Page 5

“You killed him.”

My eyes are dead as I consider him.

I have nothing to give, no bite nor bark, no hiss nor snarl—and no begging to come.

I just look at him as though he’s little more than an empty phial. Just there.

“When should I be ready?” The dullness of my tone matches the look I wear.

Daxeel drags his piercing gaze over me, from the death in my eyes to the toes of my boots, and back up again. His upper lip twitches as if to snarl; it doesn’t take form. “Eamon has movedmost of your belongings already. He’ll return for the rest—and you will come to Kithe with him.” He takes a single, purposeful step closer. “I suggest you use your spare hours cleaning yourself up.”

“So I’m fresh for you?”

And there it is.

It might not be words spoken in a growl, or a snarl to twist my face. But the sharpness of the words I speak with a bitter smile, it’s the spark of life he’s been waiting for.

“So you can fuck a clean body,master?”

The grin that sweeps his face should startle me, it should frighten me, because it’s more than a reaction to the title, it’s a promise.

I just find that I care very little about very much in this moment.

Distantly, I’m aware of the tears wetting my cheeks and the strangled sound of my voice, “I want the old you back.”

Then he’s a blur.

A blur of blood-stained black leathers and gleaming blue eyes. He moves for me. All I can do is suck in a strangled gasp before he’s on me.

Daxeel snatches me up by the throat and, in a blink, I’m on my back.

I land, hard, on a pile of cushions. Feathers lift up around me. The pillows soften my fall, but not enough to stop the ache in my back as I glare up at my beloved monster.

Leaning over me, he keeps me pinned down by the neck. Strands of blood-caked hair fall into his face. “Look how easily you submit; how easily you cry; how quickly you beg… I wonder Nari, when I’m through with you…” He bites at my wet lips, histeeth nipping hard enough to scrape a bead of blood or two. “How softly you’ll die?”

My face twists as I turn my chin, as though I can escape him, or at least the wild gleam of his eyes. But all that happens is that his grip tightens just a touch more,a threat.

“Die,” I echo the word with a bitter laugh, a laugh that’s as hollow as I am inside. “You can’t kill me, Daxeel. I know what I am to you,mate,” and I spit the word with the bitterness it floods me with.

Daxeel blinks. His lashes flutter over his dimming cerulean eyes.

My laugh fades to a grim smile. “Yes, I know. I am youreh-va-tayy,” I enunciate the word like a melody meant to destroy him, as it has done to me. Tears leak down my temples and into my hair. “You can’t kill me—so why not just accept what this is, Daxeel? Marry me, shower me with all the things I want, gift me with animals and dresses, and then thank me for the fucking honour,” I spit up at his stormy face, the stone mask just barely pulled over the rageful beast stirring within him.

Daxeel shoves away from me, as though I burned him.

Jaw clenched, he rises.

I am limp on the cushions, gazing up at him.

He stands over me, his chest heaving, hands fisted at his sides.

I watch as his lips curl around a snarl that catches in his throat.

Might take a bite of me.

Might kill me right here and now—even if it means he’ll die too.

There is, I think, a sick romance in that.