He’d promised to love me.
This wasn’t love. Love was selfless.
This was nothing but bold-faced greed and obsession. Lust for my body and what it could give him.
The unholy fury roiling through me was too much to bear. It ripped my nerves apart. It felt like I was being torn at the seams. My other mate’s marks were still ice cold, only now I could feel every tingling stab of pain.
She was waking up.
My monster rose from her sleep, stretching her muscles and filling my body with the magic power that had wave after wave of energy surging through me.
Vincent’s eyes rounded as mine must have turned blood red before any other sign alerted him of my shift. By the time my claws shot from my fingers, he’d wrestled me to the tree branch and brought his entire weight down on me in a tangle of limbs and a flash of fangs.
“There she is,” the male said into my ear, his booming laughter crushing me just as much as his grip on the back of my neck that pinned me to the tree. “I was almost enjoying your mortal side’s cute little tantrums. At least she was behaving herself. But you? You’d like nothing better than to reclaim your mark and make good on your threat from last time, hmm?”
I tried to buck him off, but he was too heavy. He must have gorged himself silly from Lexi’s murder to be this freakishly strong.
“I’ll pluck out your feathers one by one, Feral. And when I’m done with that, I’ll peel every inch of your skin from your body. My mark will be the only inch of flesh I’ll let you keep, so everyone knows who your corpse fucking belongs to. Because you’re still mine. Mine to torture. Mine to bleed!”
Traitorous heat pooled low in my belly when a very hard erection prodded me in the ass. “You're a twisted bastard.”
My monstrous mate chuckled as he moved to capture both my arms behind my back with one hand and used his free one to tuck a rogue piece of my hair behind my ear. Then he straightened my tiara, which was still clinging to my hair thanks to the tines resting close to my skull.
“What can I say? My queen has a way of bringing my blood to life like no female has before. Now settle down. I need to get you to safety, and I can’t do that if you kill me before we get there.”
He hauled my flailing body into his arms, and when it occurred to me where he was carrying me, I struggled all the harder.
One of the empty cages swung to and fro in my periphery as if waving its new occupant hello.
“No! Stop!”
I caught the miasma storming in the hybrid’s plague-dark eyes.
He wouldn't stop. He wouldn't listen.
Vincent Feral was well past reason.
Chapter four
Don’t Fear the Reaper
Vincentwrangledmyflailingbody and tucked me under one arm to free his other. Stopping in front of one of the empty cages, he inserted the tip of his talon into an odd-looking lock. The cage hatch gave a skin-crawling groan as it swung open on its hinges.
New strength flooded through me with the rising of my monster, but I fell still in my mate's embrace. All my desire to fight disintegrated into ash, leaving a wound so deep and aching I wasn't sure if it would ever heal.
How could he do this to me?
I could handle Vincent Feral's brutality. Hell, I'd been drawn to his cruel smiles, harsh words, and rough hands. I liked the kind of pain he dealt because when the vampire prince was truly himself, he was ultimately gentle with me. I could sense the care and love buried beneath his hard exterior.
There was no trace of it now. Now, he wasn't trying to mask his vulnerability with his over-the-top alpha act. This side of him was truly a monster, one that dominated every other facet I'd come to love.
My relationship with the monster wasn't stable or safe, or anything like it was with my other mates. This was a dynamic where primal instincts seemed to run the fucking show. In his arms, I felt more like an animal than a woman with feelings.
This was partially my fault. It was foolish to think I'd tamed him at the Warehouse after he'd gone berserk and nearly killed Eros. I was stupid to assume I'd earned this monster's dark heart when we mated for the first time in front of the Boston Coven.
And I was naive to believe that I'd pried at least something resembling respect from the gaping cavity of his chest when I'd nearly reclaimed my mark the night he'd returned from Fairie.
I was wrong about a lot of things. Maybe even about...
