A willing vessel, I let it spread through my blood, feeding the empath’s fire with pain until my ribs stretched on a breath. One born of my own volition that leaked between my lips before I dragged another breath in and dared to face the storm once more.
Wicked amusement grinned back at me, for he was with me even now. In this one, small rebellion. Two pathetic little breaths. A few blinks to prove sentience. And one soggy refuge already saturated by the stink of my enemy.
Everywhere.
He was everywhere.
So deep inside, he could count my every heartbeat. Knew the exact flavor of my mood before I knew it myself.
But in that perfect, exacting control… a flaw.
For he wasright there.
Close enough to touch.
A towering giant, sharing my prison.
Not quite Asher… this was a beast that matched. One that had been imprisoned in the depths of his black soul.
The berserker.
Watching me with the sort of greedy jealousy I had only caught a glimpse of. Covetous, but restrained. Waiting…
… for me.
A tiny, coy smirk spread over my lips as I stood before him. Exposed. Vulnerable and weak. Defeated, and yet… unbroken.
Awake at long last.
Warmth spread, heating me from within.
I drifted closer to the beast, fingers tingling. Reaching toward the blistering cold swirling around us both. Drawing us closer, until there was nothing between us but miles of loathing and lust, and so very much I couldn’t begin to name.
And then I knew.
This, too, was my fault.
I had driven him to do this. To follow through with the threat of forcing my obedience, because he’d been cornered between discovery and condemning me. His secrets all-but exposed, he’d been forced to cannibalize the very thing that had kept us separate. The source of his legendary control was the price for just one more day.
His wall.
It was gone.
A prison built to hold us both, now unable to contain either.
Still, he hadn’t rushed to rebuilt it, but waited. Watching as I gathered myself. Poised on the very edge of action.
After all… he lived for the hunt. Loved the fight. The reward of conquering a thing that could never truly submit, not for long.
All I had to do was resist.
I closed the distance between us and touched the beast.
Power surged through my skin, igniting my senses as I burst through the fog. Surging up from the depths on a tide of power I could touch but not taste. Buoyed by a better monster, who paced at my back and followed me up.
Free.
Gasping, I came awake with a snap. Staggering, sweat blooming across every generous inch of exposed skin, I was only barely able to catch myself before I crashed into the kitchen counter as the world around me shifted on its axis.
