No one else is allowed to touch her. Look at her.
Hurt her.
She’s going to learn that now. How the rest of the world is nothing but background noise.
How there’s only me, the reckoning she needs. Her salvation and her damnation, all wrapped up in one.
Knife in hand, I’m ready to start.
“Trouble.” My free hand is a collar around her throat, my lips brushing the corner of her mouth. “Wake up.”
I pull back in time to see her eyebrows drawing tight. Her eyes, still closed, clench in terror.
Terror someone else put in her.
“Skylar, do not test me. Wake”—the knife handle digs into my palm, grooves burning my skin—“the fuck”—I drag the blade slowly over the curve of her waist—“up.”
Even with her hair damp with sweat, she smells like heaven.
Her gasp when I choke her is so sweet.
She jerks. Green eyes flash open. Confusion and panic fill them.
I’m addicted.
“There you are.” Not a greeting. Not a welcome.
Not evenI missed you,which I did.
This is a warning.
“Knox?” she whispers, eyes locked on mine, too scared to look anywhere else. She blinks fast. Tests her binds. “They’re here?”
I don’t reassure her. Don’t smile. Don’t wink.
I let her fear build up, pinning her under a gaze meant to haunt her nightmares. There’ll be no Jett there, no Reese applying blush on a dying Bronwyn.
No one but me.
“Answer me.” Terror taints her voice, saturating the air between us. “We’re still there?”
I barely hear her, but I don’t need to. I feel the vibration of the words in her throat. My cock jerks as tears gather on her thick lashes.
“I thought we passed the test. They lied? Oh God. They told you to tie me up, didn’t they?” Eyes wide. Cheeks pale. “To kill me? Bronwyn. Jesus. The things they did…you’re gonna do the same to me. It was either you or me, right?”
Fire burns me everywhere. My skin. My brain. My goddamn bones.
The thought that I’d let anyone force me into mutilating her? Killing her?
I already told her I’d sacrifice myself a million times over before I damage her.
Panicked or not, she should trust me.
I shove aside the sting in my chest, the selfish need that’s clawing at me.
This isn’t about me, this exercise.
It’s about her.
