Page 156 of Black Sea

“Look how you pant in my hands,” I said passionately. “It’s not fear. It’s not because you can’t breathe. It’s because you want me. You want the evil I carry inside.”

Her eyes looked like burning coals. “And you want the good in me.”

“I don’t give a shit about it, you stupid elf,” I hissed.

Wrath struck me like a whip, and I tightened my grip on her head until she whined. My palms tingled with the urge to smash her skull and crush her brain and then paint my face with her blood and suck the gelatinous mush from my fingers.

One by one. With great delight.

“The only reason I want you here is because I want to fuck you.” I pressed my hard cock against her groin, breathing in the moan that escaped her. “Every fucking moment.” I bent down to kiss her, but at the last second, I managed to hold back. To maintain control over my instincts. “I can hardly think of anything else,” I added angrily, peering down at Calien’s Crystal between us.

“That’s not the only reason you want me close.” Nauriel looked at me in a way that made me feel like falling to my knees at her feet. “It’s because you love me.”

My jaw ticked.

My breathing became faster.

My stare turned deadly.

However, I did not reply.

I did not deny.

Why didn’t I? Why couldn’t I?

Her hands moved to my chest, resting over my heart, her face filled with both anguish and hope. “And you desperately want to be loved.”

Ire came over me like a red cloth.

In the next moment, I let go of the elf’s hair, grabbed her by the throat, yanked her away from the door, and slammed her against it again with such force that the impact sounded like an explosion.

86

But I didn’t crash into the double doors.

I fell onto the floor in my room.

I took greedy breaths of fresh, clean air, trying to rid my body of that unhealthy, blood-filled smell I had inhaled in that terrifying room.

High black flames erupted from the stone tiles just a few steps away from me, and Mornon’s figure—both so terrible and erotic in my eyes—appeared between them.

He was here. Physically. It wasn’t an illusion.

I should attack him. Cast all of Calien’s power upon him without any mercy.

Instead, I couldn’t get over the fact that he hadn’t denied loving me. That he had thrown me away the moment I tore down the ice wall behind which he had lived for millennia and saw him for what he truly was.

A creature that felt terribly alone.

He half smiled derisively. Cruelly. “You’re so pathetic to believe so.”

His left hand’s fingers moved gracefully, mesmerizingly.

The next moment, excruciating pain in my rib cage cut off my breath. I had the impression that countless claws pierced my liver, lungs, and heart, and then scratched them so slowly that my mouth opened in a silent cry.

I leaned against the bench at the foot of the bed, struggling to pull myself up as I let out inarticulate, strangled sounds. A thick stream of blood poured from my lips, dripping onto the polished wood.

The light within the Crystal started to pulse.