Page 161 of Blood Day

My arms flailed as I fought to break the surface again, the water rushing up my nose.

He caught me and pulled me into him.

Then put me on my back once more to try again.

This wasn’t how I expected to spend our evening, but I wasn’t complaining. Not with the stars and moon glistening overhead.

If these were my last days of life, I’d embrace them and remember them in death.

“Shh,” Cedric hushed. “None of those thoughts.”

I could hear in his mind how he wanted to live the next few weeks in peace and pretend like Blood Day didn’t loom in our futures.

He wasn’t sure what Khalid’s endgame was yet or how we would play into it, but he wasn’t allowing that game to tarnish our precious time together.

Part of me wanted to rant and rave at the unfairness of it all. However, I knew that wouldn’t fix anything.

This world was cruel.

We had to take what little reprieve we could.

And if Master Cedric wanted to give me the gift of these experiences, I wouldn’t deny them.

“Sweet flower,” he murmured, moving me with ease through the water and bringing me up flush against his naked form. “I don’t think I deserve you.”

I blinked. “Why?”

He smiled. “I’m the monster in your world, Lily. A monster who plays with his food and provides false hopes. Yet I can’t seem to turn your dream into a nightmare.”

His words trailed a shiver down my spine. “So don’t,” I whispered. “Let me stay in the dream.”

“It’s cruel and selfish of me to agree,” he admitted, his mind telling me how much he believed that. “A better man would put you out of your misery, kill you mercifully and save you from the pain.”

“But then I wouldn’t experience true life,” I told him. “I would never have really lived.” I’d overheard his thoughts about reliving all his mortal firsts through me and how my reactions had fascinated him. “If you kill me, we both lose.”

He sighed. “I should block you from my mind.”

“Please don’t.” I liked hearing his cryptic thoughts and dark analysis of fate, even though his mental musings foreshadowed a violent future I didn’t want to acknowledge.

His palm went to my hip while the opposite one encircled my throat, his mental gymnastics both terrifying and hypnotic.

It would be so easy to snap her neck.

To drown her.

But at what expense?

What if we can find a way to be together?

What if I can keep her?

What if I lose her? It would be kinder to kill her now.

But I’ll never forgive myself for not trying…

His deep voice warmed my thoughts with each statement, his mind at war with his spirit.

And all the while, his cock hardened against me, his body reacting to my legs clamping around his waist.