Chapter
Eight
Selene
With the same musical ease that the ballads detailed Titus slaying my brother, he sliced my arrow in half. Titus isn't just a soldier—an instrument of war—he’s a composer.
I kick my feet, pushing the sheets off as I roll onto my side.
Polished boots walking down the hall reach my ears. Here he comes.
Boom!My door is kicked off its hinges.
Looks like you need better craftsmen, Galen.
Do I move from my bed? No, not addressing Galen’s presence brings me joy.
“I know you’re awake.” His voice is a cold slither.
I press my fingertips into the mattress. I’ve pissed him off before. This is next level. Avenging Everett was worth it.
“Oh, silly me.” I roll onto my back and stretch my arms above my head. “I thought I was dreaming.”Angering you makes me sleep soundly.
Like a piece on a game board, he inches closer. His scent of blackcurrant and jasmine invades my nose. His eyes press into me like lips to a glass, drinking, slurping me down in a single gulp. Closer, closer. Only a thin sheet of paper can slip between our lips.
That little gap defines our relationship—a small separation, locking us in a constant state of love and war.
A bridge could have been built, but Galen burnt down all the forest that would have supplied the wood. Now, he will suffer as he shouts across the chasm.
And me? I’ll simply watch as he struggles.
“Your dreams start wars.” His eyes churn like soil being tilled.
“As. Do. Yours.”
“Allow me to show you what a nightmare is.” His hands shoot out. I yelp. Thorny vines seize me, clenching so tight they shred the sheets. Their thorns pierce the mattress and begin to make shallow cuts on my body.
Galen pauses.
I will not plead. “You’re too used to me begging you, Galen.” I lower my eyes to his cock. “It was my mistake to spoil you.” I smirk.
“Oh, Selene,” he purrs as he marvels at his vines, “you truly wish to turn me into a beast.”
He shakes his head, then pulls the rose I gave him out of his pocket; he spins the stem between his index and thumb fingers. The vines holding me grow tighter. My blood seeps into the blankets.
“You need no help.” I look away. He grows another vine that pushes my face back. A single thorn cuts my cheek in the process.
“I’ve heard you’ve come close to taking your own life,” he begins. “During the war, you’d stay with the healers, working yourself into an exhaustive state of near death, trying to save your warriors. Pouring your life magic into them, regardless of your own life. Such a selfless act. A trait I wanted in my queen.” He smells the rose.
“People are not ingredients at the market.”
He chuckles, “You’d be surprised, my beauty; I can take everything away. I’ll turn you into a mere object for my amusement, then store you away.”
This was why hate-sex was bad, because you hate the person, Selene!
I grind my teeth to flat horizons. I wish I had never let him between my legs. Some monsters cannot be changed.
“Some items are deadly if used incorrectly. It’s not the poison that is the killer, my sweet husband; it is the dosing. Careful, don’t take too much of me, or too little. You need to determine the perfect amount. You realize that now, don’t you?”
