CHAPTER NINE : The Fire Beneath Her Skin
Lilith didn’t want to sleep.
Not with him so close.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJi2H2kvpR0
Not when dreams might betray the fragile calm she was pretending to hold.
But Daniel…28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOd6q9oMmP3
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.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGtqOTDnaFV
A memory flashed—
A throne room made of glass.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTOHy5Wlq2x
Chains.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpKZ7XX7Nh0
Feathers ripped from her back by a hand that once loved her.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGkKkxzLods
A voice:28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcFPI7h0t5b
“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.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAJ5Y7oXftC
Her first love—a human priest who chose heaven over her.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGQzFVnrWPX
Her punishment.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ80JlfAwoSr
The centuries of silence.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu8Z9zRzkJv
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.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ14RwzYuRL5
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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