The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,59

so there weren’t many barriers between our skin.

Dipping his head, he pressed a kiss to the corner of my lips. “I like this.” His hips shifted, and a sharp swirl of sensation ricocheted through me. “Being your blanket. A lot.”

Feeling a little breathless, I brought my hand to his cheek. “I can tell.”

He lifted his head, and I could see the sudden diamond brightness of his pupils. “Evie…” His gaze roamed over my face. “The things you fill my head with.”

There were things I wanted to talk about with him, important things, but knowing what I filled his head with seemed highly important at the moment. “Like what?”

He turned his head into my palm, placing a kiss against the center of my hand. “You. Me.” Lowering his head, he coasted his lips over my cheek until he arrived at that sensitive spot below my ear. “And things I only ever fantasized about.”

Heat swamped my senses as wanting burst through me in waves. He pressed a kiss to where my pulse beat wildly, and then he went lower. My eyes drifted shut as my head fell back and to the side, allowing him free rein.

“To do anything?” he murmured against my skin, hearing my innermost thoughts.

My toes curled. “I don’t even know what anything could entail,” I admitted.

Stroking his hand up over my waist, he lifted his head and lined up his mouth to mine. “We can discover what anything entails together.”

That sounded like a plan I could really get behind, and boy did I ever want to, but …

Opening my eyes before I got completely swept away, I tugged his head up. “There’s something I want from you.”

His gaze was heavy with intent. “Anything.”

“Tell me about Nancy Husher.”

The change that swept over Luc was as startling as it was expected. Light receded from Luc’s pupils, and the drowsy look vanished from his eyes. His shoulders tensed as his features lost the razor-sharp edge of desire, becoming hard and unforgiving.

“Someones have really been talking.” His tone was as flat as paper.

“And that someone isn’t you,” I repeated quietly and then went on before I lost my nerve. “Her name has come up more than once.”

“Which is too many times.” Candlelight flickered across his jaw. “What could you possibly want to know about that woman?”

I kept my hand on his cheek. “Anything and everything.”

His lashes swept down, shielding his gaze. A heartbeat passed and then another. He didn’t look up when he spoke. “Nancy was a woman who, in place of a heart and a soul, had nothing but obsession and ambition. Kindness and empathy were tools she used to either gain the trust of others or to ensure that she was underestimated.”

As Luc spoke, his voice didn’t change inflection. Absent of emotion, he sounded as if he were reciting a speech, but against my palm, I felt the tiny spasm of the muscle along his jaw. “The only thing she cared about was the Origins, and don’t mistake the word cared for any semblance of human emotion. The forced procreations and mutations? They were her idea when the Daedalus either failed to convince others of their pure intentions or when they started to run out of willing Luxen and hybrids. There was nothing that woman would not do. Kidnap people? Murder loved ones? Use innocent people to control those she needed? There was no line she would not cross, and she was just as obsessed with Daemon as she was with me, thinking that if she no longer had me to tote around as the shining example of a success, she needed the strongest Luxen to either breed future Origin or to mutate willing soldiers who bought into her cause—lock, stock, and barrel.”

Although I already knew that, horror still rolled through me.

“She was consumed with creating the perfect species, and she came pretty damn close to it.”

“With you?” I asked. “Or with the group Micah belonged to?”

“She believed I was perfect up until I escaped. It was then when she and the others began working on the Prometheus serum. If I had stayed, she would’ve never created Micah and—”

“If you’d stayed, you would’ve never freed Zoe and countless others. If you’d stayed, the world would probably be even worse off,” I interrupted, needing him to know that there wasn’t a single thing Nancy or the Daedalus did that was his fault. “If you’d stayed, we would’ve never met.”

His jaw flexed against my palm once more, and then his lashes lifted. I