CHAPTER NINE : The Fire Beneath Her Skin
Lilith didn’t want to sleep.
Not with him so close.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbX4KMzJ7c1
Not when dreams might betray the fragile calm she was pretending to hold.
But Daniel…6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhwHJK5p4lh
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.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeBdQo5bkcX
A memory flashed—
A throne room made of glass.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd2t6jqrxDC
Chains.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuAFfwtvv8p
Feathers ripped from her back by a hand that once loved her.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu1zbUhrWvS
A voice:6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwSRcDHv8Qh
“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.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFG158z7oqd
Her first love—a human priest who chose heaven over her.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0PmjNCYqDh
Her punishment.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDLCSlSvS1P
The centuries of silence.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPjRXlcLKd1
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.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeKhjIeclz1
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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