Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,3

looked like a demon, Aella later described to her. She’d been mindless with rage at seeing Dalair harmed. Everyone around her had crumpled to the floor gasping for breath, clutching their chests at the sudden, brutal pain.

Cloud had been affected less than the others. He’d tried to engage Sophia’s eyes with his own, but her attention couldn’t be diverted from Dalair’s bloodied, broken form.

It was only when eight-year-old Benji threw himself at Sophia’s back, hugging her tight around the waist from behind that she finally, slowly, came back to herself.

Sophia shivered with fear in memory.

She couldn’t control herself. A monster lived inside of her.

While she had the Gift to uplift souls, as she did in her first incarnation as the Pure Queen Ninti during the Akkadian empire, the same power could also crush them, killing tens of thousands during the Persian empire when she’d been Princess Kira.

And the trigger for the Darkness was Dalair.

Her Dalair.

She raised a hand over his face, wanting to smooth back the lock of raven black hair that fell over his brow, long enough to partially cover his right eye. She itched to rub her thumb across the sharpness of his cheekbones and stroke her fingers through the roughness of the thick stubbles on his jaw.

It was rare that Immortals grew body hair, except for their heads. Perhaps it was because Dalair had been born human first, then reborn as a Pure One, that he grew hair in other places, including his jaw. But the rules didn’t always apply. More ancient Immortals, those who were either Pure or Dark by birth, also grew hair, but then, others did not.

Sophia loved that Dalair’s physical characteristics remained mostly human. Though his powers gave him a don’t-fuck-with-me aura, he didn’t seem completely otherworldly.

He looked touchable.

Kissable.

So very fuckable.

Abruptly, Sophia dropped her hand back beside her face without touching him.

It was too dangerous, with the way she felt. The same monster within that seethed to avenge him, to destroy, also clawed her insides to possess him. Body and soul.

Her Pure female fangs punched through her gums at the very thought, dripping with saliva.

She’d always wanted Dalair. Even when she didn’t understand these desires, even when she fought against them, she wanted him.

But this—this was different. This obsessive, ravaging, ferocious, uncontrollable lust frightened her. She wanted to tear into him. She wanted to own him. She thought she’d do anything to have him.

But he was the enemy right now. If he figured out this weakness of hers, he could use it against her, against all of them. And, too, as long as his soul stayed paralyzed somewhere deep inside of him, his body was merely a shell that looked like Dalair.

But he was not Dalair. How could she even think about using him that way?

Sophia flinched as a memory flashed through her mind.

The fact was, she’d already used him that way. What happened between them after he abducted her a year ago and losing him shortly afterwards had instigated her Awakening.

Just as their enemies planned.

Until they found a way to reignite his soul, until Dalair returned to himself, she needed to keep her hands to herself for so many reasons.

Sophia’s entire body shook with nearly uncontrollable desire, all but rattling the table they lay upon. She clawed her hands into fists and maintained the few inches of distance between their bodies as she lay next to Dalair, facing him.

Gods, he was temptation incarnate! All the more irresistible because she loved him.

She loved him more than anything. Everything. More than honor, duty, righteousness, justice. She didn’t care about innocent lives if anything happened to him. Fuck the Universal Balance if he ever disappeared from the world.

He was hers! She’d burn down the world around them to make it so. And if he didn’t exist, then no one else had the right to exist.

Unbidden, she watched as if separate from her own body, as her hand raised again to hover over his face.

“Sophia.”

Rain’s soft warning made Sophia snatch her hand back and hastily sit up on the flat bed. She didn’t even hear the healer come into the Enclosure, so lost in her own thoughts and the irresistible pull of Dalair.

Rain’s Mate, Valerius, one of the most fearsome warriors of the Elite, escorted her. Though Dalair appeared to be in no condition to threaten anyone bodily harm, especially since he was also tightly bound, Valerius never took chances where Rain was concerned. At least the Protector grudgingly acquiesced to Sophia’s request for privacy when