The Darkest Touch

“Don’t,” she said, surprising herself. I want him closer? “I...need your warmth.” Truth. In part. She craved the connection to another living creature...to him. It had been so long.

He remained in place. His gaze locked with hers, and it was both torturous and rapturous. Without the panic, her desire for him—for sensation—had no filter, becoming a driving force she couldn’t deny.

Don’t do this.

Must. “Is the woman you’ve been staying with your lover?” she asked.

He blinked down at her. “Woman? Oh. You mean Winter. No.”

I am...relieved?

Maybe. His condition was a hard sell for any female, true, but Keeley wasn’t any female. She could have him.

But why would I want him? I hate him. Even still the urge to reach up and trace her fingertips along the ridges of his chest bombarded her...so she did it, she reached. I’m far too strong to sicken.

She paused midway to gauge his reaction.

His jaw clenched tightly. “Don’t,” he croaked, but he remained in place, as if he wanted her to do it—needed her to. “I mean it. Don’t.”

“You’ll thank me.” Truly, his demon would be no match for her. Who would? In a class by myself.

She reached the rest of the way and flattened her palm just over his heart. Skin-to-skin. He flinched but didn’t pull away. Hissed, but also moaned. As if the sudden connection between them was equal parts pain and bliss. Hell and heaven.

“Keeley.” A rasp of demand...and necessity.

Asking me for more. Has to be.

He was hot enough to burn, soft as silk yet hard as steel, and nothing had ever felt this good. A simple touch has felled me.

“You are...” Everything I’ve ever wanted or needed or hoped would be possible. She traced her fingertips along his collarbone, up his neck...to his lips. They parted and she took advantage, pressing in to feel the moist heat inside his mouth.

He sucked, hard, and she moaned. The sound jolted him out of whatever magical haze had been woven. He reared back, horror radiating from him. The same kind of horror the villagers had once cast at her.

“Torin?” Give me more.

“Keeley.” He shook his head, rubbed his chest, as if he could still feel her. “You shouldn’t have touched me. I shouldn’t have let you. Even if you live through the infection, which you probably won’t, you’ll be immune to it but still able to spread it. The very reason I’ll have to kill you, despite your recovery.”

CHAPTER SIX

MY FAULT.

The words echoed in Torin’s mind as he built a fire, and it was like taking fists to the chest. Keeley sat on the ground, watching his every move. He knew, because he could feel the hot ping of her gaze drilling holes in his back. Since “the Incident,” she hadn’t attempted to fight him. She’d gone still, quiet.

Soon she would sicken. Just like all the others. And he would curse his very existence.

He sought a sense of numbness as he dug through the pack he’d hidden behind a tree, withdrawing every bit of leftover medicine. A few antibiotics, fewer antivirals. Cough suppressant, antihistamines, decongestants. Painkillers. Even vitamin strips that would dissolve on the tongue.

He tossed the antibiotics and strips at her, plus a canteen of water. “Take two of the pills. Suck on one of the strips. They’ll help stave off the infection.”

In a perfect world, that would be good enough. But their world wasn’t even close to perfect.

No response from her.

If he had to force her to—

He heard a rustle of clothing, a gulp of water being swallowed.

Good girl. He wasn’t sure how he would have reacted to forcing her...to putting his hands on her again. There is no woman softer.

Guilt pricked at him, as determined to ruin him as Disease. It was never far from the surface, always looking for a moment to spew its poison. Next would come sorrow...rage. At Keeley. At himself. Mostly himself. He’d wanted her touch more than he’d ever wanted anything.

While Disaster had screamed at him to get as far away from her as possible, he’d pretty much raced to the razor’s edge of temptation, telling himself Keeley was so powerful she would be immune. That he could finally have everything he’d ever secretly craved.

But it was a lie. It was always a lie.

Why had he encouraged a battle with her? Why had he sought to comfort her after her panic? The only possible outcome had happened. What a shocker.

Now Keeley would pay the ultimate price for his weakness, and he would be responsible for either killing one of the only remaining Curators or creating another carrier. And while in that perfect world he wished he lived in a female carrier would mean he’d finally have someone to touch and to hold and to kiss and to please, without any further consequences, that wasn’t how it worked. If Torin touched her a second time, he would pass on a different illness.

The demon didn’t just specialize in one ailment, but countless.

Disease often changed strains with the times. The black death of the thirteen hundreds had given way to the cholera pandemic of the eighteen hundreds. Made it harder for the world to combat the evil, he supposed. For Torin to combat it.

“Has anyone ever not gotten sick after tangling with you?” Keeley asked.

The hope in her voice...he crumbled, utterly agonized. “No.”

“But I’m, like, super powerful.”

She wasn’t just super powerful; she was the most powerful person he’d ever come across. “Sickness feeds on certain types of power. How else do you think it grows?”