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“Do it! You want blood?” She shoves me again, and I let her move me, too confused to speak. “You want someone to pay? Punish me, Thad!”
Power laces her hands on the last shove, and it knocks me backward when her silver orbs slam into my chest. They hurt like crazy, but they don’t break the skin this time.
“Roslyn, I’m not going to—”
“Punish me!” she yells again, dropping to her knees as she sobs and shakes, falling apart in front of me.
Her hands hit the ground, and her head hangs as she continues to cry. My fucking heart breaks just watching her, and I carefully approach, trying not to spook her or set her off.
“Roslyn, love, I don’t want to hurt you,” I whisper softly, kneeling down beside her and running my hand down her back.
She tenses against my touch, but I don’t let her go.
“You should. They’ll want me back, Thad. They’re not done with me. They need me now more than ever. You should kill me now, or leave me alone.”
The coldness in her tone almost leaves me with frostbite. I ruined her. I did this.
“Kill me now or leave,” she says a little louder.
“Roslyn, I’m not fucking killing you,” I growl. “I lov—”
“Don’t,” she sobs, jerking away from me like it burns to touch me, and staggering up to her feet. “Don’t say it.”
I run a frustrated hand through my hair. “You’re going to have to help me out, Roslyn. Why the fuck would I hurt you?”
That coldness moves from her tone to her eyes, making her suddenly look so dead and broken inside.
“Because I’m the reason no one escaped for the last six months I was there. I’m the wolf who can track someone if I’ve had their blood. I’m the reason so many people were brought back into that hell, because I wanted the pain to stop. I stole their hope at freedom because I was so weak. Because I was so desperate to be out of that cell. Because I believed they’d kill me. But they never wanted me dead. I see that now. I’m a rare creature, and they?
?ll want me back. They want me back so they can collect the important ones—the other rare ones they need.”
Holy fucking shit.
My eyes widen, and she nods slowly, as if she’s letting me digest it all. Then she blurs to me, putting my hand back on her neck.
“So kill me,” she whispers as tears run harder from her eyes. “Make it stop before they take me back. I’m too weak to do it myself. You wanted to kill Momma. She’s better than I am. Kill. Me.”
Narrowing my eyes, I squeeze her throat enough to pull her to me, and I crush my lips to hers, holding her to me when she tries to pull away. When she whimpers against my lips and denies me access, I withdraw, wishing I knew how to redo that damn memory spell myself just so she wouldn’t have that in her head.
My hand stays on her throat, and her tears continue to fall as my breaths come out heavily.
“It wasn’t your fa—”
“Stop!” she yells, turning away. “Don’t make it alright for me if you wanted to condemn her for the same. I deserve to die.” The last sentence ends on a whisper, and she turns to face me again. “So, for the last time, either kill me or leave.”
She’s trying to rip my fucking heart out.
“I’m not going anywhere! You’re upset, and I get that. It’s my fault you’re upset. But I’m not killing you, and I’m not leaving. Meet me in the middle, Ros. Please.”
That same sadness clouds her eyes again. The tears have left her lips swollen and her cheeks red. She looks like a broken angel right now, and it’s destroying me.
“You know how I really escaped?” she asks me suddenly, but she doesn’t wait for me to respond. “I didn’t escape the cell. No. They sent me after a blood starved night stalker—to kill it. It was too strong and escaped after slaughtering ten of their best men. They kept me under some sort of spelled collar, Thad. It forced me into wolf form, and I was their dog on a leash. All they had to do was snap their fingers, and I was forced to come back to them. I could taste freedom all around me when they sent me on a hunt, but I was still in a cage because of that collar.”
She takes a deep breath as my insides twist with more emotion than I’m used to feeling.
“The blood-starved night stalker was so strong—stronger than he should have been. Like a good mercenary, I went after him with orders to put him down for good. When I caught up to him, he almost killed me instead. And he wasn’t blood-starved. He was something else entirely. Something vile, scary, and so damn dark that it had my wolf begging to run away, but the collar wouldn’t let me. He looked gray, almost like ashen charcoal. And his face was so distorted, making him so inhumane that I couldn’t keep my eyes on him without freaking out.”
“What was it?” I ask her, moving close enough to tilt her chin up.
