Page 109 of Ballad of Nightmares

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

OH, THAT FACE.

That perfectly beautiful… terrified…enragedface.

Sam took his phone from his pocket and snapped a photo of it.

Deianira Bronfell. On her knees in a puddle of blood. Begging and screaming at Death to show himself to her.

Sam didn’t know if he was angry or aroused.

Angry and hurt that he’d been stupid enough to think she loved him, and this was different. Angry and devastated that he’d allowed himself to fall for her. Angry, his heart shredding to the floor, that she’d killed him so easily like he meant nothing. With a cursed knife, at that. Sam could still feel the sting of the spelled blade in his abdomen, the burning on his throat.

But her pleas to Death constricted his cold heart, how she’d nearly dragged that knife across her wrists at the sight of him dead on the floor… And maybe… just maybe…

Sam pushed every thought of loving her to the back of his mind, and he watched as the realization shined in her eyes.

“It was you…” Ana rose to her feet. “This entire time… it was…you… it was you. It was you! It was—YOU—“

Ana lunged, and Sam didn’t blink.

His shadows wrapped each limb as she tried to squirm out of his grasp. She opened her mouth to shout again, writhing against the bindings, but only a panicked scream left her.

Sam pushed slowly off the wall and took another draw of his smoke.

One calculated step at a time, the noise of his boots echoing off the creaking wooden floor, and her eyes never moved from him as he stalked toward her.

Closer. Closer.Closer.

Directly at her face, he paused and squashed his smoke in his palm.

”I’ll make this easy,” he said, meeting her venomous gaze. His shadows released her feet in the next strike of lightning, but still held onto her neck, and as her toes touched the ground, a broken black wing tipped her forward.

“To your knees,Deianira.”

Thunder rumbled over the earth with her name, the very air itself quaking with the truth. Sam watched as her lip dared to twitch, as her eyes darkened with delirium. She sank slowly, one knee into the pool of blood, followed by the other.

“Something tells me you enjoy the sound of my name on your lips, Your Majesty.”

The tip of his wing pushed on her back, rage coiling in his veins with the teasing tone leaving her lips.

“Lower,” he said in a haunting whisper.

She bent, her arms rigid at her sides where they were being restrained. Every muscle was taut with her struggle, but Sam only pressed his hands into his pockets as he watched her kneel before him.

“Lower.”

Her breasts pressed to her knees, her cheek nearly on the floor. He felt her tug against the bindings, her body jerking as she tried to break free, but the umbra only tightened around her skin.

Sam’s head tilted at the sight of her there. Splayed in the blood she’d spilled from his own body. Her silken white night dress hiked high over her bare ass. Arms extended wide at her sides. Her cheek lying on the floor, hair a rattled mess of curls around her.

The image imprinted in his mind and burned his memory.

Sam crouched to one knee so that he could see her face. “I think this is my favorite version of you,” he said, his voice haunting and throaty. “Bound in darkness and wrapped in blood. Bent over your knees… That gorgeous face on the floor…” He reached out and caught one of her curls. She flinched at the touch, jerking on the shadows, and her eyes rolled to meet his.

“Wait until you see me in your crown,” came her hiss.

He bristled at her confidence, twirling that curl on his finger. “And here I was prepared to give you everything…”