“We have more in common than you realize.”

“Whatever.”

I caught a piece of her hair and wrapped it around my finger. “You know you want to.”

She hesitated a moment before she snatched her hair free. “You don’t know what I want. You have no clue. I want a guy who wants to be with me because he actually wants to be. Not that he’s forced to be out of some kind of twisted sense of responsibility.”

“Kat—”

“No!” Her hands balled into fists as she drew in another deep breath. “No ‘sorry.’ You have spent months being the biggest jerk to me. You don’t get to decide to like me one day and think I will forget all of that. I want someone to care for me like my dad cared for my mom. And you aren’t him.”

“How can you know?”

She stared at me a moment and then turned toward the door as if she planned on leaving. This conversation was so not over. I moved faster than she could track, appearing in front of the door.

“God, I hate when you do that!” Kat shrieked.

I stared down at her. “You can’t keep pretending that you don’t want to be with me.”

She stared back with a look of fierceness I found incredibly sexy and…and yeah, I respected her for that, too. But then that look faded as she pressed her lips together. Sadness had crept in her eyes. “I’m not pretending.”

Bull. Shit.

There had been hesitation before she had said that. There had been so much more that powered her words other than anger or frustration. She was afraid and she was sad. I got that. I had been a dick to her. There really wasn’t an excuse in the world to make up for that, and like I’d realized when I’d been holding her in my arms in the field, I didn’t—couldn’t—let her go. “You’re lying.”

“Daemon.”

I placed my hands on her hips and tugged her forward. The warmth of her body cascaded over mine, and I closed my eyes briefly, taking in a deep breath that tasted of Kat. “If I wanted to be with…” My hands tightened on her hips, and she swayed a little closer, until our legs brushed once more, proving that her words were at odds with what she wanted. I dipped my head and she shivered. “If I wanted to be with you, you’d make it hard, wouldn’t you?”

Kat lifted her head. “You don’t want to be with me.”

Oh, I had to disagree with that. My lips spread into a smile. “I’m thinking I kind of do.”

A pretty flush moved down her neck, and I wanted to chase it with my lips “Thinking and kind of aren’t the same thing as knowing.”

“No, it’s not, but it’s something.” It was more than anything. “Isn’t it?”

Shaking her head, she pulled away. “It’s not enough.”

I met her stare and sighed. Her stubbornness was something I loathed and was incredibly attracted to, which I guess made me sort of twisted. “You are going to make this hard.”

She didn’t say anything as she sidestepped me, and I let her get to the door this time.

“Kat?”

She faced me. “What?”

I smiled, and saw her gray eyes light up. “You do realize I love a challenge?”

Kat laughed softly and turned back to the door, giving me the middle finger. “So do I, Daemon. So do I.”

Watching her leave, I had to admit that she looked just as good walking toward me as she did walking away.

I did love a challenge. And I never lose.

Acknowledgments

When I was first approached about writing Oblivion, I thought it was a great opportunity to give the Lux fans a little bit more of Daemon. I didn’t plan on actually writing Obsidian, Onyx, and Opal (which is available in the digital version of Oblivion), but that was what happened. So you don’t get just a taste of what it’s like in Daemon’s head. You get a whole heaping of it.

It really does take a village to finish a book. A huge thank-you to the following people for making it possible—Kevan Lyon, Liz Pelletier, Meredith Johnson, Rebecca Mancini, Stacy Abrams, and the team at Entangled Publishing. Thank you to K.P. Simmon and my assistant/BFF, Stacey Morgan. A special thank-you to Vilma Gonzalez for helping me work through Oblivion.

None of this would be possible without you, the reader. Because of you, this book happened. There aren’t enough thank-yous in the world.

Bonus Content

Continue reading on for Onyx and Opal as told from Daemon’s point of view.

Onyx

Book 2 of the Lux series, as told from Daemon’s point of view.

Chapter 1

Kat was ignoring me.

No big surprise there. She had done the same thing during school. As if pretending Homecoming night hadn’t ended with her almost dying and me saving her. Like if she tried hard enough, she could pretend that everything was normal and it would make it all go away.

Make me go away.

That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, and it had nothing to do with the fact that Kat was glowing like a Hummer-sized streetlamp. It had everything to do with the fact that I was so freaking done fighting what I wanted. Over the whole forbidden-fruit shit. Moving on from the mentality that I couldn’t go after what I wanted because of what I was—what Kat was. Damn, I knew what I wanted wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing in life ever was, but that didn’t change how I felt.

I wanted her.

And I knew that under all the frustration and all the fighting, Kat wanted me. I just had to prove it, but right now I wanted to throw her over my shoulder, carry her home, and lock her ass in a room.

Kat coasted her Camry into a parking spot outside the post office, and I pulled in next to her, facing the opposite direction. Rolling down my window, I pinned her with a glare. “What part of going straight to the house did you not understand? I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”

Her lips pursed as she returned the glare. “There might be books in there waiting for me.”

I sighed. “There might be Arum hanging around ready to eat you.”

Kat wasn’t falling for my logic, especially after I returned from practically scouting the entire state and not finding one. “You’re here, so it’s okay.”

“Yeah, but I’m trying to be proactive about this and not reactive.” When she rolled her eyes, I opened the driver’s door. “You’re a pain in my ass,” I told her.

Raising her middle finger, she scratched her cheek.

I arched a brow as my lips twitched into a grin. “Nice, Kitten.”

She smiled at me and then spun around, swaying her hips across the parking lot. With those faded jeans hugging her curves, it was a nice view, so I wasn’t complaining about that.

Not until she jumped in a puddle the size of the Great Lakes.

Muddy water sprayed in the air, catching my legs. I growled low in my throat. “You’re like a two-year-old.”

She hopped up on the curb and cast a glare over her shoulder before stalking into the squat building. I waited for her at the end of the aisle as she went to her PO Box.

“Yay!” she squeaked, her face lighting up as bright as the trace around her as she reached into the box, gathering up an armful of yellow-enveloped packages. She cuddled them close to her chest, like it was a swaddled baby in her arms.

Cute. Nerdy cute.

Kat elbowed the box closed and then twisted the little key, locking it. She faced me, and our gazes collided and held for a moment. A faint pink blush zinged across her cheeks. She quickly averted her eyes.