CHAPTER NINE : The Fire Beneath Her Skin
Lilith didn’t want to sleep.
Not with him so close.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ54l4lXnNS5
Not when dreams might betray the fragile calm she was pretending to hold.
But Daniel…9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ7iXwuUoyv
Daniel was touching her again.
Careful fingers brushing her temple, wiping blood from her nose, tracing the edge of the burn on her ribs.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered.
She opened her mouth to lie.
But the truth ached too much.
“Yes.”
“And still you came?”
She nodded. “Because you whispered my name like a prayer.”
He looked at her like she wasn’t human.
And she wasn’t.
The second time he touched her, it was her hand.
Warmth met frost.
His mortal skin. Her cursed flesh.
And something inside her shifted.
Her pupils glowed for half a second.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7cpgVUiLE3
A memory flashed—
A throne room made of glass.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWKSjJet8BN
Chains.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQB3KwpM7gU
Feathers ripped from her back by a hand that once loved her.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeQNLMbzMn2
A voice:9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4G3jJGx4aF
“Fall, then. Love them, if you dare.”
She jerked away.
Daniel caught her wrist.
“Show me,” he said.
“No.”
“Lilith—”
“No one survives knowing who I was. Who I am.”
“Then let me be the first.”
So she did.
She placed his hand over her heart—her scarred, beating, wounded soul.
And opened herself.
For one moment, he saw everything.
Her fall.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYsUznmcIPj
Her first love—a human priest who chose heaven over her.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDk9NFK9Jvb
Her punishment.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AINO4xGjj
The centuries of silence.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVHlkuLS7Gz
The curse that every time she loved, it would burn her from the inside.
He gasped. Staggered.
But he didn’t let go.
Not even when fire curled around her shoulders.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJZsazxNPt
Not even when her skin began to glow.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he whispered.
And for the first time in eternity…
Lilith believed him.
But above them, cloaked in the dying moonlight…
A watcher spoke into the wind.
“One more touch, and she dies. Let him choose.”
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