Ruin it.
In my mind, my fingers are long, merciless claws. I use them to shove fabric, baring the flushed, tender skin of my belly—untarnishedskin I gouge and slash with strikes of unrestrained wrath. Because I can’t do this anymore ...
I’m done.
This heat has boiled me down to nothing but a lump of wanton need, and I have to choke this feeling. Need it to die so I can get back to beingme.
“Stop. Orlaith, you’re hurting yourself.”
“I’m fixing myself!” I scream. “I’m going to rip it out with my bare hands!”
A serrated growl saws out of him as he snatches my wrists, pinning them against my warring chest. I try to pull them free so I can hollow myself and end this agony but his grip tightens.
“What are you—”
“No more.”
I whimper, desperate to extinguish this furnace inside me.
My hips roll, seeking ... searching ... until a surge of pressure threatens to crack my skull open, and a shriek belts out of me in jagged spurts.
“Fix me!” I plead, and his chest stills. “Please. I can’t take it anymore. I need ... I need ...”
Something.Anything.
I wrench against his hold, determined to snap my wrists if that’s what it takes to free myself.
“Fuck,Milaje. Stop.”
“Please ...”
He groans; a sound of deep-seated torment. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“So long as you take me with you,” is my strangled reply, and for a fleeting moment even the rain seems to hang in the sky, as if the world is sucking a gasp through parted lips.
“Never.”
The word is bitten from the night and spat with distaste, landing on my chest like a rock that threatens to stop my lungs from drawing breath. Something about his declaration eases the pressure in my head but fuels that fire into forking spikes that lash out, making my hips jerk and jerk.
My skin itches from the fervid fury trying to flee through my pores, and I want to scratch at it. To tear off big chunks of flesh so I can release the heat in plumes of fire and steam and—
I wail, the sound flawed by my sliced-up throat, overriding the symphony of splatters.
I thought I was in agony before ... but this? This is something more. Somethingdeadly.
In a surge of adrenaline, I manage to wrench an arm free, but he snatches it up, hands clamping around both wrists like manacles.
My next breath is acid.
“You’re killing menow.”
He releases a feral growl that threatens to cleave me down the middle.
Still holding firm, he maneuvers my wrists into a bundle held within one of his hands, freeing the other.
My heart skips a beat.
Fingers lingering on the delicate curve of my clavicle, his breath quickens to join mine, but we’re out of sync—as if our lungs are playing tug of war.
