Page 102 of Eternal Ruin

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said cautiously, tracking her eyes.

“What? Why keep it from me?” she asked. “This is a good thing. We can find GK then. Rescue him—”

Susenyos was shaking his head, pacing back and forth. “That’swhy. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for me. You’re a distraction, Kidan. A hurricane with your demands. To save you and your traitorous friends is a cost I can’t afford again.”

Her arm went limp by her side. Her mouth dried up, then indignation burned through her. “I’m sorry saving my life has been such a burden.”

“Oh, more than you know,” he snapped just as angrily. “It’s an everyday battle.”

The dark room swallowed them in silence. She saw it in his eyes, he truly believed his words. There was a painful yank in her gut, right behind her navel, a confirmation of her fear. He did regret saving her. From her blue pill, from the tower, from Samson.

Susenyos leveled her with an unmoving expression. Their eyes, one pair black as the night ocean, the other the color of dark sand, met across the shoreline. They couldn’t have felt any closer or farther if they tried. A sea chill swept over Kidan as Susenyos drifted farther away.

“Three hundred and twelve,” he said in a tone she didn’t recognize, empty as a tomb. “I have sacrificed three hundred and twelve of my people. People I deem closest to me. People I loved so much, I forced eternal life on them so we would never part. What’s one more soul?”

Was he talking about GK or her?

The flames inside Kidan roared, descending behind her vision like tendrils of a vine.

“I should leave you before you betray me.” He whispered this as if it was an inevitable outcome.

She swallowed and his gaze dropped to the column of her throat, igniting her skin. Kidan eyed the door. She should leave with her pride. Hide herself inside Adane House.

“But I need you,” Susenyos said, truly tired.

He bridged the gap between them, slow and deliberate. His predatory advance made Kidan take a step back, and another. Until her back touched the wall, and her eyes widened. “Your blood… I’ve never tasted something so divine. Have you ever felt such maddening hunger? Do you even burn for anything this violently?” His fingers rested against the length of her neck, near searing, and tilted her jaw up. “I tried to resist, but it’s everywhere. In the color of your lips, the words of my book, the scent of ripe grapefruit. I can’t escape it. All I can think about is the last time Ihad you under my fang. How I should have never stopped. It even hurts to be this close to you.”

Kidan’s mouth parted but no sound came out. Pinned by the flames in his irises, she understood what he’d been hiding from her all this time.

Piercing, insatiable hunger.

Last time he was this overwhelmed, he would have killed her if she hadn’t defanged him. Now he was in control, and it was… destroying him. He wanted to save her in the same breath he wanted to consume her. And she needed this. Liked the intoxicating power it gave her.

Slowly, she spun off the stopper on the plastic bag. He flinched at the final pop.

Lifting the short straw to his mouth, she softly said, “Drink.”

He was still as stone.

Until the first tentative sip.

Then he came to life, limned in frightening bronze. Kidan’s body was crushed between the wall and his solid form in an instant. His hand closed over hers, squeezing the bag urgently. Drinking deeply. Her finger bones groaned in protest, but it was his closeness that unnerved her more. Her heart slammed against her chest. She pushed against his shoulder, searching for air, but he caught her left hand and pinned it above their heads, fingers sinking between hers.

Claws punctured the decorated wall tapestry just above their heads.

Their faces tipped even closer. She made a soft sound—perhaps a moan. There was no escape now, no space to look except right at him. Black pupils captured her, cresting with golden heat, melting into glorious crimson. She held her breath, watching him surrender to his nature.

There was no trace of disgust in her. No morsel of hatred even as she tried to conjure a fragment of it. No armor from him. Instead, a horrible sort of desire stirred in her, weak and dizzying.

Every time they brushed skin, her body betrayed her with a horrible need.

The bag emptied instantly. Nothing more than a ball of plastic between them. The straw glided free from his mouth with a wet pop. Susenyos panted, blocking her body with his. His eyes regarded her softly, tinged with euphoric haze.

“You’ve ruined me, do you know that?” His voice was drenched in a fever dream.

His tone was too liquid to be his true one, yet Kidan wanted to wrap it aroundherself. Wanted him to close the gap between them and whisper it against her lips. She could feel herself begging him with her gaze to put them out of this misery.

Maybe if he touched her,reallytouched her, she could find her hatred.