Page 2

He should have let her die when he killed her the last time. He could have prevented her from coming back. She was immortal but utterly fragile compared to him. How dare they do this on her account?

Once again, he vowed to make her suffer tenfold. He relished the day he would finally escape this living tomb and show her the agony he’d survived. How long had it been since he looked up at the sky and breathed fresh air? Years? Decades? Centuries?

Too long.

She knew nothing of real pain. He ached to show her how truly dreadful he could be. His craving to repay her for the crime of quartering and entombing him alive obliterated all other desires.

I’m coming for you girl…

The debt she owed him would cost her dearly. One day, she would pay for leaving him this way, just as he made her mother pay in the blood of those she loved.

Vicious bitch.

It was no wonder Lilias’s descendants were equally venomous. Wiping out her line would do the world a service.

Like a delicious poison, the temptation of hismemories puzzled together a vision of Lilias when they first met. She’d been fresh and frightened, with supple breasts and a wet little quim just beyond flowering.

He seethed, hating the memory as his body reflexively responded with an unwanted jolt of lust. Damn the conniving cunt for still holding power over him. He still dreamt of her, still fantasized that she might choose him, even after what he’d done to her children.

It was a piss poor way to mask the current pain he suffered, pain caused by her daughter, but those memories were his only escape from his reality. Until his mind walked him to the end of his memories, and he suffered her abandonment all over again.

Like his lust, his hatred for Lilias never waned. He craved to cut her open, ignore her cries for mercy as her blood and tears flowed into a river, from which he would fill his cup. He’d drain her of every falsehood she’d spoken.

She was a beautiful pit of lies. She only used him for blood, protection, and secrets. She was a poison that needed to be cut out. Cauterized from this earth. Destroyed once and for all.

Color flashed in a memory and he could still hear her laughter. The exquisite sound thrilled him despite knowing it was a lie. Even the exact green of her eyes was still so precise in his mind.

He’d do anything to escape his present pain as the earth crushed him inside this fossilized tomb,so he chased the vision, hunting it down and transforming her affection into a malleable pleasure it never was.

He let his mind play, recalling the reality and imagining what it might have been had she not betrayed him in the end—poisonous witch.

The phantom tingle of his missing hands balling into fists haunted his delirium. An unfulfilled twitch that started to itch where he could not reach—would not reach for several more years.

Ah, she’s going to pay…And her daughter would pay. And her sons… well, they had already paid for the sins of their mother in life’s blood and hopeless cries.

He should have slaughtered them all, including Lilias’s self-righteous mate.

At least here, in the dark, she was still his. He had time to experience his Lilias in every way he could imagine.

Sometimes, he fantasized about choking her until her sobs silenced. Other times, he dreamt of slitting her throat again and again. But mostly, he envisioned the peaceful moment when she could have looked into his eyes and confessed her love.

In his mind, she could become anything he wanted, so why not make her the fantasy of his dreams? It was a cruel game because in those clawing final moments, when he was jerked back to the present and suffocated by the crushing earth once more, the dream ripped away, and thetruth cleaved through him with ruthless precision.

It was his last thought before every death. His greatest failure. His eternal regret. And the one inescapable truth he could not erase.

She never loved him.

CHAPTER 1

Centuries Later…

Branches toreat Adriel’s skin and clothes as she launched into the canopy of trees. Her heart beat frantically as her body slammed hard into the trunk, her claws embedded into the soft bark. Eyes wild, she scanned the area, but her senses stayed dull for her protection.

The moment she’d spent centuries dreading was finally here. How much time did she have before Cerberus caught her? Minutes? Maybe days if she was lucky? Her time had always been marked, but now it was up.

Her mate tracked her down and burned her out of her home, leaving her no choice but to run. Adriel knew he’d inevitably come for her, for his revenge. Just as the lion could not resisttoying with the pitiful, helpless mouse, Cerberus, no doubt, relished the chase ahead of him.

For all of her worry, she was no more and no less prepared to face him.