Little does she know, that’s exactly what I want. What stirs my fucking pulse.
That fearless gleam that makes her eyes sparkle with a luster I yearn to catch. Cradle.
Consume.
That same fearless gleam she had when she pinned me against the wall with her hairpin at my throat. When her thick, golden locks unspooled and tumbled about her face, falling past her waist in a churn of untamed disarray.
My fierce beauty hidden away—cloistered and unsullied—with supple, unspoiled skin begging to be marked.
Claimed.
Perfect.
My hands tighten into fists that crush her hair, straining the strands against her scalp. She doesn’t flinch, even though I know it must hurt.
I sigh.
“So fuckingperfect.”
She sucks a breath like she’s going to speak, but the words die on her tongue. I yearn to tip forward and taste their strangled remains. Instead, I rest my forehead against hers, pushing until there is no give.
“I really wish you hadn’t seen this, petal.”
I feel the pulse of her whirring mind …
Does she realize what she’s ruined? What she’s smacked out of my outstretched hand by coming here?
A chance at normality.
Silence stews, tension crackling like a dying flame I want to blow life into. But she’s seen too much. Now I have to plant my pretty flower in the ground and take Ocruth by force. What a fucking shame.
Behind me,herumbles in his sleep …
“Who—”
“My father,” I admit, and her breath hitches.
“You … You told me hepassed.”
I thread my fingers deeper into her messy, messy hair, tugging the wet tangles. “He did.”
I study her eyes. The questions swimming within their orchid depths make her look like an addled sprite blinking up at me, choking on her own naïvety. She has no idea how big the world is. How small and delicatesheis.
How fast I could rip into her.
Drink her dry.
How fast I could have her screaming for me to let her go while her body begs for more.
And if Itrulyunleash? If I listen to the voice that picks, picks,picksat me—give in to the savage urge welling in my chest, threatening to rupture, making my fingers curl and my mind whirl with grisly possibilities?
My hand threads around her neck like a collar, gently squeezing, a throb flaring to life in my hardening cock …
I could control the breath flowing into her heaving lungs. Watch her lips turn blue, panic igniting her eyes. Feel her struggle beneath me, powerless against my crushing might. Cast her into a sleep she’ll never wake from, then peel the skin from her flesh to examine her inner workings.
Turn her into a beautiful, bloody mosaic. My own personal masterpiece.
But I would never do that toher.
