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“You’re lying,” I argue, even as I see the truth in the tears that fall from his eyes.
“That’s why he wants to punish me,” he goes on, gritting the words out. “I tried to show them you. I tried so hard, because they told me they’d spare my mate’s life. I was going to let them trick me again, because I was weak. Selfish. Desperate.”
A little anger stirs, but mostly just pity.
“You wouldn’t have even been born for centuries, and he still fought and used up his strength to hold those visions of you secret from their prying eyes. He might have escaped those chains if he’d just given in long enough for them to realize just how strong he was. But he would have rather lived in excruciating torment for all time than allow them to touch the sight of you. They’d have killed your mother or grandmother long before you were even a thought to them.”
My chest feels weighted down, and my stomach is soured as I fight with everything in me to stave off the piece of me that wants him dead. Because right now, if I kill him, there’s every chance I’ll kill Slade in the process.
“You really need to stop talking now,” I caution, though my voice sounds distant and eerie, causing his eyes to spark and his upper lip to curl back.
“I’m the reason he suffered, Ella.”
The crack of power that escapes me feels so good when it catches him off guard, blowing him back. The next two slice across him like whips, leaving behind the crisscrosses I’ve seen in a scarred pattern.
I’m not even completely gone yet, and already I’m trying to kill him, relishing his pained cries.
“Fight it, Ella,” he growls. “If you kill me, you kill him,” he reminds me. Then his eyes narrow. “But you can hurt me all you want, and he can’t feel a thing.”
I turn my head away, rocking as I take deep breaths, my vision again going in and out, leaving me to find myself in various places around the circle, fighting myself to stay away from him.
“Get out of the ring!” I bark, my hands shaking as my veins pulse black and settle down.
“All that darkness you struggle with isn’t because of that other man. Slade knows that. You know that.” He’s been spying on us. “It’s because of all he’s suffered, and he suffered that because of me. Because it hurt so badly when they were punishing him. They’d strike a blow to his body, and it would slash across mine. I’d bleed his blood with him, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I left him to suffer the consequences for my own selfish weakness, Ella.”
Some sound escapes me before I blow him back again, this time sending him sailing out of the ring and crashing through trees.
My vision dims for a long minute, and when I blink back, I’m staring into Alton’s eyes, my hands around his throat as his skin blisters under my touch, strangling and choking for air.
I release him, then scramble backwards as he hacks and gasps for air. We don’t need air to live, but his flesh is also charred, and I barely stop myself from retching.
His silver eyes cut to mine, glowing but not angrily. He almost seems appreciative.
“Please stop. I’m barely hanging on,” I grind out, a tear rolling down my cheek as my vision dims again.
When my sight returns, he’s across the circle, lifting himself up, and blood is dripping from my hands as his skin heals slower and slower, the gashes I’m leaving during my blinks matching Slade’s scars too closely.
He cracks his neck. “That’s it, Ella. I’m the one person you can come back from killing. I’m the one person you can lash out on and then find yourself again, because all your instincts scream to hurt me but don’t kill me. It’s safe. You can do this.”
“I want control. I don’t want to do this,” I grind out, a hot tear falling down my cheek.
“You do, Ella. Deep down, you do. Let that darkness free on me.” His own tear falls. “I beg you.”
I try to scramble away from him when he stalks toward me, determined to spur my harmful instincts into action.
“They drained him and raked him with lycan claws dipped in widow’s venom. Do you know what raking is?” he snaps.
I blink, and when my eyes open, I’ve opened him up more, fresh blood falling from his face with the same jagged marks on Slade’s.
“This won’t scar me, Ella,” he says as he spits out blood and hauls himself to his feet slower than before. “This will only heal back into flawless skin. Do you know how to scar an immortal?”
Another blink, and fresh gashes are once more on his body, as my breathing grows shakier and shakier, the drumming of my heartbeat thumping in my ears.
“They drain you until you’re barely conscious, then they rake you—which is basically disemboweling you over and over and over. Maybe he still should have healed, but he didn’t. They grew fascinated with his scars and started doing it to the rest of his body. Over and over and over—”
Another blink, and I’m jostled before staggering back. Alton is barely holding himself up when I come to. He laughs bitterly when he looks over, seeing I’m once again back.
“It’s so brutal to have your body ripped wide open, that even most immortals die. But not Slade. He survived to endure it all over again. All because of me.”
