Page 773 of Hell Hath No Fury

In answer, she let two beautiful silver wings appear at her back, flexing behind her and gleaming in the sun before she folded them neatly once again.

“A Harpy,” I muttered through a lump in my throat as Hamish fell into a spew of compliments I couldn’t hear.

She was stunning, every feather like liquid satin, so perfect I ached to run my fingers across them. But then she looked at me in a way that said she had caught me staring again and the insinuation had my fury rising.

“Are you going to continue to leave me standing here like a fool with my hand draining of blood?” I asked roughly, sensing her mocking me with that expression.

I could not remember a time another Fae had not shrunk from me when I used that tone, but this woman did not seem to be like other Fae. She lifted her chin, her smile faltering and power sparking in her eyes, a dominance of her own on display. It got my blood pumping, the challenge in her dark eyes making me believe I had not yet won her over, star-given visions or otherwise. But she was mine, she had declared it as such. So I would lay this claim, because she was the first thing I had seen ina very long time that made me feel like myself again. Like a man with desires that ran deeper than bloodshed and war. I wanted a taste of that, and I had a feeling one taste would not be enough.

“Yes, I think I will,” she decided, sweeping past me, her right wing slapping me in the face as she climbed into the carriage without going anywhere near my offered hand.

Feeling the softness of those feathers did little to assuage the anger that exploded within my chest at the insult she had just given me right here in the castle grounds for anyone to see.

“Sire, please, take a breath. Like we practised, one big jiffy jolly breath in, and one huffing Mary of a breath out, remember?” Hamish begged, but I was already climbing into the carriage and snapping the door shut behind us, leaving him to climb on the back or be left in the dust.

Merissa had settled herself in by the window, the white slats across it giving her a view out, but they were enchanted not to let anyone see in. Her wings were gone now, but the insult of the slap she had given me with them still burned against my cheek.

The darkness in me unfolded, waking up like a creature of destruction, and it demanded retribution. I lunged at her, my knee pressing between her thighs into the folds of her dress and my other hand gripping her jaw as I pinned her back against her seat. Her eyes flashed with ire and her hands came up to cast magic, but she had just stepped into one of the enchanted carriages of the Voldrakian emperor. No one could cast magic in here but him, not even me.

She cursed as she remembered she was disarmed and it came down to my physical strength against hers. A match she could not win.

“I am the Savage King,” I hissed, a viper of malice coiling within my mind and stealing away every emotion in me. I was a void, but a few cruel, wicked things lived on in me. Hate, rage, bloodlust. Perhaps this woman truly didn’t know who she wasdealing with here, but I would make it apparent. “That name is not simply propaganda, it is who I am. If you do not know of me yet, then let me warn you now, for it will be your last chance to leave. I will let you run from me, Merissa. I will open this door and cast you back to the life you came from if you wish it. But know this. If you choose to stay after I have told you the truth of me, I will never let you go. You will walk willingly into your captivity, because that is what this will be. The moment I laid eyes on you, an obsession awoke, and it will not die. I know that much of myself. I am possessive, and selfish, and I when I lay eyes on something I want, it is never denied me.”

“So who are you, Hail, because my visions show me a man who loves with all his heart,” she said. “Is that not who you are?”

I released an empty laugh, leaning close enough to breathe her breath, stealing it from her. “I am hell on earth. I am a plague in Fae form, my veins are gilded with hellfire, and there are times I am not even in control of my own inhumanity.”

“You are not who you say you are.” She frowned, her eyes glazing like she couldseesome other truth and was deciding it was so. That in itself ignited a pyre of wrath in me. Who was she to say who I was? Perhaps The Sight was lying to her, but I would not lie. I would bare the truth and she would fall upon it like a blade.

“I am the most dangerous creature you have ever met. I am unpredictable, even to myself. Sometimes violence calls my name so loud, I swear the stars have stitched that word into my soul. So if you stay, I cannot promise you will survive me,” I whispered, so close to her, my lips grazed hers and she shivered like she wanted more. Like this danger in me didn’t scare her, but only drew her closer.

My hand snaked down to her throat, squeezing lightly to test my theory, and her pupils dilated, her thighs parting a little and telling me all I needed to know about the kinds of thingsshe enjoyed. My cock was hardening in my pants and the air between us was starting to feel impossible to breathe, like the only source of oxygen lay within her and I needed to draw it from her mouth into my very lungs to survive.

“So what will it be?” I asked, my voice draped in sin.

Before I was king, I couldn’t have claimed to be a perfect man, but something about seizing the crown had sent me spiralling down a path of damnation. I was guilty of heinous crimes, things I still shuddered at when the memories came for me in the dead of night, and between the ruin and regret, I had been twisted into this man. This monster. Now I had finally found something that was pure and so help me, I was going to claim it.

Merissa’s eyes slid past me to the carriage door, and I had the most terrible dread that she was going to choose to leave. It would take everything in my power to withdraw from her now and let her go, and I knew I would think of her until the end of time. But this choice was hers, once it was done, it would be final. I made a silent vow on that.

“Choose,” I commanded, and her eyes snapped back to me, full of that fire that spoke of the strength in her. She was a powerful Fae, that was clear, but it was more than that. She held the gift of foresight, and she couldseewhat paths lay ahead of us. But if all shesawwas a man who loved her, the stars were surely playing games with her, convincing her to offer herself to a beast who had long forgotten the meaning of love.

“I will stay,” she decided, her voice ringing around the carriage.

I lowered my hand to take hers in mine.

“Swear it,” I demanded, and though magic couldn’t be cast here, the vow would mean enough for now until she could make the deal official. Our palms clasped, her chest rising and falling, determination flaring in her eyes.

So many had left me. My mother and father were with the stars now, and since my ascension to the throne, my friends had grown wary of me, distant. I had pushed them away too for fear of what I was capable of.

In the dead of night, I craved to be wanted in the way any Fae craved such things, and now this beguiling woman had come showing me visions of a life with her, and a love that could transcend time. If it were real, then it was a temptation I was no more able of resisting than a Vampire could resist blood. I was starved of true connection, it had been years since I’d felt anything like this, and nothing truly compared. Now she was here, as wild and impossible as it seemed, I knew she was meant for me. I knew it in the way I knew the sun would rise tomorrow. Like she had said, it was inevitable.Wewere inevitable.

“I swear I am yours. I will not leave you, Hail,” she promised, and those words set my heart into a riot. I had no idea what I had done to deserve this, or if I might wake any moment from the dream of it, but I could feel its realness pounding through the centre of my being. She was familiar to me like my own soul was familiar to me. As confoundingly insane as it was, I could not see any other future for myself but her now that we had met.

I released her hand, my mouth coming down on hers and she arched up to meet me like she was as desperate for this kiss as I was. I had tasted her in the visions, but nothing compared to the real thing.

“Mine,” I spoke into her soft lips and she answered with her tongue tracing my own, taking control of a kiss I should have commanded. I banged my fist against the wall beside me in an order for the Pegasus to get going and the carriage took off away from the castle.

“I’m going to have you piece by piece,” I said as I fell down to my knees for a woman I had just fucking met.