CHAPTER NINE : The Fire Beneath Her Skin
Lilith didn’t want to sleep.
Not with him so close.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5QSVYv4rDV
Not when dreams might betray the fragile calm she was pretending to hold.
But Daniel…21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMFxDzZxsRN
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWAWMlXIK7t
A memory flashed—
A throne room made of glass.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRXMh8DWLxp
Chains.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡisiUrvRyck
Feathers ripped from her back by a hand that once loved her.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2JfHtLspj8
A voice:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEtSwZT8odi
“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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMJmx6Rf3FA
Her first love—a human priest who chose heaven over her.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1symDQ3kBK
Her punishment.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRXjk3Y1Uun
The centuries of silence.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5W7H1ecQuA
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCXsMkF4lhK
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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