“I heard somewhere that good people die young,” I add lightly. “I’m sorry in advance for his upcoming death.”
That gets her attention.
She stops and glares at me. “Don’t you even dare think about doing anything to him.”
I smile, tilting my head. “So protective.” I lift my hand and hold her chin gently. “Keep a black dress ready… to attend his funeral.”
She grabs the collar of my shirt. “If you so much as shake hands with him, I’ll kill you.”
The burning inside me flares, climbing from my chest to my head. I need destruction—realdestruction. Opening someone’s skull, chopping someone apart, no, none of that will work.
I need more. I need destruction that imprints my ownership into her, so deep it sinks under her skin and settles into her bones. Destruction that rewires her instincts and turnsevery other manin her world into a mistake simply for existing near her. I want her to know she belongs tomewith every breath she takes. I fucking need her to understand thatany manshe ever tries to protect will meet his end in the most merciless way imaginable.
I grab her neck, leaving her chin. Her eyes widen instantly. I lean down, my mouth hovering near hers. “I’ll tear him apart with my own hands,” I whisper, locking my gaze into her eyes, “and then”—my voice drops lower—“I’ll make you bathe inhis blood,angel.”
I release her face.
“Tonight.”
Iselyn
Have you ever seenthe devil?
I have.
He doesn’t have horns. He isn’t red. He isn’t ugly. In fact, he is so devastatingly handsome you’d want to keep him in front of your eyes all day, just to look at him. But he is evil, so evil you cannot stand before him withoutburning in his hell.
And somehow, I’ve stepped straight into it.
I see it in his eyes,the depth of his madness. There isn’t a single word he said that I doubt. He will doexactlywhat he promised. He will kill Dexter. He will make mebathe in his blood. And I won’t be able to stop it.
I have a family behind me, people powerful enough to protect me, to destroy anyone who dares touch me. But heis the ruler of devils.Satan. Manipulative. Calculating. So dangerously clever that he can make youturn against yourselfwithout you ever realizing it.
He will charm them into believing him, just like he did a week ago.
The realization leaves mehollow. I feel powerless. But the fear of becoming the reason for someone’s death is worse. It clenches my gut, tight and merciless, stealing the air from my lungs.
I start running after him. He hasn’t walked far. Not in the few minutes I stood frozen in shock.
I grab his arm and force him to stop. “You don’t have to do any of this,” I say, my words rushing out. “I’m only protective of him because he’s a nice man, a good friend, and I have a lot of sympathy for him. He’s fighting against his own family. He loves someone, and his family is against it. He also has cancer.” My breath stutters, but I don’t stop. “His life is already so difficult, and the girl he loves is completely dependent on him. If you kill him, her life will be ruined. She’s just seventeen years old.”
I say everything in one breath. His expression doesn’t change. Not even slightly.
But his eyes—God, his eyes—are locked on me with an intensity sharp enough to bore holes through flesh. It feels like he’s dissecting me, stripping me barelayer by layer.
I can’t believe this is the man Ionceloved.
How could I have loved someone like him?
Then he smiles. The shift is so sudden it feels unreal, like he removes one mask and replaces it with another in the span of a heartbeat. I stay rooted to the spot, watching him, unable to move.
He cups my face in his palm, bends down, and presses a kiss to my cheek. It’s tender. Gentle. Almost reverent. For a second,it feels like he’ssomeone else entirely, not the man who just promised to make me bathe in aninnocentman’s blood.
I used to think I knew everything about Matleon. I wasso, so wrong. I release his arm—the one I’d been clenching so hard my fingertips now ache—and step back. His hand slips from my face. I turn and run.
He doesn’t chase me. But I don’t stop until I reach my apartment. I lock myself inside, clinging to the flimsy, false sense of safety it gives me. I don’t doubt for a second that if he wanted to, he could break in here easily. The helplessness settles deep inside me, a clear mirror reflecting the truth of my position.
I can’t doanythingto him. But he can dowhateverhe wants to me.
