completely open to me. I know what you think.”

My watering eyes narrowed. “For the millionth time, it’s rude to read people’s thoughts.”

“It does not change what I know,” he replied.

“Okay. Yes. I’m a little freaked out. Can you blame me? You’re speaking weird, and you haven’t called me Peaches once since you sucked all that power into you—”

“I took it so you didn’t stupidly kill yourself.”

“And I thank you for that, but you could’ve left off the stupid part,” I told him, and he just stared down at me with eyes full of white flames. “You also told me that you could easily take me out now—”

“What I can do and what I would do are two separate entities.”

“Yes, I know that, Mr. Cold Logic, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy to hear.” My