But there is only silence.
And then, the feeling of a cold, wet hand sliding over my mouth from behind.
“Don’t make a sound, little sister,” a voice rasps in my ear, hot and ruined and familiar. “Or I’ll let him see what I’m about to do to you.”
The velvet of the curtain is a heavy, airless tomb, smelling of dust and the sharp, metallic scent of the man crushing me into the shadows. Behind me, Kai is a wall of vibrating, lethal heat; in front of me, through the sliver of the fabric, Noah is a predator who doesn’t even realise he’s the prey.
He drags me deeper into the corner, the shadows swallowing us until even the moonlight feels like a distant memory. His hand is still crushed against my mouth, tasting of salt and thejungle, and I can hear Noah’s boots clicking on the stone of the terrace just feet away.
“You thought you could trade up, Scarlett?” Kai breathes, the words a jagged edge against my skin. “You thought you could put on a white dress and wash the taste of me out of your mouth?”
He spins me around, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand, his grip like iron manacles. With his other hand, he reaches into the pocket of his damp cargo pants. I hear the click of metal—the snap of the folding knife Noah bought at the market. Kai must have taken it from the car. He must have stolen the very weapon my fiancé intended to use as a warning.
The blade catches a stray sliver of light, looking wicked and hungry.
“No,” I gasp against his palm, my eyes wide, my heart hammering a frantic, suicidal rhythm.
“Shh,” he hisses, his eyes burning with a cold, homicidal light. “You want to tell me we were wrong? You want to tell me we’re just ‘step-siblings’ like that makes the way you scream my name any less of a sin? You sent me to a cage, Scarlett. You lied on that stand and watched them drag me away. You owe me blood for that.”
I find my spine, the rage boiling up to meet his. “I sent you away to survive you! You were a black hole, Kai! You were pulling me in until there was nothing left of me but a shadow! I didn’t lie—you are a monster!”
“And you’re the monster’s favourite toy,” he snaps back.
He doesn’t hesitate. He moves the blade down, the cool metal ghosting over the curve of my collarbone, right over the spot where Noah’s blood had stained my dress earlier.
“He marked you with a handprint,” Kai whispers, his voice dropping to a terrifying, intimate crawl. “Pathetic. Temporary. I’m going to give you something that doesn’t wash off.Something that tells every man who looks at you that you’ve already been claimed by the devil.”
He presses the tip of the blade into my skin. I flinch, a sharp sob catching in my throat, but he doesn’t stop. He’s slow. He’s meticulous. I feel the skin part, a thin, stinging line of heat that immediately turns wet.
“Kai, please,” I sob, my legs shaking.
“Don’t beg. You never used to beg when we were in that house together,” he growls, his face inches from mine, watching the first drop of red escape the cut and trail down my breast. “You used to tell me to take whatever I wanted. Well, I’m taking my name back.”
He carves a jagged ‘K’ into the soft skin just above my heart. It’s small, but the pain is white-hot, a searing brand that makes my vision swim. Blood wells up, dark and heavy in the dim light, staining the silk of my robe a permanent, ruined crimson.
“There,” he rasps, leaning down to lick the stray drop of blood from my skin, his tongue rough and warm. “Now, even when he has you, he’ll have to look at my mark. He’ll have to see that I was there first, and I’ll be there last.”
Outside, the balcony door slides open. Noah is back.
“Scarlett? Why is it so quiet in here?”
Kai doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t pull away. He slides the bloody knife along the line of my jaw, leaving a thin trail of my own red on my face.
“Answer him, little sister,” Kai whispers, his hand sliding down to grip my waist, his thumb intentionally pressing into the fresh wound. “Tell him you’re just admiring the view.”
I’m lightheaded, the smell of my own blood mixing with the scent of him, and for a second, I want to scream for Noah. I want to be saved. But then Kai leans in and bites my earlobe, hard enough to draw more blood, and the jolt of pain-pleasure sends a wave of traitorous heat through me.
“I’m… I’m here, Noah,” I choke out, my voice sounding like it’s coming from the bottom of a well. “I just… I tripped. I’m fine.”
“You tripped?” Noah’s voice is closer. He’s walking toward the curtains. “Are you hurt? You sound… strange.”
Kai’s grin is the last thing I see before he pulls me flush against him, the wet blood on my chest smearing onto his shirt, binding us together in a gory, obsessive knot.
“I’m fine,” I repeat, a hysterical laugh bubbling in my throat. “I just… I think I’ve finally realised what I’m worth.”
The shadows in the corner of the suite aren’t just dark; they’re a goddamn abyss.
Kai doesn’t pull the blade away once the ‘K’ is etched into my skin. He keeps the point of that stolen knife pressed into the tail of the letter, right where the blood is weeping the heaviest, his eyes locked on mine with a terrifying, hollowed-out hunger. He’s breathing me in, drinking the sight of my skin splitting for him like it’s the only thing that’s kept him alive in that cell.
