More stillness.
It exudes from him as if he’s carved of stone.
And then he smiles again.
Shadowy batlike wings spread across the walls, unfurling as if some monstrous, invisible creature holds sway. I stare in horror, heart starting to pound. Some part of me hadn’t believed. Some part of me hadn’twantedto believe.
“So, you know who I am.” His gravelly voice brings my attention back to his face, where his amber eyes glint with an unnatural, serpent-like gold.
“Say it,” I hiss, a trickle of blood sliding from where the press of the knife bites in. My hands shake with suppressed fury.
Dark lashes flutter as he looks at me, and then he eases out a breath that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “You are going to be the ruin of me.”
“Good.” I trace the tip of the knife down his throat. “I’ve spent the last nine years hoping to be exactly that.”
Bael tilts his chin a little, not to ease the threat, but almost as if he’s baring his throat in a taunt. Those fucking thumbs never stop tracing their devastating little circles on my skin. “My name is Baelfyre the Black. Some call me the Beast of Kerawan.” Hotflames flare to life in his eyes as his voice drops to a whisper. “Some call me Death. And some… some call me Master.”
The world drops out from under me.
With a scream of rage I lift the knife high and plunge it low, right toward his ruthless heart.
And then I realize my mistake.
Hard hands lock around my wrists. With a thrust of his hips, he flips us both, the hard press of his body driving mine into the mattress. I fight in a frenzy of flesh and bared steel, wiggling and writhing, trying to strike?—
“Enough,” he hisses, pinning my wrists to the bed. “Drop the knife, Zyla.”
“Never.” I bare my teeth at him.
“Why are you hunting me?” he demands.
I squirm beneath him, desperate for escape, only to feel the full impact of his weight between my thighs.
“For fuck’s sake,” he growls, “stop doing that.”
“Never.”
“Zyla.” This time my name is a breath of frustration.
And that’s when I feel it.
Every hard inch of him. Despite the situation—despite everything—he’s still hard for me.
It sets off a cataclysm of fury within me.
“You took my sister,” I yell. “You kidnapped her and claimed her as yours, and forced her through your fucking portal.”
The roughness of his gravelly voice drops several octaves. “Yoursister?”
Slamming a palm to the inside of his forearm, Ioomphout a breath as his body weight collapses atop me. Locking my thighs around his waist, I throw us into a roll, straddling him once more with the knife to his throat.
“Aylin,” he breathes, as if seeing her in my face. “You’re Aylin’s sister.”
I press the blade tighter, a sound of pure pain erupting from my throat. “What did you do to her? I’ll kill you. I swear I will.”
“Then do it,” he growls. “My life is yours. So take it.”
It’s everything I’ve dreamed of for years, but his words send me spiraling into a mess of want and confusion. Because the creature that I created in my mind—the one that fueled all my rage—cannot be the same male who oiled my hair so gently, or who helped me climb the cliff when I fell, or fed me from his own hand.
