Page 10

I know the moment the poison takes hold.

Her breath shudders out of her, something raw, something wild. She stares up at me, hatred and fury twisting across her face. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing wine and spit across her skin.

Then she lunges.

Her fist cracks across my jaw, hard.

Pain splinters through me, sharp and fucking beautiful.

I stagger back a step, laughing even as I taste blood.

She doesn’t stop.

She grabs a dagger from the table—not hers, but she doesn’t give a fuck. She moves like a woman possessed, fury pouring off her in waves as she lunges for my throat.

I catch her wrist before she buries the blade in my skin.

I twist. She cries out. The dagger clatters to the ground.

She spits at my feet.

“You poisoned me,” she snarls, her voice ragged with fury.

I grin, teeth red from the blood she drew. “Yes.”

Her chest heaves. “What did you do?”

I lean in, savoring the way she shakes with rage, with the aftermath of what I just did to her.

“You will take an antidote from me once a month,” I say, voice slow, purposeful. “Or you will die in agony.”

Her fingers twitch, like she’s resisting the urge to claw my fucking eyes out.

“I’m going to kill you,” she breathes.

I hum, dragging a finger down the bare skin of her throat, tracing the path the wine had taken just moments before.

“You can try,” I murmur.

Her breath catches.

She hates me.

Hates that I have taken her choice. Hates that I have caged her.

But her body doesn’t know how to tell the difference between rage and desire.

Neither does mine.

It’s in the way her pupils are blown wide, in the way her fingers tremble where she still clenches her fist.

I want her furious. I want her unhinged.

I want to watch her break.

She exhales sharply, wrenching herself free from my grip. She doesn’t flee—not yet. She just stands there, shaking, burning, seething.

“You think this will make me obedient?” she grits out.