When I reached out, when my fingers brushed her cheek, she flinched.
Only a fraction.
But it was enough.
Something splintered inside me.
The man she had loved—now veined in shadow, his skin alive with ink, his soul unrecognizable. Now, I was just like her father.
Fury rose in me, sharp and endless. It roared through my chest, tangled with grief until the two became one indistinguishable, monstrous creature.
The shadows inside me hissed in delight. They tasted my anger. They fed on it, whispering my name, urging me on.
I turned to the iron biting into her wrists—the bruises blooming purple, the skin rubbed raw—and wrapped my hands around the links.
The chains groaned under my grip.
With the strength coursing through me now, they were nothing.
The chains screamed as they bent beneath my grip, snapping like brittle bone.
Iron shards scattered across the velvet floor, their ringing echo slicing through the chamber.
Amara gasped, a sound too small for this kind of ruin, as I tore the cuffs from her ankles. The metal crumbled in my hands, its heat searing my palms.
She was free.
I caught her before she could flee. Pulled her against me, into the hollow of my chest where she once fit like breath. But she went still, as stiff as glass, her heart racing against mine, her body shivering with fear. My touch burned her.
“Amara,” I rasped, my voice split between love and wrath. “I’m going to destroy Severen for what he’s done.”
And before reason could stop me, I kissed her.
The world ruptured.
Her lips were cold at first—still, trembling—and then soft, quivering beneath mine. For a heartbeat, she yielded. But the shadows inside me sensed it—the opening—and they surged upward like a tide of black fire.
The kiss deepened, turning savage. I pressed harder, claiming her mouth with hunger that was no longer mine. The shadows poured through me, through the space between us, tasting her fear, her sorrow, her warmth. They fed.
Salt from her tears mingled with the taste of her. Beneath it all, I tasted iron, smoke—and something sweet, dying.
For a single breath, she kissed me back. Desperate. As though reaching for what we’d lost.
And then it changed.
Desire struck like a knife.
It wasn’t gentle. It was violent. Molten. The kind of hunger that tears rather than touches. It flooded me, set my veins ablaze, turned love to ruin in a single heartbeat.
My hands twisted in her hair, pulling her closer. The shadows hissed between our mouths, black tendrils flickering against her skin. I could feel them moving inside me, urging me on, whispering that she was warmth, that she was life, that she wasfuel.
She whimpered, a sound that shattered something human in me. Her fingers pressed weakly against my chest, a plea to stop that I barely heard through the roar in my head.
For a moment, I didn’t know if I wanted to love her or consume her.
The shadows writhed under my skin, hissing in delight, their whispers swelling into a fevered chorus. I felt it. Her kiss wasn’t just lips and breath. It was sustenance. It was power. Every gasp against my mouth filled me until I was drunk on her. Every flick of her tongue scorched into the marks etched across my body, igniting them alive.
I crushed her even closer, one hand tangling in her hair, the other dragging down her spine to seize her hips. She arched against me, her body soft against the hardness of mine, and the moan that tore from her lips shattered me. I devoured it, swallowing the sound like it was mine to keep.
