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"I don't care what you thought," I said, my voice like ice over a grave. My grip tightened, hungry to tear.

I was moments away from ripping her wings clean off, plucking them like feathers from a game bird. But before I could finish the act, Alex's hand caught my hand mid-strike.

As soon as he touched mine, my gaze shot up to meet his, twin fury blazing between us. The snarl curling his lip was savage as he tried to haul my grip free from her. A mixture of emotions swam through me at the gesture. He was offering her mercy. After she tried to abduct him how appalling was that? It honestly baffled me.

My fingers gripped tighter around the cartilage not wanting to let her go, and his intertwined with mine trying to coax the wing out my grasp. I wanted to defy him simply for trying to stop me, but when his lids lowered and he bared his fangs to me for a moment something inside of me swirled, thrilled at his dominance.

The sheer power that coursed through that quiet command in his eyes amplified the alarm between us. That that had only felt like simmer was full on sending a siren for me to stop. I’d never been more drawn to him for it. The feeling was instinctive, ancient. And it terrified me. My fingers loosened against the fae’s wing.

He tore my hand away and growled with a voice I hadn’t yet heard, deep, commanding, absolute.

“You will not torture. And you will not undermine me. Do you hear me, Valentina?”

Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I stared him down, vision tinged red. I wanted to tell him no, but I couldn’t. The words sealed in my throat like something locked behind iron bars. There was no way to force them out without the bond snapping tight in warning. The threads between us tightened, sealing the command in place. I nodded once, sharp and silent, submissive in a way I hadn’t been since I was a child.

The way his words silenced me, froze me in place, should have been against the will of the world. It felt final.

This was rare.

I’d never submitted to any man, except my father. Among Velsera pairs, a woman felt the pull of her mate when he demanded her attention. Alex was demanding exactly that of me in that moment—and I hated him for it. He barely knew what he was doing. The pull was still overwhelming.

“How am I supposed to protect you?” I asked, clawing my pride back into place.

I seized the fairy’s wrist. She hadn’t moved, paralyzed by pain. One wing lay limp and useless, dragged low like a broken veil. Blue tears trickled down her pale cheeks, silent and unearthly.I felt nothing for her. She’d tried to steal what was mine.

“Please let me go,” she cried beneath my grip, but I only held her tighter.

His brows knit as he weighed my words. “I’ll decide if I need protecting.” His eyes dropped to my grip. “Let her go.”

I bit my lip, unable to resist the pull of our Velsera bond. It weighed beneath his stare, a command written into his irises. It was hard not to obey when a direct order was given. Exhaling in a frustrated sigh, I yanked her up to her feet and let her go.

The Fae didn’t flee. She just stood there, blotting her tears with that near-transparent scrap she called clothing. She bowed low to Alex. “I am… grateful,” she forced out, teeth clenched tight. She reached for him, but my growl made the warning clear: touch him, and you die.

“Leave now,” I said coldly, “before I ignore my mate’s mercy. Touch him again, and I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Her hand dropped.

I grabbed Alex by the shirt and yanked him back, away from the shimmering edge that still called to him.

Only the gods knew how many more creatures we’d face before reaching the portal. Yet only one truly worried me. Mermaids. The most dangerous charmers of all. And they guarded the gate to our world.

TAINTED | CHAPTER 5

Enchanted Waters

Alexander’s POV

The air between us felt thin—tight enough to snap. There was a tension within my limbs that felt taut at the way she had manhandled me, and then that poor Fae. The mere challenge in her eyes sent signals of distress through my brain as if I were on the front lines. That wasn’t the only thing that shook me to the core; it was the way my words coiled around Valentina that had me second-guessing myself. The way she had grown almost rigid under my voice was unnerving. I never thought I was the kind of man who’d cross that line with a woman to be demanding, commanding. But there was such a thin, dangerous line between instinct and intention, I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to walk it.

It felt like this power came with a surge of something feral, something far older than I understood.

It was bizarre, the way my body and brain nearly seized at the contest in her voice when she spoke to me. When she told me I wasn’t allowed to command her… I nearly saw white. There was no justification in my entitlement, but the way she had said it as if it were law disturbed my spirit; no, it disturbed my soul. I just knew somehow that wasn’t true. Her fury ignited something territorial in me. I didn’t want to dominate her, but something darker in me wanted control, and that unsettled me. Why? I couldn’t even give myself a real answer. Deep down, I knew it was wrong, the hunger to control her most of all. Even so, an irrational part of me wanted her submission.

The last twenty-four hours, my mind had been cycling through frustration, rage, and reluctant acceptance. One moment, I was doing homework; the next, my mother was lying in our home with her throat bitten, and this girl was unraveling every sense I had. I was ashamed to admit that it had me feeling shaky within myself. My pride almost felt like it was slowly stripped away from me with each passing hour. I was doing things I would have considered deplorable, yet here this girl was encouraging the reckless decisions I made. She almost felt worse than sin, because beforehand, I knew I was controlling my own consciousness, but with her around, I didn’t know if I was reacting to her encouragement or my own flawed morality.

When Valentina yanked me away from the Fae, though, another wave of unwanted feeling persisted. A sense of accomplishment followed as she listened to my orders. There was little back talk, and the sensation that boiled from my ear tips to my toes was thrilling. That guilt that tried to pull me under was fighting with a bubbling sense of pleasure. Her pupils had been blown with rage before it, and as I said those absolute words to her, they softened just a fraction as if the command seeded itself into her physically. It didn’t last long, though, as she dragged me through the treeline. She muttered words I’d never have caught if I were still human. “The concubines are forbidden to touch him… I must get him home before I torch this entire forest… If he ever speaks to me like that again…” her lips locked mid-sentence as she bit down on her pillowy bottom.

Each lip was perfectly symmetrical, colored in a deliciously pink hue, and naturally lined with a brown that made that rose-color pop in the sunlight. The way her teeth gently glided over the soft flesh had my thoughts spinning in a direction I didn’t want them to land.