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My mind spins, fueled by alcohol.

I can’t forget my plan.

Seduce, destroy, escape.

I’m still a Syren, no matter what.

“What about company?” I ask him, making my voice softer. “Don’t you care at all about how alone I’ll feel in this cold, dark room? Don’t you know what loneliness is?”

He flinches like he’s been slapped. “Of course I do. Loneliness is all I’ve known. I’m marooned at the bottom of the fucking world.”

“Then you don’t have to be so cruel to me,” I tell him, twisting in my seat until I’m on my knees in front of him. “You don’t have to torture me.”

“Cruel?” His throat bobs as he swallows thickly, his gaze on my chest. “I will keep you clothed, bathed, fed. What more could you ask for?”

“A warm body,” I tell him. “A little company for these dark nights.”

“You’re my prisoner. You’re…a pet.”

“Even pets deserve some kindness, don’t they?”

“Not if you’re planning on slaughtering them one day.”

He says that as a way to scare me off, and it does scare me because I hear the bitter truth in his voice. But even so, I lean toward him, enough that I lose my balance and pitch toward him.

He reaches out and grabs me by the shoulders, holding me back.

I stare up at him, pouring every ounce of seduction into my eyes, hoping they’ll have some effect on him.

I know he wants me, desires me; there’s no question there.

I just need to loosen the rope that has him bound too, the one he doesn’t know he’s tangled in.

“You wanted to take away my voice,” I whisper, watching as his pupils become black holes. “So kiss me until I can’t speak.” My gaze drops to his lips. “Kiss me before I?—”

“Christ,” he says through a growl, his eyes flashing wildly.

But instead of kissing me, he reaches out and grabs me by the throat.

And squeezes me until I can’t breathe.

Chapter Eleven

PRIEST

One of the most crucial teachings in the monastery was the mastery of one’s emotions. While I was a beast, my emotions controlled every aspect of my savage life. Granted, my emotions weren’t very complex—they were simplified to only anger and desire, but they were the ones steering the ship, so to speak.

Every day, we would wake at four in the morning, in the dark and with the birdsong. The monastery was located on top of a jagged rock that had broken away from the mountain pass long ago. We were completely isolated, with few visitors daring to traverse the ladders to reach us.

Despite this, my job every morning was to haul up the ladders and clean the rungs. We were told that when we did welcome people, they couldn’t dirty their feet—it would be unholy—so each rung had to be wiped clean before the day began.

The problem was that the rock was also home to a nesting colony of wallcreepers that used the ladders as a perch as they pecked at insects on the rock. Where they perched, they would shit. As soon as I cleaned the ladder, I would lower it, and the birds would fly back to use it as their own little latrine.

Again and again.

One could see how this was a lesson in patience and anger management. In time, the seemingly pointless and bothersome work taught me how to store my rage away. I became even-keeled, methodical in my thoughts, and learned how to put distance between me and my emotions, to be an observer and not a participant.

I no longer let anger rule me.