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You don't deserve her. You never have.

And yet I had her. For a few brief moments, she was mine and I was hers.

I'm still hers, but she'll never be mine again.

I'd never wanted to hurt her. Hell, I'd treated her with kid gloves, afraid that my brutish nature would scare her away and make her realize just hownotnormal I was. And I'd been so careful.

Damn, but I'd been so careful. I'd denied myself countless times when all I wanted was to slide inside her slick heat, get lost in that luscious body of hers… finally make her mine.

But I'd refrained, because it would have caused her pain.

And Ineverwanted to cause her pain.

I can't help as the images of her battered body flood my mind, the fact that I'd taken her like an animal making me want to end my own wretched existence. Flashbacks dance before my eyes. Small snippets of me thrusting into her like a beast, her cries of pain as she'd tried to stop me, her small hands pushing at my shoulders when I'd been too rough.

"Sisi," I groan, fear, desperation, and desolation brewing inside of me, growing to such a crescendo that I start trembling uncontrollably. My entire body starts shaking, my vision blurry as everything comes crashing down.

I failed her. I failed her. I failed her.

"Fuck," I curse out, feeling myself slip, voices crowding my head, my pulse skyrocketing as more and more foreign thoughts seek to drive me insane.

I don't know how I stumble out of the bathroom, heading straight for my secret cabinet and taking out a sedative, injecting it in my veins.

Her face is the last thing I see. Her beautiful, beautiful face. The most beautiful I've ever seen, really. Her outline starts to take shape in front of me. My eyes droopy, I can only watch her in rapture.

"Hell girl," I reach out, clear air greeting me. "I'm sorry." I finally say the words she deserves to hear.

"I wish I were normal," I mumble, my body slowly shutting down. "Then I'd be able to love you too."

And then there's only blackness.

"How much timeare you going to spend moping around?" Vanya asks as I drag one of the bodies to the back for Maxim to deal with.

"I'm not moping," I mutter under my breath.

"You are. This week alone you killed what ten people? Twenty?"

"More like fifty," I mumble, and she raises an eyebrow at me.

"They all deserved it," I tell her, "they've been coming after me for revenge one after another. What am I supposed to do? Welcome them with open arms?"

"Maybe." She shrugs, coming to my side to study the results of my latest episode. "Since you clearly have a death wish. You know very well that now you'reeveryone'starget. Yet you stopped carrying a weapon around. If that's not suicidal, then I don't know what is."

"What can I say? My skills defy any weapons," I say smugly, but she jabs her elbow in my side, pointing to my new wound.

"Sure, then what isthat?"

"I don't remember. Someone must have stabbed me during the last fight." I shrug, tugging my shirt up to reveal a nasty looking cut under my ribs. Almost like a ticklish sensation, I can barely feel it.

"One of these days you're just going to bleed out." She shakes her head at me, dragging me to the first aid kit.

"Wouldn't that be a mercy?" I whisper softly.

It's been three weeks since the warehouse incident, and all I've done has been courting death, but with no real result. After all, my self-preservation instinct flares up every time, and even if I want to, Ican'tgo down.

"You need to take care of yourself, brother," Vanya says, worry shining in her eyes. "Remember your promise," she reminds me, and I close my eyes, sighing.

All I've been doing in the last weeks hasbeenforgetting my promise. I'd been so bent on doing everything possible to escape the confinement of my own body that I'd completely disregarded my promise of revenge.