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After tearin’ the party apart and tearin’ Echo’s garden down, I beat the living shit out of Balcazar who I found passed out in the hallway where she shoulda been watchin’ my fuckin’ wife, then I beat the shit out of the rest of the Six who tried to stop me, then I beat the shit out of some guards who let Mirage City leave along with the other guests. Nowthe wreckageis outside and I’m haulin’ Echo’s insubordinateass inside the garden house, up the fuckin’ stairs, into her bedroom —our bedroom —where she shoulda been this whole fuckin’ time, and then I throw her onto the bed.
“If you think for even one second I’m going to present for you, you’re fucking crazy!” She shrieks, her red curls, fallen from their silken perch are now a tornado around her face. She throws an accusing finger up at me. It’s unpainted. Why the fuck does it turn me on so much that her goddamn fingernails are unpainted?
“What are you doing, Adam?” she shouts, kickin’ out with her legs, backin’ up until she slams her head on the headboard. I reach past her, grab the wrought iron bedframe and rip a post free. To cage her complaints, I straddle her thighs, loop the loose end a’ her chain through the iron post, bend the iron in my hand into a loop around another post in the headboard, usin’ it to lock her in place. Now she’ll never be able to get away.
There.
Done.
What I shoulda done when I brought her back to Dark City in the first place.
“What did you… Adam.” Her eyes bug outta her fuckin’ skull, which is small and shapely and far too fuckin’ breakable. I slam a pillow behind her head and shove her onto her back, then I climb off a’ her and rub my face roughly. I glance at the window. There’s moonlight tonight, slippin’ in through a break in the perpetual cloud cover. I hate it. Why tonight? We never see the sky here and the break in the clouds now makes everythin’ that shoulda been romantic look suddenly sinister.
“Adam, look at me.”
I head to the door, strides purposeful and determined. Get there and look back at her with a feelin’ that’s as unwanted as it is unexpected. Hatred. Hate her for doin’ this to me. For makin’ me weak. For bringin’ me right back to that moment that I failed Noon when Maengor’s fuckin’ Alphas took her away from me.
“Her name was Noon,” I say, though I don’t know why. I look at her and watch her brows furrow and flatten, watch her rage spike and die. “My sister’s name was Noon and that fucker…he had a squadron of Alphas come and take her away. Didn’t want me around as a liability, so he gave me to Dark City, while he gave her to his Fates like a fuckin’ steak dinner to a hungry fuckin’ hound. They tore her apart.”
“Adam…”
“Don’t know how, don’t wanna know how, but I’m not fuckin’ givin’ you to them. They say I’m gonna die for you and that might be fuckin’ true — do it for you easy — but you’re not gonna die, too.”
“Adam!”
“Nah.” Her panic gouges at my insides. I close my eyes, take a breath, then open ‘em again and tell it to her straight. “I’m gonna go out and find the fucker and his Fates and do what I shoulda done a long time ago.”
“Adam, please!”
“Gonna kill ‘em.”
“It’s supposed to be both of us. You promised we’d investigate the dead army together.”
“I’ll be back in a few days. Maybe a week or two. Ward is gonna watch you ’til I’m back and, if I don’t come back, gonna give her orders to have you taken back to Trash City and give that fucker Merlin whatever she needs to take care a’ you.”
“Adam!” She kicks her feet, bangs her fists on the bed beside her. She tries to sit up, jerkin’ hard on the collar around her neck — a collar I promised her wasn’t meant to cage her. Maybe, it’s what I promised myself.I lied and I’m fuckin’ fine with it.
I refuse to cower from the hurt in her gaze, but meet her stare straight on. Her brown eyes glitter light and bright and bore holes through my skull, but that don’t matter. I’m a Berserker and she’s mine and this is my right.This is what she expected of a Berserker. This is what she feared.This is why she tried to kill herself rather than come with me.
“You won’t…hurtyourself when I’m gone.” My voice trembles. Did she hear it? Hope not.
“You…” Her breathin’ steadies and her voice hitches on the word in a way that makes me hesitate, wait, wonderin’ what’s comin’…fearin’ it, too. “Adam, you are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I hope you fucking die in Paradise Hole.”
She called me Adam. Not Berserker. Adam.
I snarl, rage makin’ my legs stiff and my venom drip more viscous down my throat. I can feel with acute clarity every place my scars shift against the fabric of my shirt and in each wound is a message in a bottle. They’re all the same. They all read: Failure.
“Not gonna let anybody hurt you, Echo. You’re my wife, my heart, the most important thing to me. Whatever I need to do to ensure your safety, I’m gonna do it. Even if it means I gotta lie, break promises and chain you to my bed. Not gonna be forever. Just until they’re dead. Maengor and all his Fates and his army of the dead.”
She settles back against the pillows, her left arm held upright where she grips the chain, revealin’ a scar that cuts from the back of her hand down to her elbow.I did that.She inhales deeply and exhales audibly through her nose. Her nostrils flare, freckles dancin’ across ‘em. Wanna kiss her so fuckin’ bad right now. Wanna pull her close. Want our bodies together one last time. Why the fuck does it feel like a last time?
I take a step forward.
“I willneverbe your wife.” She looks at me with such revulsion, a stare I didn’t even win from her the very first time she saw me and she tried to kill me by bringin’ a tree down on my head — ten trees. Then, she looked at me like I coulda been any Alpha she hated. Now, she looks at me like I’mAdam, who betrayed her.
I feel like arguin’, rippin’ her to shreds, but I don’t. Moonlight streamin’ in through the window glints off the collar around her neck.
My stomach hollows, heart droppin’ through the hole it leaves behind and into my ass. Feel like takin’ a shit. Feel like killin’ Fates. Feel like apologizin’ to my Omega. I’ll do all three, but I’ll start with the Fates first.
