"I'm not getting married without underwear. Or without
my gun. Not with wild animals on the loose."
Tighe took a step toward her, his mouth compressing
dangerously. "You'll do whatever I tell you to do."
Delaney threw the gown on the floor. "Go to hell."
He lunged for her, grabbed her arm, and hauled her
roughly against him. "I don't like this any better than you
do, but it's either bind yourself to me or die. I gave you
the choice already. You chose this. You chose me."
"I was delirious."
His jaw went hard as he released her with one hand and
flicked open a switchblade three inches from her face.
"It's not too late to change your mind." The tightness
of his mouth spoke of barely leashed violence, but in the
agitated flutter of those angel wings in her head she
sensed an unhappiness as raw as her own. He was being
forced to tie himself to a woman he didn't love.
No, not forced.
He could have let her die.
Her fury ebbed as her heart began to ache for him almost
as much as herself. "Would you really kill me?" she asked
quietly. She already knew the answer.
The anger drained out of him as he retracted the blade
and shoved it back in his pocket.
"No." He released her along with a sigh that echoed with
pain. "But if you won't go through with this, I'll have no
choice but to step aside while someone else does. The
survival of our race is too important." He shook his
head. "Not just to us. If we die, there will be no one left
to keep the Daemons from returning. Imagine thousands of
creatures terrorizing the human population. Creatures worse
than my twin. A dozen times worse."
She shuddered and stared at him, her mind struggling to
accept round after round of evidence that the world was so
much more complex than she'd thought. "So I really don't
have a choice?"
His mouth turned rueful. "You really don't."
"But you do. A human death can't mean that much to you.
Why bind yourself to me when you could have let me die?
When you don't want me?"
His mouth turned up in a wry half smile. "Who says I
don't want you?"