Esania stepped back, admiring her handiwork. Imril’s magnificent wings were now perfectly obsidian, with not a single patch of pale skin remaining. His pale skin, golden hair, and golden eyes contrasted so starkly with all the black, making him look like a beautiful demon.

There was no way anyone would mistake him for an angel, that was for sure.

“Happy now?” she asked, folding her arms. The job had appealed to her meticulous nature, and she’d spent a long time making sure everything was perfect, something Imril seemed to approve of.

The whole time, he was consuming a steady trickle of her vir, just enough that she could sense it, but for some reason, she wasn’t left feeling as drained as before. Maybe her body was adapting.

As she worked, Imril watched her with a smoldering gaze that radiated power and desire, and despite her earlier reservations, she couldn’t help but feel emboldened by his attention.

But not once did he lay his hands on her.

“Impressive,” he murmured, his voice a tantalizing rumble. “You are something of a perfectionist, aren’t you?”

“I was brought up that way.” She couldn’t deny it. “Primeans don’t accept compromise, and we don’t settle for second best.”

“We are alike in more ways than you realize.” Imril brought his wings down against his back, pulling them so close that they seemed to disappear into his obsidian armor. Before Esania realized what was happening, he took hold of her hands, which were both covered in dried nightblack.

“I assume this doesn’t just wash off,” she muttered, keeping perfectly still as he ran his thumbs over her blackened palms. The nightblack had dried, and she wondered if it was ever going to come off.

“Soft hands,” he said quietly, studying her long fingers. “Not a worker or a servant. You are intelligent, calculating. Someone who sits in a position of authority.”

Esania hoped the heat in her cheeks wasn’t showing. So he thought she was intelligent, huh?

“Just because I have soft hands doesn’t mean I’m not used to hard work. I serve my people, Drakhin.” Nothing could make her forget the countless hours she’d spent poring over endless datastreams of Earth law and Primean law as she formulated complicated legal arguments for the Senate.

That had been hard work.

As Imril’s scale-covered hands slid over hers, a pleasant shiver ran down her spine. His hands dwarfed hers, and yet he was oh-so gentle with her. What would it be like when they were together in bed, their bare bodies touching for the first time? “I know you serve your people, Esania, but you can’t deny that I’m right about you.”

She loved the way he said her name in that deep, rumbling drawl, as if he were caressing every syllable with his voice.

But at the same time, his arrogance got under her skin. Typical Imril. “You think you know everything, don’t you, Drakhin?”

“Not everything, but I know most things.”

She didn’t know whether he was being serious or not. “Then why are you still here, holding the hands of a woman you can’t really touch, when your empire is in ruins?”

Imril lifted her blackened hand and kissed it. “Because, my dear Primean, I am about to fly into the most dangerous place on the face of Khira, and I do not know what I am getting myself into, so before I do that, I need to feed.”

Her palm tingled as his lips touched her skin, as he kissed her hand slowly. His lips were as warm as she remembered them, and his tongue was as devious as ever, tracing small circles on her palm.

The nightblack came off as he licked her. “Th-that’s not a very good disguise,” she gasped.