Dropping to the floor, I rolled under her bulk, grabbed my heel, and tore the blade free. With a scream of my own, I drove the poisoned knife across her chest in a wide, deep slash before ending up across from her.
She crumpled to the floor, howling, a jagged, wrong-sounding wail that rattled the walls, but I didn’t stop. The beast inside, my instincts, wouldn't let me.
Fueled by rage and adrenaline, I straddled her and stabbed her in the chest again and again. Blood sprayed. Her limbs jerked with each thrust, but I didn’t care. My beast had smelled blood and wasn’t about to back down, no matter what.
She tried to push me away, her claws flailing weakly, but I knocked them aside. Keeping up my tempo, I stabbed her over and over and over again.
Her body began shrinking, morphing back into a fairy again. Fragile. Small.
The shocking change slowed me just enough for her to gather all her strength and shove me off balance. She scrambled back, clutching her bleeding chest. It looked like the wound wasn’t healing.
The bloody knife clutched in my hand, I climbed up, standing over her. The quiet, steadyplinkwas somehow loud, marking each drop of her blood that slid from the end of the blade. She coughed, scarlet liquid marring her lips. The poison was in her bloodstream now, making its way to her heart.
“You won’t win,” she rasped, glaring despite her agony. “Even if you defeat me, there aremoreof us. He’s taking all of you out one by one, but he’s savingyoufor last. His crown jewel.”
Blood bubbled at her lips, spilling out like a hose. She smiled through it, and I had to give her props for that.
“You and your family… you won’t survive it.” She took in a ragged breath, putting all of her venom into her last words. “I just wish I could’ve watched your empire burn.”
Her head dropped. The blood seeping into the floor was spreading slower, reaching its way to my feet but not quite touching.
She was dead, her heart burned to ash by the poison.
I barely had time to process that before I heard it.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
My head snapped toward the corner.
The bomb.
This isn’t over yet.
* Song: Down with the Sickness by Disturbed
38
RASMUS
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My hand jerked along my cock, slick and frantic, as I watched the video for thetenth, no, thetwentiethtime. I couldn’t stop. My star. My fucking goddess. Kissing Van like that, but she wanted me to watch, had practically begged me to watch. Her silent message burned in my brain:This is for you, Ras. Watch me.
And I did. Ialwaysdid.
She and I knew she was giving me a gift wrapped in sin, tied with the kind of smirk that made my spine lock and my breath into a growl. While I was locked in this goddamn office, making sure there were no surprises in the code Calix just wrote, like she’d asked me to, she was out there putting on a show that made my heart rupture and my cock ache in equal measure.
I should be with her. My mouth should be on her thighs, my hands spreading her wide, my cock buried so deep she forgot her own name, but no. I was here. Alone. Hunched over a computer, only getting to see her through surveillance footagelike a fucking stalker, which, okay, fine, you got me, but at least I washers.
The minute I flipped to the Winged Palace feed and caught her sneaking up behind her mage like the little minx she was, I knew.She’s thinking of me.Ofus. Of how I’d react when I saw it.
She knew I was watching her, so I recorded it. Of course, I fucking did. It was on loop now, playing on every screen as I let fantasy take over. I envisioned myself crashing through the door, stalking up to them, and turning her face so I could kiss her until she forgot air existed. I would peel those leather pants down and claim what was mine while Van stood there holding her up while she got weak at the knees.
In another fantasy, they moved it into the office, and I waited until they were lost in each other. As soon as one of them came, I let my sex magic detonate like a bomb, turning the situation into beautiful, filthy, three-way chaos to christen her office.
I kept watching the recording as her leg lifted, her knee dragging up his thigh, that wicked gleam in her eye. As I unzipped my pants and palmed my hard cock, his eerie gaze flicked toward the camera.Oh, you can feel me, don’t you? You know I’m here. Watching. I’m always watching.
She looked right at the camera like she could see into me and smirked. My soul howled. I knew it! I knew what my star wanted, what her silent orders were telling me.Watch me, Ras. Touch yourself to thoughts of me. Know I’m yours even when I’m wrapped around someone else.
