Page 104 of She Who Holds My Wrath

I whirl and drive my fist into the stone wall hard enough to crack it. The impact jolts violently up my arm, but the pain barely registers. Deep in my chest, The Void purrs low and satisfied, pleased by the violence and destruction.

Break it, it murmurs, wordless and insidious, slithering through every fractured thought. Break everything.

“Shut up,” I growl under my breath.

It laughs anyway, a dark, pleased sound that curls through my ribs and makes the hairs on my arm stand, as it feeds on my anger as eagerly as it fed on the destruction.

I don’t know where I’m going, I just know I need distance. From her, from him, from the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t watching. Like she was afraid I might vanish again. Or worse. Like she was afraid I might stay.

I end up in one of the lower training halls which are completely empty at this hour. The air here is stale, thick with old sweat, iron, and magic that’s been burned into the stone from centuries of violence. It feels fitting. Like it’s the only place where I actually belong right now.

I roll my shoulders, flexing my hands. Shadows coil under my skin restlessly, threaded through my hellfire like a sickness that refuses to be cut out. When I call my flame, it answers, but not cleanly. Black tar-like substance, so dark it swallows the light, seeps through the black flame, swallowing the edges and devouring the heat instead of feeding it. I watch it warily, but let it burn anyway.

The first fire strike splits a training post clean in half. The second, reduces it to splinters. By the third, the stone beneath my feet fractures, cracks spiderwebbing out in a violent pattern.

It’s still not enough.

I see her again, unbidden. Daisy standing in the doorway of Maelkar’s chambers. Daisy asleep against his shoulder. Daisy looking peaceful in a place that shouldn’t have felt safe.

She chose him, it croons. You came back from the dead and she still chose to spend the night with him.

Rage explodes through me. I don’t remember moving, only the sound of stone shattering, the air surrounding me screaming, magic tearing free of restraint. My roar shakes the hall, power slamming outwards in a violent wave that rips banners from the walls and sends weapons clattering to the floor.

I’m breathing hard when it finally fades, chest heaving, fists clenched so tightly my nails make my palms bleed.

“She didn’t,” I snarl. “She wouldn’t.”

The Void hums, unconvinced.

I sink down onto the cracked flooring, elbows braced on my knees, head dropping forwards. My thoughts won’t stop spiralling, looping back to the same memories, the same failures.

Aurora’s Veil. The dungeon. Her screams.

I drag a hand through my sweaty, damp, and tangled hair, fingers catching and pulling harder than necessary.

“I tried,” I mutter to the empty hall. “I fucking tried.”

I see it again—her chained, shaking, bleeding, eyes glassy with forced nightmares, drugs, and fear. The way Kaelith touched her in her mind like she was nothing more than a worthless whore. Like she belonged to him.

The Void swells in response, delighted by the memory, by the fury and the pain it dredges up.

You watched, it whispers. And you did nothing.

“I couldn’t,” I snap, slamming my fist into the ground. “I was trapped. I was⁠—”

Weak, it finishes for me.

The word lands like a blade, just as intended. My breath stutters, the truth of it sinking deeper than I want to admit. I was the King of Hell. The Child of Ruin. Her husband. Her mate. And I couldn’t save her.

The Void feeds on that shame, curling tighter around my core, sinking hooks into the places that are breaking more and more with every breath.

You don’t deserve her, it murmurs. But I can make sure no one ever hurts her again.

I close my eyes. For a heartbeat, just once, the promise tempts me. Absolute destruction. No mercy. No restraint. No one left alive to touch her, betray her, or even look at her wrong. I feel the pull of it like gravity. The thought of it has me almost euphoric.

Then I remember the way she looked at me in Maelkar’s room. She wasn’t afraid of my power. She was afraid of me. The image of her fear-filled eyes snaps something loose.

“No,” I say hoarsely, every word a painful strain against The Void’s influence. “You don’t get to decide that.”