Kiss of the Phantom: Sexy Paranormal (Book 3, Phantom Series) by Julie Leto Page B

raging outside mirrored the tempest brewing within his body. On impulse, he slammed out of the cabin and dashed into the rain. He threw out his arms and shouted at the wind, howling like a man who’d lost his mind, praying the water would cool this inexplicable heat.
    He sensed rather than saw Mariah come out after him.
    “Go!” he ordered, not daring to look at her.
    “What’s happening?”
    He wished he could tell her. He had no words to convey the madness crashing through him—a crazed blackness that burbled from deep within him like a foul and viscous sludge. He needed to purge the hot pitch from his insides, and he knew, somehow, that the only way to stem the flow of darkness was to make love with Mariah. To surround himself with her light. To bathe in her powerful strength and beauty.
    He dropped to his knees. Icy water sluiced down his face, shirt and breeches, cooling only the outer layer of his skin and doing nothing to alleviate the burning deep inside. Lightning flashed above him, and with the thunder he wailed in anguish, the sound echoing against the tumult of the night.
    “Rafe?”
    Her voice was soft. Concerned. She’d come nearer. Too near. Had the woman no sense? He’d thought her so unlike Irika, yet here she was, looking for him in the dark night when she should be running in the opposite direction.
    He took her by the wrist and dragged her to him until their lips smashed together. Instantly his heart lightened. The infusion from her mouth gave him enough self-control to push her away.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    She’d skidded across the wet ground, but pulled herself to her knees and swiped the back of her arm over her mouth.
    “Look, I don’t know what kind of women you hung out with in your century, but I’m not hot for men who manhandle.”
    He buried his face in his hands. The kiss had lightened the darkness inside him, but the living shadow still remained. Tied, he suspected, to the magic he’d wrought inside the cabin. He’d wanted only to provide comfortable quarters, but he should have known that using Rogan’s powers came with a bitter price.
    As he looked up at her, he dragged his fingers down his face. “I would never force myself on you. It’s the magic. It has infected me.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    He flew to his feet, took her by the hand and attempted to throw her into the cabin, to remind her of the handiwork that had brought him down this path, but she was ready for him this time and countered his touch, flinging him to the ground. He fell to the sodden dirt with a painful thud, his breath stolen. She’d backed away, but stood at the ready, prepared to battle him again.
    “Explain,” she demanded.
    He closed his eyes, willed his lungs to obey him and attempted to comply. “The magic that imprisoned me within the stone is evil, and it is at my disposal. When I used it to make the cabin habitable, the darkness overwhelmed me. I feel it now, slogging through my veins like tar. But I know,” he said, looking up and blinking against the rain, “I know that touching you, kissing you, will purge the madness.”
    She glanced back into the cabin, where the door remained open and the inside glowed with comfortable warmth. She stepped closer to him, then, shockingly, placed her hands on his shoulders.
    “That’s the craziest pickup line I’ve ever heard,” she said. Her tone told him the comment should elicit humor, but he could feel nothing at the moment but the darkness and, thanks to her nearness, the renewed ache of desire.
    “You should leave,” he said.
    She smirked. “Which one is it? Do you want me to leave or do you want to kiss me?”
    He couldn’t answer. The war raging within him between honor and insanity was too much for any mortal man to fight. Only, he wasn’t a mortal man anymore. He was something else—something evil and magical and trapped, and yet free. Mariah’s touch had released him, even as he’d fought against the pull she