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‘Louder.’

His handsomely evil voice rang in her head like shackles upon her skin as she pulled her knees into the scorch of her bare chest. At least shackles left scars to see. Hers were ruthlessly hidden, concealing the pain inside her tattered mind. And because of her High Fae blood and their healing qualities, Kaine was sure to be just askindto her body tomorrow. And the next day. And the next…

Bruises. They didn’t heal as fast as a bleeding wound. And Kaine loved painting his canvas as much as she had once loved music.

There was a time she loved him.Truly loved him. His voice. The soft caresses down her spine with a feather-light touch. The kisses he once showered her with. How his hands lovingly proved how much she meant to him. A time when he’d carefully consider her needs and wants and every desire. A time where she’d do anything for him and with him. When she enjoyed spending these kinds of moments in his arms, feeling his body against her … inside her.

Her hands tightened around her legs.

That ended so long ago.

Today’s submission was a sacrifice for survival.

And even that would come to an end.

Soon.

She stared across the bedroom. At their disheveled emerald sheets that were much too warm for her skin, draped and pooled on the floor at the foot of his bed. Glared at the coarse ropes on the headboard. At his empty glasses of liquor atop the redwood side tables. Her heart in her throat at her ripped clothing sprawled across the rug-covered floor. She hadn’t been wearing something Kaine had forced her to wear.Of course he’d had to destroy it.Another piece of her gone.

Alora pulled her palms to her upper arm and stroked her thumb over her death mark. In the darkness, she imagined it. Her death sentence gifted at her birth by Destiny alone. Magically inked dancing flames licked up her flesh as sparks exploded in bursts of black swirls and perfect beams like flares of starlight. The flawless depiction of her unused power. It lay there, as dormant as her magic. Utterly useless other than to be a beacon of her unwilling treason.

She would thank the stars for a lot of things, but never …this.

Her vacant sapphires stared into the cooling darkness caressing her pale, bruised skin. She found comfort in it—the moving darkness—a place she could always hide. Sometimes shecould even feel its cold, refreshing touch against her burning skin. It brought the scent of warm vanilla and oak on a soft, winter wind, leather and metal in a spring meadow.

The smell of pure comfort.

Whenever she needed it, it was there. Even in her dreams,after, it met her there. Where others would find monsters, horror, Death, even evil in the darkness, she felt safe there in the shadows. Like they understood her pain. Like they listened. Knew what she needed.

Such beautiful shadows, she thought, dancing her fingers in the darkness and wishing she could feel it. Those beautiful shadows swirled around her until they carried her into a calm slumber.

Kaine satat the head of the long oak table when she slipped back inside the dining room’s doorway, carrying breakfast on a silver tray. Every servant knew of his outbursts and how he liked to use hiswifein degrading ways. It was expected of her to serve him—even in front of those considered lower in status.

What was left of the mirror had been removed. The broken chair gone, and likely being mended. No shattered shards of glass remained from his enraged display of power. Almost like it never happened.

A new crystalline decanter of scarlet liquid was perched in front of a substantial pile of paperwork. Kaine’s pen feverishly scratched across the surface of one and a fresh glass strained within his agitated grip. Beside him lay a small, wrapped bundle of flowers.

Red roses.

It was always the damn red roses.

The color of blood. Her blood. The sight of them forced her right back to the moments of it spilling onto the hardwood floor. Dripping from her lips. His knuckles. Down that staircase.

Wrapped with a small tag that had her name scribbled on it, the petals were droplets of her blood collected, scraped from his wooden floors, and made pretty. A promise of ‘never again.’Or soon.

Her lip curled at them.

She hated flowers.

Hated what they stood for. The lies and half-assed apologies that surrounded them. The sight of them made her palms warm with heat. She knew what would come next. It always did.

“You know how on edge I’ve been.”There it was, like always.“You can’t do things like that to set me off. You … affect me deeply, Alora. That’s why things like what happened this morning take place. You know I don’t mean to, right?” He stretched his hand to her as she set the breakfast tray beside him. He, in turn, pushed the flowers toward her with a lazy nudge without peeling his eyes from his paperwork. “I have a damn city to care for. You can’t do those things when I have so much to deal with. Understood?”

Her hand was suddenly back in his as he gripped it, rubbing the top with his calloused thumb. Almost like attempting to soothe with a kiss the stinging cheek he just slapped. It meantnothing.

“I understand…”That I want to take my dagger from the forest and shove it into your worthless neck.She forged a grin, looking into his unapologetic eyes that had lifted to the swell of her breasts.How beautiful my black dagger would look protruding from his neck, she silently hummed.

How starsdamned beautiful indeed.