His father’s suffering will make Noah strong. That’s how we are, him and me. Only when we are utterly broken can our true potential be unleashed.
Eli frowns. “But your future—”
“My future was dead to me the moment Felix died,” Noah whispers. He shoves Eli toward the door. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but get the fuck out.”
Eli looks at me with concern, but they’ve been friends for too long for him to speak his fears aloud. He knows that the dangerous look in Noah’s eyes will never be directed at me. He ushers Galen and George and the others out of the lab, leaving the two most dangerous animals behind, their cages unlocked, their malice unchecked.
“Don’t wreck anything,” Galen yells as he slams the door behind him.
I’m alone with Noah.
And his stepmother’s corpse.
I back away from the mess of sharp objects on the ground. Noah stalks across the clinic and into the morgue. I follow him and he shoves a rack of implements out of the way in his haste to get to me. He slams me against the glass and crushes my mouth with his.
The kiss sucks every last piece of humanity from me. I drown in Noah’s grief, his rage. I taste the blood and tears that pour from the hole where his heart should be. He demands, hetakes, his hot mouth all over me as his wounds split open, as he bleeds his anguish into me.
There’s no kiss deep enough to fix us. We’re both beyond saving, beyond redemption.
We’ll have to drown together.
We tear at our clothes, shredding my beautiful dress and ripping the seams of Noah’s suit. I wrap my legs around him as he grinds me into the glass. Noah’s eyes flicker to a spot over my shoulder, to the freezers in the morgue where his stepmother’s body lies. I claw at his skin as if my own talons might somehow mend his unseen wounds, as if two broken people can somehow put each other back together.
Noah breaks the kiss with a ragged gasp. He staggers back, his lip puffy and red where I bit him. His jaw hardens as he grabs a scalpel from the tray.
“Noah,” I say. My tongue darts out to lick the speck of his blood from my lip.
Noah’s eyes narrow, his shoulders tense. He takes the scalpel and draws it across his chest. I bite my lip as the blade cuts his flesh. Blood trickles over his skin, then flows steadily as he draws the scalpel in a circle. He grunts as his hand trembles; the blade slips, but he doesn’t put it down.
When he’s done, he throws aside the blade. He doesn’t look down, but at that spot over my shoulder, where he can see his handiwork reflected in the glass.
My heart stills as I see what he’s done.
“I’ve been baptized in bloodshed,” he says, his throat catching on the words. “I’m born anew, born to be your disciple, your servant, your blade.”
It’s a little lopsided and hard to make out through the blood dripping from the cuts. I swallow the lump of emotion in my throat.
He’s carved the August symbol, the sword and the wreath, into his chest.
A symbol that he’s leaving his old life. He has nothing left but his hate, and he lays that at my feet – the greatest gift he can possibly give.
Nothing has ever turned me on like this.
I throw myself at him. I’m not human any longer. We’re frantic, crashing through the lab in our need to crawl inside each other. Scalpels and forceps and other medical shit topple from racks and scatter across the floor. I’m covered in Noah’s blood, and he tastes of copper and rage and it’sso fucking hot.
My fingers claw at his chest, drawing lines of blood that decorate his new wound. He lifts my ass onto the morgue table, the one where his mother lay only minutes ago.We’re sick. There’s something wrong with our heads.
His teeth scrape my nipple, and I don’t fucking care. If what Noah and I have is a sickness, then I’m down with it.
The stainless steel is cold against my bare skin but Noah… Noah is pure fire. He fists himself in his bloody hand and takes aim at my entrance. I lay back and wrap my legs behind him. Blood smears across the sterilized table.
He slams into me. I gasp as my body jerks against the cool metal. I feel himeverywhere– in my spine and in my elbows and scratching and scarring inside my skull. Noah Marlowe is part of me now – he’s more my twin than Mackenzie ever was.
Noah cups my breast, smearing a bloody handprint over my heart. An offering to his queen. A mark of his loyalty. This man who thrusts inside me like a wild animal will die for me. He’ll burn the whole fucking world for me.
He comes with a roar that tears through my soul. Noah Marlowe has always worn a veneer of civility over his brutish heart. But finally,finally,all of that’s been stripped away, and the monster beneath is free.
I fuckingloveit.
