That’s the type of statement that would have left me with Mother’s handprint seared into my cheek. Being disrespectful. Taunting when the only solid thing I have is bluster. Opening my mouth when I should be keeping it shut.
I wrap my new coat around myself to stave off the chill in the air, and I’m almost delusional enough to think it’s working.
“I can make the rest of your immortal existence miserable beyond measure.”
“Give it your worst. I’ve been in hell my entire life.”
A prickly grin dances across his lips. “Go on. Tell a demon your sob story, then.”
I shake my head. So he can use it against me? No thanks.
“Do it.Try. Make me more miserable than I already am. From where I’m standing, you need me. If not, you’d be out of this shithole already. Now, what do you want? We both know you aren’t here because we enjoy each other’s company—and don’t start sayingfix it, because I’m done having that conversation with you.”
He cocks a brow, and I internally grimace. I sound like my mother.
Unless he’s got some answers to our situation or is going to tell me where the grimoire is, our continued interaction is pointless.
Another pebble hits my shoulder, and my anger gets the better of me. I grab the empty pot closest to me, and I throw it. The moment I hit him, I know I fucked up, but I can’t bring myself to care.
The clay shatters against his stomach as if he were a solid wall, and he lunges for me. My four days of improving my strength seems utterly useless when I don’t turn to mist beneath his touch like I planned.
Strong fingers dig into my bicep, hard enough to bruise a living person, then the world tips upside down and air punches from my lungs from the hard crush of his shoulder against my stomach. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, my body stays solid, trapped in his hold.
“Put me down, you asshole!” I scream, beating his back.
The bastard kicks down the rickety shed door and sends it careening across the field. I have zero desire to find out why he had to wake me up at the ass crack of dawn or why he’s now lugging me into the forest in the opposite direction of the manor.
If I weren’t already dead, I’d be worried that he’s going to kill me and hide my body—the one I haven’t been able to face because it’d be like accepting the finality of my life.
I can’t even muster the energy to be scared when two other emotions have taken up every inch of my brain.
Fury, I can handle. What’s far too foreign for me is that sick thrill that’s shooting up my spine from the feel of his strong hand clutching my upper thigh, inches away from my center. It’s the cause of the breath rushing out of me and the reawakening of my dormant libido.
His hands are big, each spanning the width of my thigh. A single jostle and he could slip higher—closer. My mouth dries; I’m torn between two warring emotions that each make the other more potent.
I hit him harder, struggling with everything I have, even at the risk of making both my nightmare and newfound unwanted fantasy come true. Something just as bad happens: his fingers clench the soft flesh, and fear, desire, and bloodlust become one.
“Where are you taking me?” I snarl with a nice hard slap to the back of his head. Which, apparently, was the wrong move because one second I’m flat on the ground, the next I’m being dragged through the woods by my arm, the hand around it a steel grip.
The want disappears, and the two remaining emotions have me clawing at him out of sheer desperation.
Everything I do is useless. Digging my heels in does nothing. Hitting his arm is fruitless. I don’t bother screaming because what would be the point? No one is around. All I can do is try to keep up since the asshole has no patience for my tripping.
“Would you use your goddamn words and stop acting like an evil demonic child?” I snap, stumbling over a tree root only to fly right through a bush.
“God is dead, sweetheart. We killed him.”
What the fuck?
“Wow. So impressive. That doesn’t answer my question.” I pant, staggering behind him as we move deeper into the forest. At no point does his hold become painful, but it’s upsetting all the same.
I wish I could say I know this land like the back of my hand, but unfortunately, my parents detested outdoor play. Lord forbid we get our white dresses dirty.
None of it looks familiar until I see a rusted peg stabbed into the earth to indicate the boundary line up ahead. What the hell is this psycho doing?
When willing my body to become smoke beneath his grasp doesn’t work, I drop my weight—which does nothing either.
“What are you—I can’t go through that,” I protest, fighting harder the closer we get. I know how this is going to go. “There’s a force field or some?—”
