Page 88 of Forbidden Empire

My fingertips gripped the edge of the marble counter so hard my knuckles turned white.

The chill from the stone bit into my skin. I stared at my reflection, hoping for some miracle.

No such luck.

The bruises were the first thing you saw, spreading over my face in disgusting splotches. The reds and purples had started to fade, but the new colors weren’t any better, a gross, sickly green melting into yellow.

The cuts on my cheek had gone crusty, the scabs making everything look even more dramatic. Basically, I looked like something out of a horror movie, no makeup department required.

“Lovely,” I muttered, yanking my black hair back and twisting it up into a pathetic French knot.

I’d thought about trying to cover the bruises, but that would only make it worse. As for my go-to red lipstick?

Not a chance. I’d look like a fucking corpse.

Everything hurt. Not the sharp, sudden pain that makes you gasp, but something heavier. Duller.

It was a slow, pounding ache that throbbed through every nerve, every second, like it was trying to remind me I was still alive.

I should be used to it by now. I wasn’t. I could’ve complained, but I didn’t. What was the point?

I had to remember: I’d fought back. I was still breathing. That had to count for something.

Rhea was going to pay for this. No question. Honestly, I wanted front row seats for when it happened.

The shower was running. Steaming, loud, practically vibrating with Aidon inside. Like I needed any extra reminders of him.

I mean, the man had been glued to me for days. Couldn’t even cross a room without him practically shadowing my every step.

And the crazy thing?

I didn’t even mind. Not really. Yeah, I was supposed to be staying in the guest room, technically, but somehow I woke up in his bed every morning.

Every single time.

Half the time, I wanted to sneak into the shower with him.

But I knew better. The hot water would torch my skin.

Every time we had sex, I tried to ignore the pain. I focused on how good he made me feel.

Because Aidon naked was the best painkiller I’d ever had.

I spun away from the mirror, unable to stomach another second of my reflection. The bruises mocked me in shades of decay.

However, whenever I caught Aidon staring, his eyes never lingered on the damage. Instead, they burned into mine with that intensity that made my stomach flip.

"Beautiful," he'd whisper, sometimes when I was naked beneath him, sometimes when I was passing him in the hallway.

Each time, something inside me unclenched just a little, a momentary reprieve. Like morphine hitting the bloodstream, not healing anything, but making existence bearable until my face matched my driver's license photo again.

My skin was knitting itself back together. My mind was another story.

Aidon's moods whiplashed between extremes, volcanic one moment, arctic the next, with no warning between eruptions and freezes.

Even when his hands burned against my skin, I could feel the underlying current, that electric charge waiting to shock us both.

I'd catch myself staring at him while he slept, wondering if we'd ever escape this power struggle or if we were destined to keep circling each other like predators, neither willing to yield first.