Leaning down, she kissed him. It was a tender kiss, as much as she could manage with how much she needed him in the moment. But she couldn’t put into words what was lurking in her heart. She just wasn’t ready for it.
So that would have to do.
Running her thumb along the line of his lower lip, she studied him. He was a caged tiger. Begging,starving.And she was a rare steak on the other side of the cage bars.
“Now,” she whispered.
She was on her back before she could blink. His lips crashed against hers, devouring, hungry—but pouring into her such emotion that she could barely stand it.
He hooked her leg into the crook of his arm, and with one swift movement, buried himself to the hilt in her body. The cry that left her was met by his moan, both muffled in the kiss they both still shared.
The dance was unlike any they’d shared before. There was no control. There was nopurpose.There was no one at the wheel of the car. It simplywas.She drove her hips up to meet his, matching the rhythm, wanting, needing more. Desperately seeking every perfect, aching bit of him that filled her.
His strength. His power.Raziel.
It felt like something was changing. And if she was smart, she would have dug out the gun in the bedside table and blown his brains out. But she couldn’t. Wouldn’t.Didn’t want to.
“Raziel—” she clung to him, dug her nails into his back. “I—” All thoughts became white noise briefly as her pleasure crested, her muscles spasming as everything turned to bliss.
“Let go, I have you—” He buried his head into the crook of her neck. He clutched her close, his thrusts growing erratic as her release triggered his.
This time, without his even needing to purr, she turned her head away, baring her throat to him. She wanted to feel it. Wanted him totakeit. Wanted him to erase the feeling of that bastard’s hands around her throat. Wanted Raziel to remind her of whose bed she belonged in.
A brief sting at her throat.
Nadi was flooded with euphoria. She held him, weakly, as he drank her blood. He shuddered, moaning against her skin. The purring had begun, reverberating through her.
After a few moments, he pulled his fangs from her throat and settled down on top of her, gently kissing at the bite wounds. He rolled onto his side next to her, pulling her into his arms.
It was then that a realization settled over her. This should have been an ending. All of it. This whole nonsense. It was meant to be anend.Not a beginning.
She’d come here with a single purpose—vengeance. Revenge against the monster who had slaughtered her family, who had laughed as he did so.
Yet here she was, curled against that same monster’s chest, listening to the slow beat of his heart, briefly having lurched to life from her blood in his system, feeling something dangerously close to…tohappiness.
“If you have to kill me, kill me like that,” she murmured to him.
“Should it come to that, gladly.” He kissed the top of her head.
A long stretch of silence passed between them before she had to voice the question echoing in her mind. “What are we doing?”
He was silent for so long she thought he might not answer. Then, his voice equally soft, he replied, “I don’t know.”
The honesty in his tone was more unsettling than any lie might have been.
“This changes nothing,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as him. “Your entire family still needs to fall. And then the two of us still have a score to settle.”
“Yes.” His fingers traced patterns on her back, gentle in a way that made her heart ache. “I know.”
Closing her eyes, she fought exhaustion. “When this is over, if you win and your family is destroyed and you have what you want—what are your plans for me, assuming I don’t kill you first?”
His hand stilled on her back. “I haven’t decided.” He paused. “What do you want to happen? Well…besides your previous request about the method.”
The question caught her off guard. What did she want? She’d never allowed herself to think beyond revenge. Beyond destroying the Nostroms and avenging her family. The future had always been a blank, unexamined thing.
But now?
“I want to be free,” she said finally, the answer surprising even her with its simplicity. “Not owned. Not controlled. Just…free to choose.”
