I jolted, my breath catching. My back hit the wall.

“I am the one with fear!” Snarling frustration roughened his words. “You break so easily. I am always afraid you will be hurt. I watch you and protect you and you still get hurt and I try and it isn’t enough! Why am I this afraid for a payilas who thinks I will hurt her?”

With my back pressed to the wall, I stared at him with my lungs locked. Emotions boiled through me, a tangled mess I couldn’t begin to sort through. All I knew was that my heart was hammering and my head was spinning and he was telling me how afraid he was that I would get hurt.

He paced away from me then swept back to the middle of the room, teeth bared. “You were not afraid when you had the infernus. I was your tool. Now I am not, and I am dangerous.”

I shoved off the wall. “No! That’s not it!”

His eyes narrowed.

“I’m afraid now because … because … because you’re so strong, and you could hold me down and I couldn’t blast you with magic like a payashē.”

“I would not hurt you. Why don’t you know that?”

I sucked in air. “When you … when you mated with a payashē, were you afraid of her?”

His jaw flexed. “Yes.”

“You are like that to me, Zylas,” I whispered. “I can’t not be a little afraid.”

“But those payashē did not want to protect me. They did not care.”

I went completely still. Even my heart ceased to beat. “Do you care … about me?”

“I will protect you, not hurt you.” He blinked rapidly, as though struggling for the right words in this foreign language he’d been forced to learn so quickly. “I want you to always be safe.”

It took a moment, just a moment, for his soft declaration to settle in my ears—then my body was moving.

I didn’t worry or wonder or doubt or think, think, think, as Zylas had described it. I crossed the distance between us with rushing steps, my hands reaching up. My palms found his face, fingers hooking over the back of his neck. I stretched up onto my toes.

And pressed my mouth against his.

He went rigid.

I dropped back onto my heels, breath rushing in my throat and a blush roasting my cheeks. But I kept my hands and my eyes on him.

“That’s how one human tells another human that they care. And that they … might like to … mate,” I finished weakly.

He stared at me, and my pulse jumped at the way his eyes focused on me anew, intense and almost challenging. His hands curled around the sides of my neck, palms warm and thumbs against my cheeks. Leaning down, he brought his face close to mine. The tips of our noses touched.

He pressed his mouth against mine.

My stomach dropped out of me. He waited a moment, seeing if I would panic, if I would push him away. Instead, I closed my fingers around his wrists and rose onto my tiptoes, kissing him harder—and he responded in kind.

At the firm press of his mouth, I parted my lips. He caught my lower lip in his teeth, a gentle bite—then fit his mouth to mine.

The hot slide of his tongue weakened my knees. Kissing. Tasting. My pulse raced, molten heat expanding through my core. I didn’t realize he was pushing me backward until I met the wall. I gasped—and he drew away, my lips suddenly cold as his disappeared.

My hands shot up. I grabbed his head and yanked his mouth back down onto mine.

His breath rushed from his nose in surprise—then he crushed me into the wall. His hands were in my hair, holding my head. Lips and tongue and brief touches of his canines overwhelmed my senses.

Last time we’d kissed, he’d been gentle, careful, exploratory.

This time, he was intense, hungry, demanding.

This time, his mouth moved over mine, taking what he wanted, and every part of me was ready to surrender to his hands and his mouth and the fire he’d ignited inside me. He pinned me to the wall, allowing no retreat. A rough sound rumbled in his chest as I tipped my head farther back, his mouth locked over mine.

“Holy fuck!”

As the shrieked profanity rang out, Zylas jerked back from me. With his hands still in my hair, he looked at the bedroom door.

Amalia stood in the threshold, wearing her jacket, her face stark white. Clanks and rattles of the washer filled the silence—the noise that had concealed her return to the apartment from Zylas’s sensitive hearing.

“Zylas.” Amalia’s hands were balled into fists, visibly trembling. “Get away from her.”

He leaned back slightly, his tail lashing.

“Get away from her!” She shouted, fear making her voice go high and thin. “You can’t do that to her! You swore to protect her! You can’t—”

“Amalia—” I gasped faintly.

“—hurt her like that! You’re breaking your promise! You—”

“Amalia!” I half yelled. “I kissed him!”

She broke off, her bulging eyes swinging to me. I pushed on Zylas and he stepped back, hands sliding from my hair.

“I kissed him,” I repeated, my face flaming as I fought the gut-deep embarrassment. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

She stared at me, shaking from head to toe. The fear in her voice—had she been prepared to challenge Zylas to protect me, knowing she couldn’t defend herself if he got violent?

“Wrong,” she repeated. “Nothing wrong?”

I nodded quickly. “It was me. I—”

“You kissed him. After what we talked about. That it was too dangerous. That it was wrong.”

“It’s not—”

“He’s a demon!” she shouted.

“He’s a person!” I shouted back, stepping forward, Zylas behind me. “A person! With thoughts and emotions and intelligence.”

“A demon with thoughts and emotions and intelligence!”

“What’s the difference?” I demanded. “If he didn’t have a tail, would it be fine? If he had no magic, would he qualify as a person? Where’s your line?”

“He’s a different species.”

“Based on what? The tail and the magic?”

“Don’t bullshit me! We could start the list with how he can turn into a blob of energy and spend the next hour listing all the ways he’s a preternatural creature from another dimension!”

My hands clenched. “Why does any of that matter?”

“Do you hear yourself? Of course it matters!”

“Why?”

“Different. Species,” she ground out. “What the hell is wrong with you, Robin? You think screwing a demon will be all fun and games, a little bedroom experiment?”

“This isn’t about experimenting,” I snapped.

“Then what?” She stiffened her spine, glowering furiously. “Explain it, Robin. Tell me why you’ve lost your goddamn mind, because I sure as shit don’t get it!”

I opened my mouth—but I didn’t know what to say. The seconds stretched out.

“Fine.” Amalia hitched her purse up her shoulder. “You know what? Fine. Do what you want—but I won’t sit by and watch.”

Spinning on her heel, she stormed away.

For a second, I was too surprised to move, then I rushed after her, passing a bag of takeout on the kitchen counter. She swept into the living room and grabbed her suitcase—already packed, because we’d decided we should be ready to abandon this location at a moment’s notice.