My breathing was too heavy.I wanted to slow it.Wanted to stop my shaking too.Desperate, I searched for my control.When I found no more than the floundering control I had now, my desperation doubled.
I didn’t know exactly how many days had passed with me locked in this dungeon.Even assuming I’d only been out a short while that first day, in the pitch darkness, and without any regular rhythms from my visitors, the days blurred together.Had it been five days?Eight?More?How many remained before the Fuerin Star eclipse?
However many it had been, I shouldn’t feel this … hollow.Like I needed him to fill me.
I growled again.What … the … fuck?Even my own thoughts were betraying me.
I’d fed to bursting before leaving Zaraga, and I’d fed while aboard the higantorus.A normal sänglure could go several days without feeding before experiencing serious hunger, a few days more before being in danger of succumbing to bloodlust.
Since my rebirth, I’d been extremely careful to avoid bloodlust.Now, against my will, I was going to experience it twice in a short time?
No.Fuck no.
Another growl tore through me.I barely recognized myself.
This man felt somehow different from all the others.
No, not aman.Alobaz Hawxley was a destroyer of worlds, killer of fae and humans.Ruiner of lives the world over.
He was my brother’s murderer.
Aware the chain around my ankle would stop me, I still surged off the bed and lunged at him, reaching for his throat, clawing the air between us like a feral beast.
“Whoa,” he said, his voice reaching me as if through a fog.“Take it easy.I’m not here to hurt you.”
I half scoffed, half snarled.
“All you have to do is tell me who you are and what this is all about, and I swear I won’t hurt you.”
Beneath the lumoonlight, his face was earnest, his eyes steady, beaming with truth.
But the great general was lying.He had to be.He’d never let the woman who’d tried to assassinate him loose.Like so many men, he was just lying to get his way.He wanted information to leverage against me and anyone I was connected to.In our world of political domination, information was as valuable as rubies.
He wouldn’t be searching for my weakness anymore.I was doing a fine job of revealing it to him right now.
“Feed from me,” he said, entreating.“Things don’t have to be this way.You don’t have to feel like this.”
I breathed heavily through my nostrils.“I hate you.”
“Yes, so you’ve said.Many times.It’s the one thing I’m quite clear on after days of this.Whydo you hate me?Because of your brother?”
Unable to cause him any of the harm he deserved, I allowed my arms to fall limp at my sides.My chest heaved.
“You killed my brother.”My voice shook at the end, making me instantly want to retract the words.I should have screamed my accusation.
He sighed.“I figured as much.I know this won’t ease your pain, but I truly am sorry.”
“Sorry?”I trilled in disbelief.“You’resorry?”I laughed bitterly.“Oh, well, I guess we’re all set, then.We’re even.Release me and I’ll be on my merry way.”
He frowned, and dammit, even his scowl was enticing.
“I’m not making light of your loss,” he said.“But I can’t bring back the dead.”
Though I despised his answers as much as I did him, at least talking was calming my breath, my shakes.My thoughts were arriving more clearly, taking over for the beast inside me.
“Who is your brother?”
“Whowasmy brother, you mean?”
