Page 158 of Ballad of Nightmares

“Keep me,” she repeated. “Show me the edge of my existence andkeepme.”

“Ana…” he whispered. “Are you sure…”

“I am begging foryou. As I have always done.” Her bloodied hands stroked his lips. “Take me, Samarius. I want everything you want. I want revenge and love and power and a real home to fight for. And I wantyou… more than anything else. So keep me. Make me yours.Completely.”

Her answer came in the form of an all-consuming kiss. His teeth raked her tongue as he yanked at the roots of her hair, feeding her body in desire and surrender all at once. He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her up onto his shoulder, her ass broadcasting to the shadows all around, and he carried her down the halls and into the sunroom.

Her ass hit the table, and she leaned forward to kiss him, her thighs tightening around his waist. Sam groaned like he might give in, like he might fuck her before taking her life, but in the next moment, the shadows tightened around her wrists, and Ana was forced into the center of the table, her arms and legs spread into an X on the surface.

She thought she might be bound there while he did his work, but he loosened the grip on her wrists as he climbed onto the table behind her, and held her back against his chest like he was cradling her into the next life.

“Last chance, Deianira,” he said as the shadows tightened around her wrists.

Her chest rose and fell with a shaking breath, and she felt her eyes flutter at the tickle of his hair on her temple, the whisper of his words on her cheek…

“Bind me, Samarius,” she whispered, and his shadows shivered. She turned so she could see his face, and her head tilted back to look into his eyes. “Bind me,” she repeated, a plea in her voice. “Break me.Bleedme…”

A rattle shook him, as if those words had summoned a power of Death he’d been hiding. His throat bobbed, and she saw the scarlet seeping into his brown pupils that, for a moment, made her reconsider.

But she wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted to behis. And this meant she could have him forever.

“If I do this…” he began, “You will be bound to me in a way unlike the others. What you will become… You will be completely and utterly mine. Are you ready for that?”

“Bind me, Samarius,” she whispered. “I am yours already.”

Sam’s eyes darted over her face again, and then he kissed her cheek, her forehead, and her lips. She noted a glint of silver as it ricocheted over a knife now in his hand, and when he looked at her again, the shadows of his grand broken wings curled around them, and he held up the glowing dagger.

“You know what I have to do,” he whispered.

Ana swallowed, her heart picking up its pace. “I do,” she managed.

Sam smiled against her cheek, his fingers curling around her throat. “I love when your heart flutters like that,” he whispered. “Does this scare you, baby?”

“No,” she breathed.

His smirk widened, the tip of his knife pressing into the pillow of her breast. “Liar,” he accused. A single trickle of blood dripped down her skin, and his nose nuzzled into her hair as he whispered, “Be a good girl and scream for me, Deianira,” and his voice was a chill on her flesh. “Trulyscream,” he rasped. “Let me feel your fear as you grow cold.”

His lips pressed hard to her cheek, and before she could utter another word—take another breath—the knife ripped across her flesh.

Ana choked. She flinched. She shuddered.

Sam cradled her body into his as her blood spilled over them, casting her body in a sheen of scarlet that glowed black in the moonlight pouring in through the window. Hand pressing to her cheek, he watched her eyes darken and plead for him. He could feel her mortal tether in his fingers, and one tug would have ended it, but he let her fall to that edge. Choking on her blood and shaking in his arms, her hands grasping his forearm as he rocked her and hummed that lullaby she’d sang when she’d helped him in that very room a few days before. He let her savor those final seconds, the final moment of her mortal life.

She stared at him with those pleading green eyes, a tear running down her cheek, and he wiped it away.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he promised. His lips pressed to her forehead, and he cradled her cheek after. “To the things I am doing to keep you,” he whispered upon feeling the chill of her last breaths run over his skin. “And to all the things you will become.”

As the last of her breaths left her body, he began speaking the words he’d memorized so many years before.

“You’ll use this when she finds you,” Hazel told him as she ripped the page from her textbook and handed it to him.

Sam frowned at the witch, at the ritual on the parchment. “When who finds me?”

“The Ballad.” Hazel reached up and cupped his cheek, her withering eyes once so bright, now stained with the age finally catching up with her. “I do not have much longer in this life. This binding spell… the one you use it on will become tethered to your immortal life. She will be yours, unconditionally. Do not use this lightly, Samarius. You must choose the one whom you cannot live without. She will be the one that makes this all worth it.”

Sam looked down at the body he’d been imprisoned in, at the shadows that snaked between his fingers when he called upon them. “Even this prison?” he asked softly.

Hazel smiled. “It won’t be a prison with her.”