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Garrik’s veined hand fisted tight into Kaine’s hair and tore his head mercilessly backward. Mahogany eyes beheld her strength and confidence.

Garrik’s sword lifted in her hands. Somehow, she mustered the strength to guide it through the air and rest it at the hard lump of Kaine’s throat.

Glowing specks of silver glistened in Garrik’s blackened eyes, showing her that he was there—barely. He promised that he would be her executioner, if needed, but if she was entirely honest, would she be able to kill Kaine? Even if he was only a memory.

Hot tears blurred Alora’s vision as she drew a ragged breath, struggling against the anguished tide rising within and threatening to rob her of her breath.

Her High Prince gave her a subtle nod, the encouragement she needed to speak.

The mighty blade reflected flames against Kaine’s throat as her venom built and tingled inside her mouth.

Alora remembered every marble step her head had cracked on. Every drop of blood she slipped her hand in atop redwood floorboards. Every burn of a candle. Every night her body was a canvas and he’d painted her with his fists. Every starsdamned red rose.

The blade pressed against his skin, trickling a crimson line down to the collar of his perfect white shirt.

“I used to wonder what it would feel like to be loved and wanted by someone,” she began. “For so long, I’d lie awake at night and dream of who would treat me the way I begged to be treated. I’d cower with every echoing footstep down the hall and dread the moment you’d walk through the bedroom door. When you’d take me, hard, uncaring how much I screamed and cried from the pain. How you enjoyed every moment of it to bring yourself pleasure.

“You stole pieces of me that I will never get back. And I don’t want them back because I have grown stronger in their absence. I have replaced what you broke with something far greater. And though it may be a darkness surging through my heart and a fire gleaming in my soul, I do thank you for that, because without you, I wouldn’t have known just how powerful I can be.

“I’mnotyour property. You donotown me. You never did. I just didn’t know it until I was broken and brave and so much stronger than you will ever be. You wanted me quiet, but I will no longer let you steal my voice. You wanted me to submit to your every whim, but I will no longer kneel.You kneel to me, now.Your eyes don’t deserve to look upon what I have become.”

Garrik gripped Kaine’s hair and ripped his head forward, slamming it into the stones. With a knee to the bloody pools, Garrik whipped his head up and gnashed his teeth. Still gripping Kaine’s ebony hair in his fisted hand as he forced Kaine onto his palms.

Her High Prince remained before her, waiting.

Alora twisted the sword and rested it at the base of Kaine’s neck. “My body isn’t yours to own. My words aren’t yours to steal. You are the worthless coward who beat the only one that loved you until that love emptied and hatred remained. Irefuseto let you live in my mind any longer. I’m not the worthlessness you made me feel. I’m fucking fire and you’re the ash beneath my feet, blowing away on a smoke-covered wind to the depths of your own miserable and pathetic life.”

For so long—too damn long—Kaine kept her powers subdued by brutality and threats alone. But not today.

The iron of Garrik’s sword began to ripple, cascading in a white glow until it went molten. Metal burst in beams of white, sizzling with a heat that far out-weighed a mere flame.

No. This was something out-worldly.

And she would make sure Kaine felt it. Felt what he wassoafraid of.

As he fucking should be, Garrik’s voice growled in her mind.

She pressed the burning blade’s edge harder into Kaine’s skin, searing it until it bubbled and blackened flesh began to steam.

“You no longer deserve a single thought. A single look. And the longer I hold my eyes to you, is one more moment you will steal from me. And I don’t deserve for you to take one more starsdamned thing from my life.Ever. Again.If I ever see your pathetic, worthless ass in my shadow, because that’s only where you’ll ever be, I will unleash my fire, that you so deeply feared, uponevery single thingyou own until not even the dust remains.”

Alora crouched, the worn leather of her armor creaking faintly with the motion. White flames burst down the blade until they swirled around Kaine’s neck. She balanced on the balls of her feet, poised as if ready to spring forth in an instant. A restrained energy settled on her strong frame, and she held the half-crouched hover with feline grace.

“You’ve lost control of me. And this is me letting you fucking go.”

Embered sapphire eyes met Garrik’s endless abyss and his wicked, proud smile.

She nodded to her High Prince, her executioner.

Kaine’s face slammed into the bloody pool before his skull caved in under Garrik’s boot.

Garrik lifted her into his arms, dawning them back the moment Alora collapsed and slammed into the stones beside Kaine’s crushed skull.

Kaine wasn’t truly gone. It was an illusion, but even so, it was the image of the male she once loved.

Kaine had heard it—all of it. Every single thing she had ever wanted to say.

And on that bloodstained floor, she decided that is where Kaine would remain. Forever locked inside a prison, never to return.