Because his unnatural beauty stole her breath and left her hot and cold, weak and numb, all at once. Her gaze lowered to the glinting silver blade the stranger held at Steve’s throat, the tip breaking enough skin to draw blood. Further down the forbidden man’s form to the impossible blue smoke curling around his flexed fingers, creeping over his forearm.
She snapped her gaze back to the man’s face. An impeccable face with flawless features carved from pale stone. All sharp angles and accentuated slopes. Perfect.
Until his startling blue eyes met hers. Eyes so cold they injected ice into her soul. Eyes set in that perfectly stoic face, devoid of emotions.
The eyes of a murderer.
Fear. Cold, raw fear.
Runrunrun!
Somewhere through her dulled senses, Cassy’s screamshook Rori free of her shock. She leaped for her friend, who fearlessly sprang toward the stranger.
“Cassy, no!”
The beers fell from Rori’s hand, crashing to the tiled floor in a pool of fizzy dark liquid and broken glass. Her flip-flops slipped before she could maneuver around the mess, and she took a hard fall, banging her elbow and hip. The jolt wracked her ribs and she barked out in pain, but pulled her knees under her and scrambled to her feet. No amount of fear or adrenaline could get her to move faster as pain shot through her body with each heartbeat.
The stranger threw up his hand. That unnatural entwining smoke flashed out, throwing Cassy backward. Rori shrieked as her friend slammed into the wall and slid down to the floor, eyes fluttering before falling closed.
“Stop!” Steve roared.
Rori shuffled back as more of that unreal smoky stuff poured out of Steve’s hands and cast out to the stranger, who blindly blocked the attack and counterattacked with his own effortless magic—because she had no other word for it—flipping Steve over the sofa.
The entire time, his frigid gaze held hers, piercing her straight through her mind. Leaving her body a jumble of sensation, from allure to fear to desire to hatred. The air around him shimmered a dull gold, and it was in that split moment when she could break their gaze that she noticed his ears tapered to points alongside his head. Points. Like an elf.
“Oh. My. God.”
Rori spun and bolted for the door.
The door slammed shut in front of her. The doorknob melted away in a white flash of magic.
Magic that snapped around her from shoulders to hips like burning hot ropes.
She opened her mouth to scream.
Her body jerked backward, her feet lifting from the floor. She slammed into an unyielding wall with a grunt and a gasp?—
“Thaddeus, enough!”
“I warned you about frolicking with mortals.”
Rori stiffened as the murderous stranger groused those words in a husky, chilling voice beside her ear, his warm breath unleashing goosebumps over her arms. That voice rolled along her muscles, resonated in her bones, and created the sweetest hum in her soul. A hum she dreaded more than Rich.
This thing behind her, holding her in magical straps and a steel arm that threatened to fracture her healing ribs all over again, set a new precedent of fear.
Steve came around them…
What was left of her sane world tilted on its axis.
“W-what happened to you?” Rori breathed.
Steve, or the man who should be Steve, didn’t look a speck like the spiky brown-haired, brown-eyed hottie Cassy adored and who Rori had watched fly over the sofa moments ago. No. The man before her had an uncanny resemblance to the monster at her back, with a sharp-cut face, hair woven with dozens of different hues of gold and stunning silver eyes. And if her eyes didn’t deceive her—she was really beginning to questionthat—he appeared a few inches taller, broader, and fairer in skin color.
To top the cake, this version of Steve had pointy ears, too.
Rori whimpered, sagging in the unyielding grip of her captor. Her gaze fell to Cassy, who remained unconscious on the floor, blissfully oblivious to the circus Rori was trying to process in a mind whirling with too many emotions to try and filter. If onlyshehad been the one rendered unconscious…
Steve’s brows rose, his gaze lifting to the beast behind her before his nostrils flared and a taunting smile crested his mouth. “Well, if this isn’t ironic. Let her go, Thad. You’re hurting her.” He twisted enough to find Cassy and, with another swirl and some fancy finger movements, used his magic to lift her friend from the ground and gently place her on the sofa. His smile turned into a sneer as he cast the stranger a threatening look. “This was unnecessary.” He nodded sharply at Rori. “I said, let hergo.”
