My vision tunnels.
The world blurs.
Color drains out until all I can see—all I can feel—is his throat.
That vulnerable column of flesh that dared to shape her name.
That dared to insult what is mine.
I move before the thought even completes. Instinct. Fury. The kind of predatory violence bred into my bloodline long before I was born.
My hand closes around his neck—tight, punishing, unforgiving.
I lift him half a foot off the marble floor like he weighs nothing.
His feet kick wildly, knocking over a marble planter.
His shoes scrape.
His hands claw at my wrist, nails dragging across my skin.
I don’t loosen my grip.
I don’t even blink.
“You touched her,” I snarl, and the sound that leaves me isn’t human. It’s an animal with nothing left to lose. “You took her. You dared.”
His face purples. His eyes bulge. His mouth opens in a wet, wheezing sound.
Pathetic.
I lean in close—so close I can smell the fear dripping off his skin.
“You called her what?” I whisper, my voice a razor aimed straight at his soul. My lips graze his ear. “Go on. Say it again.”
He can’t.
He won’t.
He’ll never speak again.
Because I don’t wait for an answer.
With a vicious twist of my wrist—a movement I’ve practiced, perfected, mastered—I crush his windpipe.
And then, before his brain can even process it, I snap his neck.
The sound—God, the sound—echoes through the hall like thunder cracking open the earth.
A sharp, final, sickening crack that feels like justice.
He drops. His body collapses like nothing more than the dead weight he is. A boneless sack of filth collapsing in a heap.
A gurgle, then silence.
I release him only after life has fully drained from his eyes.
Only after I’m certain there’s nothing left of him—no breath, no heartbeat, no chance of resurrection.
