I clenched my fists so tightly my nails bit into my palms.
Did he not understand a single word I said? Was he so far gone in his own twisted world that he saw my resistance as nothing more than a joke?
I felt sick.
A nausea deep in my bones, a sickness that had nothing to do with my body and everything to do with the overwhelming realization that I might never get out of this. Just as I was about to yell at him again, he tilted his head.
Ever so slightly, I almost missed it. His curious eyes followed the path of my tears, and then he met my eyes again. And I flinched because whatever was flickering inside them before was gone, replaced by the cold, detached glint, and he curved his lips.
“Zagreus. Zagreus Vitale.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Monster
Some men kill with guns, others with words. But the deadliest of them all? Killing with silence.
Zagreus was one of them.
The room pulsed with heavy and unbearably quiet, thick spaces between heartbeats. A pause before the devastation. I should’ve feared his anger. But that didn’t come, and that was my death sentence.
I tried to push past the suffocating weight of it, twisting and writhing, struggling against his hold, but it was like fighting chains forged in hell. His body remained still, letting me exhaust myself purposely like a trapped little bird slamming against its cage. I fought until my muscles screamed, until my lungs burned and until the tears pricked my eyes in a humiliating display of weakness.
And then, when I had nothing left when my body betrayed me, he slowly moved his fingers, unclasping from my wrists and deliberately finding my throat. My breath hitched, and I looked at him wide-eyed. His grip wasn’t fatally choking, but it was enough to send a wave of fear coursing through my veins.
“You can scream,” Zagreus murmured, his tempestuous eyes flickering between cold grey and obsidian black as he tilted his head. “Curse it, whisper it in fear.” His thumb pressed against my cheek, dragging a lone tear with him, and his grin widened. “But it will be the last name you ever know as your master.”
My chest constricted, air catching in my burning lungs.
No.No, no, no…
“You came to me willingly,” he continued, tracing my jawline, burning my skin in unholy brand, “offering yourself as my sacrifice.”
A cruel smirk tugged his lips as I sucked in a shaky breath. “And now you’re backing out?”
The world was a cruel place, but some men were crueller still. Zagreus Vitale was not a man. He was a god carved from violence, his divinity built on the bones of those who dared to defy him. And I wondered if I’d join those dead too. By the look on his eyes, I knew I would. The grey had turned into sharp silver. And I couldn’t even breathe properly.
When his hand flexed on my throat, my vision blurred. Tears burned the backs of my eyes, hot and shameful. A song my mother once sang drifted through my mind; the haunting melody and cruel irony startled me. I didn’t know the meaning then, but now I was reminiscing about it.
Even the storm bends to love, but love has never bent for me.
Because this wasn’t love, it wasn’t devotion even. It wasn’t passion. It was destruction in its cruelest form.
The way his eyes gleamed mischievously made me realise I was a lost cause from the start. He wouldn’t stop, even if he had to force me.
“I stopped last time,” he murmured, his fingers tracing my sternum, lingering over my racing heart. “Not because I had to. Because I wanted you awake for this.”
His hand slid lower. My breath caught. His stormy grey eyes darkened with something… cruelly patient.
“I want you to feel everything, Dolcezza. To know it’s me. To know you belong to me.”
A choked sob escaped me. He caught it… held it.
“Shhh, shhh,” he cooed mockingly, his thumb wiping a tear from my cheek. “I hate seeing you cry, Dolcezza. But I love knowing I’m the reason for it.”
He tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. For the briefest moment, his thumb hovered. A flicker of something almost gentle. But then it was gone. He smirked, the moment shattered, and his grasp became ironclad. “I think I’ll make you cry more.”
His hand slowly drifted lower until he was close to my forbidden part. And I couldn’t even fight. He was not only my captor, he was my grave. And this marriage? A coffin nailed shut.
