Roman is the type of man who could break me. His sea like eyes are too pained. He’s too handsome and too hurt to know how to be gentle with a cracked and battered heart like mine.
So I seal up the cage that surrounds the little beating thing in my chest.
And then I look away from the blood on his face.
“It’s the High Hell’s bedroom. We’re the final three of our realm.” I can hear the disdain in his voice.
He fucking hates me.
Good.
It’s mutual.
“The three of you share a room?”And more importantly a bed? Do tell me more.
I can’t help but remember the way he briefly showed Avian a different side of him. A softer side. A fleetingly fragile side.
“We share everything. We’ll share a life, and we’ll share our enemies. We’ll do anything to protect the last of our kind. We’re the tormented. We’re the surviving. We’re the strongest, the darkest wolves hell has ever created…” His words slip away into a heavy breath that keeps his full lips parted as he seems to think about his bond he shares with Zilo and Avian.
“Hell created you?” I arch a brow at him, my fingers steadily pushing back my crisp and dry blonde hair to really appraise the lean physique of the man still turned away from me. Hard lines are all he’s made of. They slash across his ribs and clatter down his torso, his hips, his thighs. His arms and even his lower back are sliced in pure violent strength.
I just can’t bring myself to think about his scars.
“The Prince of Hell made us. He makes all of us. We fight for him and his realm. We honor his name as tormentor and ruler of lands.”
“How does he make you?” The words fall from my lips as my mind flashes with too many images of what he could possibly be meaning.
Roman turns then, his hands bracing against the black tabletop behind him as he looks at me through slitted eyes and dark lined lashes. “He instills unyielding fight into our blood. He blesses simple wolves with unimaginable ruthlessness.”
“You meancruelty,” I correct. But he ignores the statement.
“And he does it by showing us first-hand how it feels. Every day of our lives. Until we no longer cry to be saved. When our whimpers fade and our heads still rise to face his punishment, that’s when he knows we’re ready to carry his name across realms and lands. He makes us, Cersia. And soon, he’ll make you his bride.” That smile cuts across beautiful features in a haunting look of asinine pleasure.
A chill scratches across my flesh, and I can’t break his gaze. I couldn’t look away from this demented psycho if I wanted to.
I left a man who would protect me, for a man who will hurt me. And I did it without thinking twice.
Why? Why am I so blind when it comes to love? Mika loved me! He did.
I just didn’t deserve it. I deserve war. I deserve this.
And that’s why I’m here.
My spine straightens, and I sit up in the massive bed. “I can take it,” I say with nothing but confidence.
One of his dark eyebrows arches in an adorable way that I can’t ignore.
“Really?” With force, he shoves off from his leaning spot across the room, and he prowls toward me, one foot in front of the other, with perfect predatorial pride. When he’s near enough, his knee lifts and he props himself there at the foot of the bed. A safe space of four feet separates me from the arrogant Hell Cunt whose nose I’ve already bloodied once tonight.
Does he want to clean up his pretty boy face all over again?
Every move he makes is accounted for. I glare at him hard, but I note every single ticking muscle that tenses beneath that golden skin of his. His palms flatten against the smooth black blanket. One by one, his fingers dig in, fisting the fine cloth into his palms.
And then he pounces.
He shoves off from his perch so fast I don’t process it at all. It’s a blur of movement. And a slamming of hard body weight forces me down beneath him.
“You can take it?” he growls as his nails dig into my wrists above my head.
