AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“W-what have you done with my father?”
“I made sure he will rest.” He smiles benignly as he saunters closer. “In peace.”
Horror overwhelms me. My heart stops. I take an involuntary step back. “You killed him?”
“He served his purpose and was becoming tiresome. Suddenly, he sprouted morals and fatherly concern.” The man yawns. “What use have I for those?”
The father I barely had a chance to know was murdered defending me from this…creature without humanity or heart. The closer he comes, the more my skin crawls.
“You may be happy to know that his dying words were about you. He never pleaded for his own life, but he begged quite convincingly for yours. Your mother as well.”
I gape. “You killed her?”
“Let’s say I persuaded her to end her misery. It was so interesting to watch her struggle with her will to live as she put a gun to her head.”
I’m going to throw up. The magic my mother feared all her life ultimately ended her. And she died protecting me? On some level, she must have loved me…and I never knew or appreciated her.
I’m sorry, Mom.
“But humans are simple,” the stranger says off-handedly. “Your father had to be dealt with more directly.”
In other words, murdered. “When?”
“Directly after he helped you fight off the Anarki at your mate’s cottage. I had him followed—and his mind read—prior to that. As soon as he teleported away from you and back here? Well, I no longer needed your father alive, just his corpse to inhabit. So I gave him everlasting slumber.”
I tremble. This craziness is happening so fast, I can’t wrap my head around his rapid-fire savagery. “Why kill him?”
“He intended to ruin my plan.” My parents’ murderer drags his knuckles down my cheek in a caress that, for all its gentleness, scares the hell out of me. “I couldn’t have that.”
I shudder with revulsion and jerk from his touch. “Who are you?”
Chapter Fifty-Six
But who else can he be?
“Mathias d’Arc, of course.” He executes a very courtly bow.
His name ricochets around my head. I stumble back only to encounter a wall. He laughs softly, the sound every bit as icy as his eyes.
Again, Mathias reaches for me. I have nowhere to retreat as he sinks his fingers into my hair, letting it slide between his thumb and fingers before he grabs the strands in his fists. “My fiery American witchling. So lovely.”
“Don’t touch me.” I bat at his hands. “Leave me the hell alone!”
Mathias pins me against the wall. “I could break your mate bond, you know? But you might not survive. Or I could simply take you against your will and disregard your pain. Though you might not live through that, either, and I have no use for a dead Le Fay witch. You’re quite lovely. More’s the pity.”
Mathias yanks on my hair, pulling me closer. I stumble against him with a gasp, my gasping mouth just beneath his.
“I would enjoy fucking you,” he whispers against my lips. “Your moans and pleas would provide me so much energy and immeasurable pleasure.”
I try to shake my head, but he holds me too tightly. “No.”
“Yes. If I wished it, you couldn’t stop me. But you reek of that immortal human,” Mathias growls. “And I’m in no mood to smell him while you scream in ecstasy.”
Ecstasy? How could he imagine that I would, for even a moment, enjoy his touch?
“Your expression is deliciously easy to read. You would feel pleasure because I would will it so. Watch.”
Suddenly, he releases me and steps into the middle of the room. After a snap of his fingers, a woman appears, mussed and naked. With her head bowed, her pale curls shield her face, her shoulders, her breasts, and flirt with her navel. But even without seeing her face, I know she’s gorgeous.
