Page 114 of Ballad of Nightmares

His eyes flickered in her direction, and he shifted as his body numbed. “Make your point.”

“You protect the things you love,” she said.

Sam leaned slowly back in the chair, and as Luna jumped in his lap, he stroked the top of her head. He focused on Luna’s bright yellow-green eyes as he spoke and scratched her beneath her chin. His chest swelled with the plan swirling in his mind, with the fantasy that had only slightly deviated since the beginning of the night.

“You’re smart, Milliscent,” he said. “You know the lengths I will go to to protect my things.” His eyes moved to hers. “What do you think I will do to ensure that for the woman I love?”

Millie’s throat bobbed with the swallow of her drink, but just as he thought she might argue with him, she said, “Death’s Ballad.”

The corner of his lip twitched, lashes lifting as he looked to her in confirmation, but he didn’t speak.

A brief smile flickered in her eyes. “Why haven’t you done it yet?”

“It’s not my choice to make,” he said, a little more solemnly than before.

“So you’ll let her suffer in her own misery. You’ll torture yourself with her screams and every manipulative word she might say… Just to hear her make that decision on her own?”

Sam reached for his tea, and just as he pressed it to his lips, he met her eyes and said, “Yes.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

SAM SMELLED THE blood the moment he opened the stairwell door the following morning.

The sound of the haunting melody Ana was singing made the hair rise on his arms, and his shadows quivered. He didn’t know the melody, and the way it came from her lips… The song made his awareness almost dreamlike. He wasn’t sure what to expect or how she would have killed anyone whilst locked in her cage.

But…

Carnage was a nice word for the state of his dungeon.

His guards lay in puddles of their own guts and blood.

Heads ripped or smashed in.

Throats cut.

Bodies dismembered.

Like the ghosted demons had bled themselves dry or shredded their existences at the sound of the lullaby she was singing.

Sam slowed his approach as he took in the sight of Ana still in her cell.

Her hair was wild—looking as if she’d tried to pull it out, and it had settled into its own psychosis. She’d ripped her sweater and was now wearing one of his demons’ embroidered trench coats.

And she was dancing with a dead man.

Her eyes lifted to his when she spun around, holding the dead man’s arm out while he slumped on her body, feet dragging the ground. Her lullaby grew louder. An evil smile spread on her lips and the sinister laugh that left her imprinted in his memory.

Deianira held his gaze in ownership, enslaving him to her entrancement, and Sam’s shadows flickered as they tried to break free.

This was the woman the stories spoke of. The one who had taken down kings and monarchies for a cause no one knew of.

Chaotic. Greedy. Evil.

Death’s greatest match.

And yet, the most beautiful being he’d ever laid eyes on.

Even in her manic state, with the wildness and raw terror exuding from her blood-covered body, she was everything he’d ever wanted. A Queen of the darkness and a creature straight out of his favorite nightmares. She terrified him with all that she was capable of, and he wanted to kneel before her and give her what would make her invincible.