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“How did you sleep?” I mutter, threading my fingers into her hair.
Aurelia nods, rubbing her nose against mine. She rolls me onto my back, kissing the skin of my chest as she moves with me, nipping at the scars at my ribs. She throws a leg over my lap, and I grab her hips, grinding her naked center against my dick. She’s warm and wet, and I’d give anything to have sex with my wife.
Give anything to have this hell past us for good.
She brushes her tits against my chest, stretching her arms under my pillow as I rub against her heat. Even her kiss is different—not urgent, but hard like she’s trying to hurt me.
With a jerk, I break from her lips, pressing my head further into the pillow.
When she sits up, she has a Morganite dagger in her hand, and I freeze.
Was it something I said?
“If you wanted a divorce, you could have just asked,” I offer nervously. “No need to get homicidal.”
Her gaze pierces me to the bed as she tosses the blade from one hand to the other. That motion claws at my brain, and the pit of dread in my belly grows.
“What’s the matter, dear,” she says as her eyes grow cold, an odd accent coloring her words. “Don’t like a little pain with your pleasure?”
If I didn’t know that something was off before, the thick Irish brogue coming from her mouth would’ve raised a huge fucking red flag.
My whole body goes cold.
I know that accent, that cadence, that sick fucking voice.
This is not my wife.
“Iva? I gotta say, the body’s new. Wanna tell me what the fuck you’re doing?” I buck her off me, scrambling from the bed as fast as I can.
I’m positive I’ve never been less happy that I’m buck-ass naked.
“Mmm,” she purrs on a smirk, her tongue sweeping her upper lip. “I do so love seeing my handiwork on you.”
Bile rises in my throat as her eyes roam my body—examining each thick scar she’d carved into my skin. Even though she has Aurelia’s face, I want to rip her fucking head off.
“What do you want?” I demand, surreptitiously searching for something to secure her with before this gets really bad.
So many things could go wrong. And knowing how fucking crazy Iva is…
“I want to take your love from you,” she admits, a sick smile curling Aurelia’s lips. “I’m going to enjoy making you watch her die.”
I save one little life, and it blows my whole world apart. No good deed goes unpunished.
“Why? Because I stopped you from murdering an innocent woman? That’s not our purpose. It’s not our job to judge or change. It is our job to send souls on. Period. The end.”
“And who are you to tell me what our purpose is, you impertinent little fledgling?” she snarls, jabbing the air with that deadly blade.
“I became that person when I read the archives,” I confess for the first time. “They told me what our role is—the role the head families are keeping secret so you don’t kill off their kin. That’s the real reason you spelled Lucien, isn’t it? He was digging a little too deep? Knew a little too much? Abusing his job title a little too much for your liking?”
She looks almost pleased I’ve figured out her game. Like I’m a dog that finally figured out how to shit outside. If she weren’t wearing Aurelia’s face…
“Yes, it was unfortunate Lucien had to die,” she simpers, “but making you kill him was just a bonus. It was also a pleasant little perk making Aurelia hate you—taking away what you most wanted. Your girl sure can hold onto a grudge. And now that you have her, I’m going to enjoy making you watch her slit her own throat before you die.”
As she reveals her master plan, I notice my jeans at the foot of the bed, my black leather belt still threaded through the loops. Flicking my eyes back to her, I watch as she raises the dagger.
Her movements change from the flowing grace Iva usually possesses, to an uncoordinated jerky shake—the knife trembling in her hand.
My woman is in there, fighting back.
