Chapter Twenty-nine

Time skipped around Helena. She wasn’t using her powers, she was sure of it. But the room held still all the same, and everything beyond it did too.

“No,” said Will with quiet but firm finality. “I’m not.”

He cupped her cheek with one hand, and it was so hot, it became a brand of its own. She held her shaking breath.

“I haven’t been okay from the moment I laid eyes on you, Helena.” He shook his handsome head, and the green of his eyes lit up in stark contrast like actual magic. For a moment, it took her breath away. “You aren’t meant to be Cain’s,” he told her. “We both know it.”

I know.

She may have been originally made by the Storyteller as a gift for the First Vampire, but time had changed. She was her own person. She was more certain of this than anything.

But that wasn’t what Will meant. She knew that too. And that possession in his voice filled her with a dark thrill both hard and inescapable.

“What makes you think, Will Slate, that I’m meant to be yours?” she managed to ask with a semblance of defiance.

The warden lowered his head, shadowing his unnaturally glowing gaze as it bored into her with nothing short of starvation. “To tell you the truth, at the moment I don’t really care.” He took her face in both hands now, and Helena sensed something new in the room. It was power, volatile and raw. It moved through Will’s form and into hers, and she wondered if it was even stronger than her own. It was magic. His magic.

“I want you, Helena. And I plan to make you want me back if it takes a hundred years.”

Will Slate was not human. In that moment, staring breathlessly up at him, she was sure of it.

But that made no sense, did it? He was a warden, and a famous one at that. Never had there been mention of the Slate cousins being more than human.

And damn it all to hell, she actually didn’t care either.

A heady intoxication was moving through her, and it wasn’t the medicine. It sparkled at its edges and had the faint sound of ticking clocks. The air in the room was charged as if lightning were about to strike. And then there were his eyes….

She was lost in them, stripped to her core until the warmth coursing through her became a sharp heat, making her weak. She’d never been weak before.

“If I’m being honest,” she whispered so softly, “I don’t see it taking that long.”

Will’s green eyes flashed. There was the lightning. Right there in the depths of those impossible eyes. The glow intensified, and his beautiful face took on a deliciously cruel cast. “What is it that makes you so brave and so honest, little one?” He was still cupping her face. He lowered one thumb to her mouth, then brushed the softest touch across her bottom lip. His pupils dilated.

Her breath caught. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and closed her mouth again, her teeth clenching tight as another shiver ran through her. Then she closed her eyes and swallowed against the lump. “Sodium amytal will do that to you,” she returned shakily. The world was about to shatter. She could feel it.

She spoke solely for the sake of speaking, out of desperation to keep time at bay. To hold things together for just a little longer. To remain in control. His nearness, his height, his touch and overwhelming presence were taking her over. Helena was twisted up; she had no idea what to make of the change coming over him. She had even less of an idea why she wasn’t afraid of that change.

She was falling.

He stood over her, in complete control of the universe, and she couldn’t take her mind off the kiss he’d given her. That one kiss. The one that had promised her heaven before betraying her to hell. Despite it all… she wanted it again.

“Truth serum,” he said, that perfect white smile lighting up the face of an angel, wicked and perfect. It unleashed the softest sound of yearning inside her, and that sound escaped the cage of her teeth. Then his grin turned as dark as his gaze. “I suppose it’s good for a few things.”

But she barely heard him. He moved in so fast, she had no time to react before his strong body bent over her and he at last claimed her lips in the fierce fire of his kiss once more. For the second time in as many hours, Helena’s mind went supernova. The kiss was bruising, his mouth hungry and determined, the rest of him even more so.

He planted a knee against the bed beside her and she found herself on her back, Will towering over her. She lost herself in a whirlwind of thoughts that wouldn’t fully form as his lips scorched a path from her lips to her ear, and the wall of his body moved in. “Say my name again,” he commanded, the brush of his breath against her skin sending delicious waves of sensation washing over her.

Helena barely interpreted his words. It was the meaning behind them, the deeper demand that some part within her comprehended, and it was that same part of her that responded. “William,” she said.

He stilled above her, a deep, desperate sound escaping his throat. Helena turned her head and glanced at his eyes. He’d closed them as if in bliss, his lips parted just above the pulse point on her neck. As she watched, stunned by the image and the sensations he was unleashing within her, he pressed those lips to her throat in a kiss – and power moved through her.

It hit her with the force of something solid, and she gasped, almost crying out. Her back arched as she was pressed into the mattress. Will wrapped a strong arm around her, pulling her into the middle of the bed where his strength – and his magic – held her down.

She closed her eyes while waves washed over her, sizzling and intimate, as if Will had a second form and it had a mind of its own.

“If you aren’t sure, then stop me now,” he told her, heated words spoken desperately into her ear. It was a plea and a warning. But his body opposed his words, hard and radiating heat above her, his hands firm but just shy of painful, his chest pressed against hers – and she had no intention of stopping him. Helena knew something was changing, she knew something integral was happening, and could no longer tell whether it was even good or bad. She only knew she wanted it. And in that selfish, precious moment after all she’d been through in her life, it was damn well all she cared about.

Instead of saying anything at all, Helena fought whatever magic this was just to be able to place her hands to his chest and slide a hand up to his cheek.

Will rose and opened his eyes.

Helena gazed into them and for just a moment, her heart stopped. Time wrapped firmly around it and held tight, claiming it as its own.