I grind my hips into hers, forcing her to feel exactly how far gone I am, how much I’ve been starving for this moment. I’m shaking, my teeth bared in a feral, jagged grin as I look down at her.
“You’re mine, Scarlett. Every breath, every drop of blood, every fucking thought in your head. You don’t get to die until I say so. You don’t get to leave until I’ve burned every trace of that other life out of you.”
I lean down, burying my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the jasmine and the raw scent of her skin.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, a low, lethal vow. “And this time, I’m never letting you go.”
I pull her hair back, wrapping the wet, tangled silk around my fist until her throat is bared to the moon, and I just breathe her in.
“Fuck,” I groan against her skin, the sound vibrating from my chest straight into hers. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this fucking scent. It’s been four years of concrete and piss, Scarlett, and all I could smell was the memory of you.”
I press my nose into the hollow of her neck, inhaling deep, greedy lungfuls of salt and jasmine and terror. My hands are shaking—not from weakness, but from the sheer, violent effort of not snapping her in two right here. I’m feral with it, drunk on the fact that she’s finally back under my skin.
“Please, Kai,” she whispers, her voice a broken thread of sound. She’s trembling so hard I can feel her heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. “Just let me go. If you ever loved me, just let me go.”
I pull her head back further, forcing her to look at the wreck of my face. “Love you? Scarlett, I’m fucking obsessed with you. There’s no ‘letting go.’ There’s only this.”
I don’t give her a chance to breathe. I don’t give her a chance to lie.
I crash my mouth onto hers.
It’s not a kiss; it’s a collision. It’s four years of solitary confinement and a thousand nights of wanting to kill her and fuck her at the same time, all bleeding into one desperate, jagged moment. I taste the copper of the blood on her lip, the salt of her tears, and the underlying heat that she can’t hide no matter how hard she tries to pull away.
I growl into her mouth, my tongue forcing its way past her teeth, claiming her with a brutal, rhythmic possession. I’m tasting every inch of her, devouring her like I’m trying to swallow her soul. My free hand slides up her thigh, bunching the ruined silk of her robe, my thumb digging into the soft flesh of her hip until she gasps into my mouth.
She whimpers, a soft, broken sound, and for a second, her hands come up to my chest. She tries to push, her fingers splaying against my wet shirt, but then her grip changes. Her nails dig into my shoulders, clinging to me as her knees buckle. She’s falling, and the only thing keeping her upright is the way I’m crushing her against the tree.
I break the kiss just an inch, my lips still ghosting over hers, our breath mingling in the humid air. I’m panting, my vision swimming with the pure, unadulterated high of having her back.
“See?” I rasp, my thumb tracing the swollen line of her bottom lip. “You’re trembling for me. You’re fucking leaking for me, little sister. Tell me again how much you want to leave. Tell me again that you belong to that ghost back in the villa.”
I kiss her again, slower this time, deeper—a long, agonising slide of my tongue that makes her let out a sharp, needy moan she can’t catch. I drink it down like it’s the only thing that’s ever mattered.
I’m so fucking hard it hurts, the pressure of her body against mine making my head spin. I want to rip the robe off and finish this right here on the dirt, but I want her to know she’s trapped first. I want her to understand that the cage is gone, but the monster is permanent.
“You’re never going back,” I whisper against her mouth, my hand sliding down to the brand on her chest, my thumb circling the ‘K’ until she shudders.
I don’t carry her. I want her to feel every inch of the path she tried to use to escape me.
My hand moves from her hair to her throat, my fingers locking around the delicate column of her neck—not enough to stop her air, but enough to let her know that her life is a gift I’m currently choosing to grant. I haul her away from the cliff’s edge, dragging her through the jagged limestone path that leads down toward the hidden mouth of the island’s throat.
“Walk,” I growl, my pace relentless.
She stumbles, her bare feet catching on the razor-sharp volcanic rock. I hear the wet shlick of skin parting, the sharp gasp of pain as the ground claims its tax in her blood. She’s sobbing, the sound raw and broken, echoing off the high stone walls as the jungle thins out into a hidden, obsidian-walled lagoon.
“Kai, please… my feet… I can’t,” she wails, her knees buckling.
I jerk her upward by the throat, forcing her to keep her feet. “You had plenty of energy when you were running toward the ledge, Scarlett. Don’t get lazy now that you’ve been caught. You wanted to play the martyr? Well, a martyr has to bleed.”
We break into the lagoon—a black mirror of water tucked into a cathedral of rock, the moonlight reflecting off the surface like liquid mercury. It’s silent, dead, and miles away from the nearest radio signal.
I don’t slow down. I shove her toward the water’s edge, my hand releasing her neck only to grab the lapels of that pathetic, ruined silk robe.
“You look like his bride in this,” I sneer, my voice a jagged blade. “It makes me want to vomit.”
I don’t untie the belt. I just grip the fabric and rip. The sound of the silk shredding is the loudest thing in the world, the white fabric fluttering to the black sand like the wings of a dead bird. She stands there, shivering, stripped bare to the humid air, the brand I gave her glowing red and angry on her chest.
“No, Kai… please, don’t,” she whimpers, trying to cover herself with her hands, her eyes darting toward the dark water.
