Nightshade Read Online Free PDF

sat up, staring at his muscular back and flanks and the wicked demon wings that sprouted from his shoulder blades. “I know why you came,” she said in a voice that she hardly recognized as her own.
     
    He stopped, turning his head to look at her. Slowly, his face contorted in a savage glare. “Do you?”
     
    Bronwyn licked her lips. “I offered to reward you for your kindness to me.”
     
    “I did not do it in expectation of a ‘reward’,” he growled, his voice the deep rumble she remembered.
     
    It sent a shiver through her that was not unpleasant, in fact just the opposite. She wondered at it, wondered why it did not fill her with fear and loathing.
     
    Because he had saved her, she realized after a moment. Because she remembered that voice meant safety, protection--not threat. “Why did you do it, then?” she asked, curious now.
     
    He looked disconcerted for a moment, then the scowl returned. “I did not think you could fly,” he ground out.
     
    She stared at him blankly for a moment and felt the tug of a smile at her lips. “You don’t want to tell me.”
     
    His gaze skated over her and finally returned to her face and abruptly, despite the harshness of his scowl and the angry glitter in his eyes, she knew why. She mattered to him. For some reason he had not counted the cost to himself because he cared what happened to her.
     
    The thought sent a curious flutter through her. Doubt warred with certainty, compassion with horror, and denial with curiosity. Why would a creature such as he was care what happened to any mortal, let alone her? She searched her mind for anything that she might have done to deserve his regard and found, without surprise, that she could recall nothing at all.
     
    Still, she was certain that he had lied. He had said that he had thrown away his only hope of redemption for a woman that meant nothing to him. He would not have done that if she had meant nothing to him.
     
    Gathering her nerve, she pushed the covers back and moved to the edge of the bed, lifting her fingers to the tie of her gown. “It does not matter,” she murmured shakily. “All that matters is that you saved my life and it’s important to me. It is only fitting that I give as graciously and selflessly as you did.”
     
    She wasn’t prepared for the look of pure fury that comment provoked.
     

     

     

Chapter Five
     

     
    A frisson of fear went through Bronwyn.
     
    “I do not need your sacrifice,” he snarled.
     
    Unnerved as she was by his sudden show of temper, it occurred to her after a moment that it was inspired by hurt. She might have dismissed it as absurd except that she was reasonably certain she had not guessed wrong about his reason for helping her.
     
    She did dismiss it as ridiculous, at first. She was attributing human emotions to a creature that was not human! “I offer a gift of gratitude....”
     
    “I do not want your gratitude either!”
     
    “If you continue to roar at me,” Bronwyn said testily, “you will not have the opportunity to distain it. You will bring the guards!”
     
    Surprise flickered in his eyes for a split second before they narrowed. “You believe that is something that concerns me?”
     
    Bronwyn sighed. “It concerns me. I don’t want them hurt.”
     
    Amusement entered his eyes, softened his harsh features and Bronwyn felt a curious warmth wash over her, and surprise, for she discovered that his face was infinitely appealing.
     
    Slipping from the bed, she padded barefoot across the room to him. He stared down at her almost warily as she halted less than a hand’s span from him. Lifting her hand, she settled her palm lightly along his cheek. “If you do not want me, you need only say so. I will not offer again, but I have no reservations about giving you ease this once. It is a paltry enough reward for what you did for me. All I ask is that you accept that it can only be this once. For the king has decree that I shall wed again, and I