Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,7
draw of his body, making the fine hairs on her own skin vibrate at his nearness.
She turned toward him, propping her head up on one hand while hovering her other hand over his face.
How she ached to touch him!
Her out-stretched hand flexed, then balled into a fist, then flexed open again, before painstakingly settling against the far side of his face, her thumb trembling over his sharp cheekbone.
Oh Goddess. He was so cold. There seemed to be no life within this body, a mere husk of muscle, flesh and bone.
“Where are you, Dalair?” she whispered urgently, her heart squeezing with pain.
“Come back to me. Please. Come back to me.”
She glanced the back of her hand over his brow, swept just the tips of her fingers over his closed eyelids, fluttering his thick, long lashes with her thumb.
He was barely breathing. Even his breath felt icy when she touched his lips. His chest didn’t rise and fall in a reassuring cadence. Could his soul have completely departed despite the presence of his physical form?
For a moment, Sophia panicked. Had their enemies found a way to trap the warrior’s body in the mortal realm for their own nefarious purposes while his soul was truly gone? Was Dalair no more than a walking corpse? A killing machine commanded by Medusa, and now Wan’er?
No! Sophia wouldn’t believe it. She’d never accept it. Dalair couldn’t leave this world without her!
With a burst of emotion so strong, she couldn’t contain it, she clutched him to her without thinking, turning his face toward her, and kissed his closed mouth hard with all the desperation, fury and grief that she felt. Uncaring that she cut his bottom lip with her teeth. Ignoring the icy cold of his skin against hers, making her shiver uncontrollably.
Wake up, Dalair, please! She shouted in her mind. Even though she knew he wouldn’t answer. He wasn’t even there.
So when she pulled back and looked down again, a stunned breath left her body on a harsh exhale.
Because Dalair’s eyes were wide open, looking directly back at her.
Chapter Two
Need her. Need her. Need her.
The words throbbed through the warrior’s mind like ancient drum beats before battle.
Their meaning, however, barely registered. His heart simply thudded in sync to the instinctive rhythm, his blood heating, slowly thawing the ice in his veins.
His black eyes took in the face right before him, mere inches away.
It was blurry at first, his vision unfocused upon waking. Like a computer automatically running a health scan, his brain assessed his state of being.
His body was weak. He’d sustained heavy, near mortal damage. Severe blood loss. Ruptured internal organs. Broken ribs. His epidermis had knitted closed, stopping the external bleeding, but the tissues underneath were still torn. And his overall weakness stalled the healing process even further.
He could feel the trickle of internal bleeding, his body using significant reserves to absorb the excess while regenerating organs. Liver, both kidneys, spleen, left lung. Punctured stomach and small intestines. Even his heart had been nicked, though it was mostly protected beneath his chest bone.
All this, he surmised within a split second as he was programmed to do. He was a machine, after all. Made of flesh and blood.
A machine who nevertheless reacted to the female hovering over him in strange, unpredictable ways, as if she was a virus that had thrown his algorithms for a loop.
He concentrated harder on her face, making his crystalline lens, the photoreceptors behind his irises, work double-time.
An oval outline came slowly into focus. Large, warm brown eyes that had a slightly exotic tilt to them, framed by sooty lashes. Dark brows arching like wings above. Straight nose that fit the face, neither too small nor too large. Full lips, both top and bottom, almost equal in size. Small, pointed chin.
On a basic level, he recognized her.
Or, at least his body did. For his blood flowed hotter within his veins, and the drum beat of his pulse grew heavier, louder. Resonating in the throb of his sex, as it lengthened and thickened. Growing so hard, it felt as if his skin might split open.
Take her. Take her. Take her.
“Dalair,” she whispered, her warm breath fanning over his mouth, her lips almost touching his.
Yes, he recognized the name.
He was called that by some. He was also called the Paladin. Hazarapatish or Commanding Officer. General. Soldier. Brother. Son. Prince.
My Prince.
These titles meant nothing to him. Merely monikers to refer to his physical shell, to gain his attention.