Page 126 of She Who Holds My Wrath

Pain rips through my chest as I clamp down on it, every muscle locking while I force it back. Force it still. It wants to drink her power. To twist it. To make it scream.

But I don’t let it.

I anchor myself in her. In her warmth, in her scent, in the sound of her breath breaking around my name. I bleed the pressure away before it can touch her magic. The effort is agony, but I welcome it. Better me than her. Always me.

I pull back, staring.

She lies there glowing faintly, breathless and flushed, her white fire slowly dimming across her skin. Awe crashes through me so hard, it nearly buckles my knees. This woman owns my soul.

“I think I missed that more than I missed you,” she giggles.

I scoff a laugh and climb onto the bed, rolling us until she’s above me. “Show me how much you missed it, princess.”

“Can I try something?” she asks, suddenly shy again.

“Anything.”

Her land lifts, white flame blooming softly to life. “How do I do what you do?”

“Just like when you guide it to attack,” I say quietly, even as The Void stirs beneath my skin, sensing opportunity. “But give it no power to harm.”

She concentrates, brow furrowing, her tongue catching between her teeth as she focuses. I feel it immediately—the shift in her magic, the way it hesitates, unsure. The Void presses forwards, eager to corrupt it, to twist it, swallow it whole. I grit my teeth hard and lock down on it.

The effort is brutal. It feels like trying to hold a living thing beneath my ribs, forcing it still through sheer will. Pain blooms behind my eyes, white-hot and blinding, but I don’t let it bleed into my face. I can’t. She can’t know.

Her flame moves—hesitant at first—then steadies.

I subtly redirect it, bleeding off the excess power before it can sharpen, shaping it without touching it, without letting her feel the correction. The Void fights me, snarling, clawing, furious that I’m denying it. But I hold it back despite the cold sweat breaking across my skin.

Her flame glides over my body, dissolving my clothes inch by inch. It’s cool against my skin, raising goosebumps in its wake, reverent rather than destructive. I breathe through the ache, through the burn in my chest, through the way The Void thrashes at being denied.

When she finishes, her eyes light up, bright and proud. “I did it!” she squeals.

I smile up at her, even as my hands tremble faintly at my sides.

“Well done, my queen,” I murmur. “I’m proud of you.”

And she never once realises how close The Void came to swallowing it whole.

I spank her ass hard enough to make her gasp as a distraction. A desperate attempt to keep myself anchored in sensation, instead of the war raging inside my skull. She leans down, placing slow, gentle kisses along my throat as she grinds herself against me, her soaked cunt dragging along my length.

The last threads of my restraint snap clean through. I flip us in one swift movement, pinning her beneath me. She lets out a soft, breathy gasp, her hair fanning out around her as I trap her wrists above her head.

I lower my mouth to her throat and bite, my elongated canines piercing skin.

Rip out her carotid artery, The Void whispers, just as my tongue strokes over her strong pulse. Taste how quickly she can die.

My eyes squeeze shut as I groan against her skin, copper flooding my tongue. I hate how good it tastes. I hate that some ruined part of me wants more.

I bite harder without meaning to, intoxicated by the warmth of her blood, by the pulse fluttering wildly beneath my mouth. She squirms under me, breath hitching. I suck and lick and bite again, losing myself in the haze of hunger and want.

“Korithax,” Daisy whispers. “You’re hurting me.”

Reality slams back into me so violently, it feels like being struck. My eyes fly open, landing on the blood that streaks the pale curve of her throat. My marks stand angry and red where I went too far. Too rough. Too lost.

“Fuck. Fuck—FUCK!” I scramble back from her to the edge of the bed like she’s fire and I’m drying kindling, my chest heaving and hands shaking violently. What the fuck have I done?

“It’s okay,” she says softly.