What had he done?
“There’s something between you realising that I’m going to leave and then being locked in Halfeather’s mansion with that shadow around your spine. What was it, Ghoul? What worked?”
Suddenly, he’s gone. In a poof of black shadow, the pressure on my body releases, and the basilisk is before me. I rear up, ready to attack, but my head spins from being blacked out.“What are you hiding from me?”I hiss, tasting the air on instinct, trying to get a read from him. What does it mean? How does a beast go from being death incarnate to at death’s door in Healfeather House?
But I taste only adrenaline in the air, serpents and felines. Fury bubbles up my spine, and I snap my fangs before lunging at him, maw first. He’s ready for me and disappears into black shadow, making me slide right through him. Ghoul appears behind me, striking with his fangs out. But now I’ve learned something new and disappear into shadow. It sends him striking for the ground, but he rights himself as I appear behind him.
I strike, he disappears and reappears behind me.
As he strikes, I disappear and reappear behind him.
Faster and faster, we move, trying to out-shadow each other. I’m vaguely aware of shouts from the ground around us, but I need to maintain full focus to keep from getting bitten. Ghoul is fast, but I get the feeling he is enjoying this. When was the last time he fought someone his size?
Finally, I’ve had enough, reappearing a distance away and wrapping him in telekinesis so he can’t move into darkness again. I fly him up into the air, and he thrashes against me.“I am your regina,”I hiss as he struggles against my hold.“I will always be stronger than you.”
“I know,”he wheezes.“I know, snakelet. It’s my only solace.”
If I had brows, I would frown at this. At the whole thing.“What is your plan?”Abruptly, I let him go, and he crashes to the concrete with a thump.
“Ah, snakelet.”
I circle him from a distance. He disappears again, andthistime, I don’t move when he strikes me, right in the neck with his big, sharp fangs. My hiss of pain is very real, and for some bizarre reason, the bastard shifts. His human form wraps his limbs around my neck, fangs still sinking deep, a hot tongue flicking out and scalding my skin. My reality hones in on that single point. Until it’s just me and him. Until it’s almost a decade of pain between us, cutting deeper and deeper. How alone we’d both been.
So achingly close. So agonisingly separate.
My breath stutters before I, too, shift. I shrink and he moves with me to the ground, until his body is curved around my naked one, his breath hot on my neck, his fangs still piercing my skin. He releases me with a hiss, and I whirl to stare at him. I don’t know why, but my eyes fill with tears at the sight of him. The memories he’s shown me crash together like fractals in my brain, and it’s suddenly too much. My vision blurs. My heart pounds the beat of a sad, lonely song.
“No.” His growl turns into a breath. “No.”
My heart hurts so much. My heart feels like it’s dying under the weight of this.Mymate.Mine, my father’s property, just like my mother was. In my head, a thousand angry shrieks sound, enraged, livid.
I need you with your fangs out.
He doesn’t want my tears. I raise my arm to slap him across the face—only he grabs my wrist in a steel grip and stares me down with those red eyes.
“I am here to kill you,”he growls.“You think a slap was the best way to stop me?”
It’s the first time I’ve seen his naked body, and the realisation hits me like its own type of slap. My eyes can’t help but drag down the length of his form, hard and lethal. Made for battle. Made for war if what I guess about my father is right. Around his navel is the convenant. Like an elaborate snare around his belly button. “I know what’s coming,” I grit out.
Ghoul goes still. “Eugene finally told you?”
“What?” I frown.
The basilisk lord sighs, tilting his head back, and the movement irritates me. I gather my power in my left fist and punch him right in the blood covenant. Ghoul lets my wrist go with an “oof,” his body curving inward. But he recovers way too fast and tackles me to the ground. Too late, I realise my mistake because we’re both naked, skin pressing against skin as I writhe against him. His cock is hard against my stomach, and I cry out in fury as the urge to fuck him drives me nearmad. I shove at him, but he grabs my wrists.
“I signed your little contract, you know,” he grits out over my mouth. “The one that said we could fuck you at any time. Anywhere.”
I bare my fangs.
And spread my legs.
“Put your cock in me before I cut it off,” I hiss.
A very male smirk curves along his lips as the head of his cock kisses my entrance. “Does it make you wet to fight me?” He drags his fangs down my neck at the same time he grinds his cock against my wet, pulsing clit. “Does it make youdripto know that I know your power is superior to anyone else?”
I cry out in fury, lifting my hips and pushing him inside of me.
Ghoul arches his neck and hisses to the sky, and it’s then that I notice shadows cover us in a cloud of darkness. We could be in another realm for all I know. But Ghoul doesn’t move inside ofme. Frustrated, I grind against him, urging him in further. I’ve sucked his cock before, and I know its shape.
