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"And since when is that an excuse to hunt a woman down to the edge of the earth, threaten, no, attempt to assassinate her family, and force her into a wedding? Huh?"
"You did this to yourself," Castor growled. "I loved you. I offered you theworldon a silver platter, and all you had to do was say yes. I would have treated you well. I would have given you anything you could have ever wanted. All you had to do was say YES! But no. You left, Ianora. You broke my fucking heart, and I never heard from you again. What didIdo to deservethat?"
Ianora's heart beat faster than it ever had in her life. Staring at Castor's face, for the first time, she didn't see a man twisted by cruelty and rage but one who was haunted by the pain of lost love. Pain thatshehad caused him.
Her lips trembled, and she averted her eyes, staring instead at the pooled blood on the floor. This was exactly the pain she had wanted to avoid.
Because she knew she could never give him an explanation that would suit him. Not without breaking her own heart again, too.
"I don't owe you anything, Castor. I never did, and I never will," Ianora said. "You thought buying me pretty things was enough to win my love? Well, you were sorely mistaken then, and you're sorely mistaken now."
"All I wanted was your love, and I thought I had it. Where did I go wrong?" His voice was softer, now, a mediated kind of anger that could explode at any second.
"You can't force love. It has to grow naturally." She glanced at the roses peering at them from the walls. "Just like blood roses have to. You can't force them to do what you want with magic. That's not love, Castor. That's an obsession. You were never going to win me back like that."
"I never should have had to win you back in the first place. You were mine.Mine!"
Castor's advance had backed Ianora against a wall, and she bumped against the stone, trying her hardest to stay tall and confident. Weakness would do her no good here.
But how could she tell Castor all the things that needed to be said? Ianora had been a different person back then, crueler to the man she'd loved. No matter how good her reasons were for disappearing, she knew now that she should have explained herself. Tried to make it work.
She had, after all, done everything to protect them both.
What was the use in saying that, though, when he had gone so far beyond reason? Nothing she had done justified the extent to which he'd hurt her since.
How much he planned to hurt her still.
Castor took her silence for having nothing to say, rather than simply too much that she couldn't express it. "I decided long ago that I would burn down the world if that's what it took to get you. And now here you are, a week away from being mine forever."
"I'll tell you as many times as needed to get it through your thick skull: you might own my body, but if you keep going like this, you'll never own my heart and soul.Never."
Just saying it, so forced and untrue, threatened to make the world crack around Ianora. But for all their sakes, she held true. She couldn't falter in her conviction.
Castor inched closer to her, muscles rippling in perfect predatory precision. He smelled like a bitter breeze, the kind that brought harm and pain, like a tornado stirred up and ready to destroy everything in a single moment. "Then I'll turn you into my whore, and I'll have to be satisfied with that, won't I?"
Ianora slapped him. A red welt immediately began appearing on his cheek.
"The curse didn't only bring out the strange and unusual in your castle, Castor. It also brought out the truth. Now the ugliness inside of you is just plain as day for everyone to see on the surface. I saw it in you back then, and that's why I left. Are you happy? Are you happy with what you've done?"
The rage in Castor's eyes multiplied, and before Ianora could react, Castor's hand lashed out and wrapped around her throat. She slammed against the wall, head cracking against the stone. She saw stars, and she gasped at the wave of nausea that crashed through her skull like an ocean's current.
Panic seized her inside and out, and her hands flew up to grab Castor's wrists as he choked her.
At the same time, his mouth pressed to hers, and Castor forced his way in, shoving his tongue deep into her mouth as she writhed and fought against him. His grip on her throat only tightened with her resistance, squashing the fight inside of her as he stole her reserves of air.
Ianora choked. Magic raced like wildfire across her skin, burning up Castor's arms and forcing his hands off her. Even as the flames lit his coat afire, he continued to kiss her through the pain, his lips moving in a desperate fervor that Ianora couldn't match.
It was all overwhelming. All that hate, and love mixed into a kiss.
The fire burst around Castor's shoulders, finally weakening him enough that Ianora managed to get one of her hands free. She grabbed Castor's hair, yanking hard as she brought her knee into his groin.
He let out a pained grunt and released her, doubling over and clutching himself. Ianora staggered away from him, hand at her throat, glad for the ability to breathe again. Even though vampires didn't technically need air the same way that humans did, going without for too long could put her to sleep. However, it wouldn't kill her.
Castor patted out the flames with an angry growl but didn't advance on her again. She then realized that the flames had been a result of the curse. The moment she was in any real danger, it must have triggered the fire to attack him back.
And yet he'd still tried to kiss her through the agony.
Ianora didn't know where to begin feeling about that.
