Page 83 of The Blood we Crave

My throat narrows a bit. The tangled fairy tale I’d spent building the past few days was not disintegrating. Evaporating into a nightmare I wanted to wake up from.

A fucking mistake?

“You’re a fucking coward. My hopeless heart wasn’t the only thing at fault, your hands were between my thighs, you stubborn prick.” I hiss.

I’m not sure who I’m more frustrated with, him for so easily brushing off what happened between us. For being able to look at me and not remember how desperate his hands were on my body. How lewd his words were in my ear. That he can stand there with no remorse on his porcelain face for ripping away something that felt this good just because he can.

Or myself.

For thinking I could get this close to him unscratched.

“Nothing but a fucking coward.” I say, letting my anger aid my aching heart at his blatant rejection.

Refusing to look away from his eyes, even though all I want to do is sink into myself and disappear from the world. To evaporate from his line of sight and never reappear. But that would be giving him exactly what he wants.

It would be giving up on him.

Thatcher may be a lot of horrible things, to me and other people. He may want to hurt me with his words right now and I may be so angry at him that I’m ten seconds from clawing his eyes out, but he doesn’t deserve to be given up on.

The world had already done that.

The way his head snaps towards me looks painful, his upper lip curling. “Watch your mouth, pet.”

“I heard worse come of your lips a week ago. When my pussy was covered in your blood. You do not get to patronize me.” I fire back.

Frustration builds and he takes a large hand, running it down his face like he’s two seconds from ripping the world apart with his teeth. It’s probably the most emotion he’s felt in his life and watching him navigate it is painful.

“Let it die!” He yells, a piece of hair falling down in his face. “All of it. The night your mother was killed. The mausoleum and every second that has to do with me. Do you get that? I want you dead to me, Lyra.”

We had been alive in that crypt. Our bodies thriving within each other. His brutal silver tongue would not change that. It would not change the way I felt, no matter how much it hurt.

But right now, I want him to ache. It’s wrong to seek revenge, to wound him just because he doesn’t understand his feelings. But I can’t help it.

I want him to hurt the way I am, so that when he walks away, I’m not the only one with a gashed wound.

If I bleed, he’s going to bleed with me.

“So it’s over, the deal, all of it?” The steam from the shower bellowing in front of my face, the towel still wrapped around my body keeping me warm.

“Yes,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows roughly.

I scoop my clean clothes out of my bag, tucking them into my chest with a little more attitude than necessity.

“Great,” I sneer, turning my back to him as I stride towards the dressing rooms. “I’ll tell Conner you said hello.”

I have no desire to see his reaction or continue this conversation further when he will only continue to break what little connection we have built. All I want is to get dressed and let him wither in jealously at the idea of Conner Godfrey being my shoulder to cry on.

Let him think the worst.

Except I don’t get very far, Thatch’s fingers snatch my elbow, squeezing tightly with all the words he refuses to say out loud. The pain makes me face him; eyebrows furrowed in annoyance as I do.

A storm of violence thunders on his shoulders, a sort of dark look that promises nothing but misery and pain. One I imagine he has when he’s looking into the eyes of someone he is about to slice up or grind into tiny pieces.

His free hand jerks on my towel, inexpedient and I don’t have time to stop it from sliding off my body. My nipples harden when the cool air traces the sensitive flesh, my mind hating him, but my body thrives beneath his gaze.

“Do not play games with me, Lyra Abbott.” He says in a voice like nightshade. Cloaked in darkness and immoral intentions.

A warning.