Page 94 of Dancing With Demons

“What is wrong with you!” I shrieked. “I really believed that you were going to leave me in their sweaty clutches! You don’t care at all that you terrified me last night?”

He cocked his head. “Should I?”

I rocked back, struck speechless. Lips trembling, wetness rolled down my cheeks.

“Ahh, tears. Here they come again. Why do you make this so personal, pet?” Ronin caught a tear on his fingertip and painted it on my lips. “I don’t want to see you hurt or angry. I just want to see you be mine. Because everything I want is mine,” he stated. “Not everything that’s mine comes to me easily, but just because there are obstacles in the way doesn’t change the outcome.”

His eyes sharpened. “And just because the obstacle is you doesn’t make a difference. You belong to me now. And you can be as fiery, or violent, or loud, or simpering as you want as long as you are all of those things, and the most important thing—obedient.”

I sniffed, clutching my fist to my chest. Even though he made light of me for crying, I couldn’t stop. “That’s all you care about? The little puppy can bark and scratch and chew your shoes all it wants as long as it heels when you tell it to heel, and rolls over when you want it to roll over.”

Ronin leaned back, reclining on the bedpost in his sinfully loose, silk robe that was doing nothing to hide the pearled weapon half-cocked between his legs. I was before him crying... and he was turned on.

“Hmm. I don’t know what a puppy is,” Ronin replied, “but it seems like you’ve got the right idea.”

“Bullshit.”

A slightly raised brow was the only sign of his displeasure. “Excuse me?”

“It’s bullshit!” I screamed. “If you really wanted another sycophant worm to crawl on its belly behind you, all you had to do was show me your true face, Ronin! Just being in the room with it made me want to forgive you for every horrible thing you’ve done. Hera knows what a mess the full blast would’ve made of me.

“We both know that you could’ve had my obedience without making Kazuya and his friends attack me. Without tricking me into the sub bond. Without fucking lust potions. And without that horrible, disgusting choice you forced on me last night.” I was an ugly crier. Splotchy cheeks, crumpled brow, snotty nose, and twisted grimace. I looked as bad as one could look right then, and still the most hideous person in the room to me... was sitting right in front of me.

“You never had to do any of this,” I croaked. “But you did because hurting me was the point. Breaking me was the point!”

In a blink, the vial was flying across the room. It smashed over the mantel and sprayed its contents on the fire.

Whoosh!

The fire roared to life, shooting burning tendrils free of its confines and aiming for any and everything.

Ronin whirled around as the armchair caught fire, and I swung.

“Well, you won.”

Slapping him soundly across the face, I ripped a grunt out of him as pain exploded in my face.

“Ahhh!” Shrieking my agony, I clutched my cheek and ran—escaping through my bedroom door.

“Charlotte!”

I burst inside, startling Dora, then slammed and locked the door shut before darkness took me, and I collapsed on the carpet.

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up in my bed. Even though Dora was snoozing away in the bed next to me, I knew she picked me up and put me to bed because I had three times as many blankets piled on top of me, and a cup of cold cocoa waiting for me on my nightstand.

Usually, the sight of both would’ve cheered me, but I felt nothing... and that was all I needed to make up my mind.

Kicking out from under the blankets, I found my phone on the coffee table where I left it. I picked it up and dialed the number without hesitation.

He answered on the first ring.

“Hi, honey! Is it my deathday? Why else would you gift me your beautiful voice first thing in the morn—?”

“Most of the vampire covens have a deal with Lucifer to be his personal spies and assassins,” I sliced in—my voice as emotive as a rock. “Yours is one of them, isn’t it. That’s why you know so much about Lucifer, and what he’d do if he became a god.”

There was a deep silence on his end of the phone.

“Yes,” Santino said flatly. “To both your statements.”