Jeaniene Frost - The Sweetest Burn

Feel, not felt. His deliberate use of the present tense told me that he wasn’t buying my being over him. The problem was, I was starting to doubt whether or not I was myself.

“Tell that to every Archon and demon alive,” I muttered, mentally kicking myself for bringing the subject up. I should just keep a piece of tape handy so I could slap it over my mouth every time I had the urge to say something reckless.

“I don’t care what they think, either,” Adrian said silkily, closing the distance between us.

I backed away, holding out my hands to ward him off. “Don’t. If this is why you called me out here, I’m leaving.”

Hard assessment filled his features, as if judging whether I meant that, but he stopped. “It’s not why, but it’s been so long since I’ve been near you that I can’t help it. Don’t say you haven’t missed me, too, or I’ll know that you’re lying.”

“Really? How will you know that?” I said, deciding that I’d much rather challenge him than admit to it.

He came close enough to brush my hair away from my neck, and I told myself it was the night air hitting my skin that made me shiver. His fingers trailed over my neck, lingering on the spot where it felt like my heart was trying to escape through my jugular.

“Because when you lie, your pulse pounds even harder.”

I moved away. Damn the memories that had come flooding back at his touch, taunting me with how his hands had felt when they’d explored other parts of my body.

“You’re wearing the necklace.” The masculine satisfaction in his voice scattered more shivers over me. I closed my hand over the pendant, as if concealing it made that any less true.

“With its history, I couldn’t risk Brutus losing it,” I said defensively.

Adrian laughed, but the knowing sound was nothing compared to the intensity in his gaze. “This time, I don’t even have to look at your pulse to know you’re lying.”

What was I going to say? That some crazed part of me had been so touched by Adrian giving me a priceless stone from his childhood that I’d put the necklace on right before I went to bed? I hadn’t thought that anyone would see my momentary act of weakness, yet since I’d forgotten to take it off before I went outside, now it was being used against me.

Brutus interrupted the moment by hopping off the crypt and stretching out his wings to their full extension. Then he chuffed at Adrian as if to say, Hey, pal, remember me?

Adrian threw a rueful look at the gargoyle. “You’re anxious to get started, I know, but your timing sucks.”

I actually loved the gargoyle’s timing. In fact, the next hunk of raw pot-roast meat I came across had Brutus’s name written all over it. Then I looked more closely at the gargoyle, noticing that he had something around his neck, too.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

Adrian cast one more look at the diamond in my cleavage. Then he walked over to Brutus and fingered the straps.

“It’s why I called you out here. You’re about to have your first flying lesson.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I KNEW MY ears weren’t malfunctioning, yet I still repeated his statement as if I’d misheard him. “Flying lesson?” Are you serious? my mind added in a screech.

He patted Brutus, murmuring to him in Demonish before he answered me. “I’ve had Brutus since right after he was born. He was so small, I could carry him around like a baby, and he broke every fragile object in my house when he was learning to fly.”

The mental image of baby Brutus learning how to fly was adorable, but it didn’t quell my apprehension. “But I don’t want to learn how to ride Brutus when he flies.”

The half smile that had curled Adrian’s mouth while he reminisced about Brutus vanished. “You remember why I had to leave you when we rescued Jasmine from the Bennington realm?”

“Yes,” I said hoarsely, fighting the memories from that day, but the most painful one came, anyway.

Adrian grasped my head, his silver-sapphire gaze almost burning into mine. “He can’t fly with all of us, and I’m the heaviest. Brutus’ll take you to the B and B, then you need to cross through the gateway.”

I was appalled. “Adrian, you can’t—”

He pulled my head down, his mouth searing mine in a kiss that matched the blazing intensity in his eyes. Desperation, desire and despair seemed to pour from him into me, but when he lifted his head, he was smiling.

“I love you, Ivy. I love you, and I didn’t betray you. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can do anything.”

Then he stuffed the slingshot into my pocket, slapped the gargoyle on his side and yelled, “Tarate!” Those mighty wings began to beat at once, flying Jasmine and me away while leaving Adrian to face a horde of minions alone...

His stare crashed through the memory and compelled me not to look away. “I don’t regret staying behind to make sure that you and Jasmine made it out, but if a similar situation happens again, I want us all to be able to escape. That’s why I’ve spent the past couple months learning how to ride Brutus when he’s flying, and why I trained him to strengthen his wings so that he can fly while carrying very heavy loads.”

I had to look away and blink several times to clear the sudden blurriness in my vision. “That’s...that’s smart.”

And brave, ballsy, thoughtful and so many other things I didn’t dare say out loud. I’d spent the past two months trying to convince myself that I felt nothing for Adrian. He’d spent that time thinking up new ways to protect me and Jasmine, and while it didn’t make up for everything that had happened, it did leave a dent in my heart.

He shrugged, although the intensity didn’t leave his gaze. “The bus has its perks, but speed isn’t one of them. That makes it terrible for getaways if we come under attack. Brutus has speed, maneuverability, and his hide is so thick, minions would need a rocket launcher to bring him down.”

Brutus chuffed, lifting his head a notch higher. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he understood every word because then he fluffed out his wings as though he were preening.

“You’re all that and a bag of badass,” I told him, smiling when he chuffed again as if in agreement. Then I returned my attention to Adrian. “I get why you wanted to learn how to ride him, but why do you want me to?”

Adrian fingered the straps around Brutus’s neck, which I now realized was a harness. “It takes strength and concentration. If I were injured, I wouldn’t be able to do it, and Brutus maxes out at carrying three people in his arms.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t like heights and I hadn’t even been good at horseback riding the few times I’d tried it. The thought of trying to ride on a flying gargoyle’s back made my stomach roil, but the thought of Adrian being left behind again was a thousand times worse. I’d rather puke my guts out than risk that. Hell, I’d rather die, but I’d keep that to myself.

“Okay,” I said, forcing a smile as I approached Brutus. “Let’s get the flying lesson started.”

* * *

“AGAIN!” ADRIAN SAID, followed by a command of “Tarate!” to Brutus. The gargoyle vaulted us upward like he was a reptilian version of a roller coaster.

I slammed back against Adrian, forgetting to hold on to the reins again. Only Adrian’s hold on them, plus his thighs gripping Brutus, kept us from falling as Brutus’s torque made my stomach feel like it bashed into my spine. The rush of wind turned my hair into tiny whips, and when Brutus propelled us higher with another powerful flap of his wings, my guts left my spine to plummet downward like a free-falling elevator.

The fact that I hadn’t thrown up yet was a miracle.