Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,56

we say and do, not the things we don’t. The fact that you wanted to and didn’t shows what really matters to you, more than if you’d never wanted to in the first place.”

“It could happen again. I thought I could make sure I never gave in to that hunger again, but I was wrong. That’s why… The things I gleaned from that man’s memories—I thought maybe the Company knew how to destroy the dangerous parts of me. I went to ask them, to show— But they didn’t give me a chance to say anything.”

I bristled on his behalf even as my heart wrenched for him. “Of course they wouldn’t. They don’t want to believe any of you could be anything other than a total beast.”

“I know that now. They wrapped me in one of those jabbing nets and shut me in that glaring box, and when they took me out there was only more pain, and more, and…” He flinched just at the memory. “I wanted so much to get away from that, from what I’d done before, all of it. I didn’t mean to forget that completely. I’m not sure what I even did. It just… happened.”

“I don’t blame you for doing whatever you could to get through their torture. And I don’t blame you for what you did to that asshole either. If some prick is on the verge of gutting me again, I hope you do shred his fucking soul into as many little bits as you can manage.”

The neon flare returned to Snap’s eyes. His forked tongue flicked between his lips. He still didn’t look completely convinced, though.

I pushed myself off his lap and tugged him with me. With his slender frame and heavenly beauty, it was easy to forget just how impressively tall he was until he was standing right over me, his chin hovering above my forehead. But he was here. My devourer. He was with me completely like I’d started to believe I’d never have him again, and that felt like nothing short of a miracle.

I took a step back so I could catch his gaze again. “You saw how I looked at you when the change surprised me. Why don’t you see how I’ll react to you now? Bring out your devourer form. I know you won’t hurt me.”

“Sorsha…”

I walked my fingers up his lean chest. “Please, my devourer?”

I didn’t know whether it was the plea or the claiming that decided him, but he inhaled sharply and eased backward to give himself room. His shoulders stiffened. For a second, he looked so uneasy that I almost took back the request. Then the eerie green light that had glinted in his eyes shimmered over the rest of him.

His body stretched upward the way I remembered until he towered a good two feet over me. His face lengthened to accommodate that monstrous jaw that could unhinge to encompass an entire human head. His pupils had narrowed into slits around the neon glow in his eyes, and his fingers stirred restlessly at his sides, long and spidery.

Maybe I should have been horrified. But he hadn’t lost his golden curls, and the planes of his face still reminded me of a stunning sun god, if a more vicious version. I could see Snap all through the form that was his more natural state, even though he’d rather have shunned this side of himself. He looked brutal and unsettling and unnervingly but undeniably gorgeous.

Not your type? Not a problem. He was all mine. Just let anyone try to take this monster away from me.

Reaching up, I could just trace my fingers along his treacherous jaw. “My devourer,” I said again. And then, softer, because somehow it was still hard to say it, “My love.”

The light in Snap’s eyes blazed. He contracted in on himself with a rush of air, his body barely returned to its more human-like state before he’d caught me up in his lithe arms.

He kissed me like he’d been suffocating and I was his only air. In all the passion he’d shown me before, he’d never been quite this intense. As I kissed him back, I tangled my fingers in his soft hair and held on for the ride.

“My peach,” he said against my lips. “My Sorsha.” Then he dove back in to capture my mouth just as utterly a second time.

I let one of my hands trail down his chest, and a savage sound reverberated up his throat. Still kissing me, he