Time thawed.
My senses returned to me in a callous slap that left me reeling and nauseous. Trembling as I tried to swallow everything that had happened while I had beencontained.
I was standing in his kitchen, already back in the house he occupied with no memory of how we’d come to be there.
Hunched over the island countertop, clutching at the edge with white knuckles.
Dressed in silk, my every lurid inch exposing me for the whore I’d become. Bewildered by the gaps in my memory.
Heat lined up at my back. Heavy. A weight I recognized in my skin. One that didn’t make me flinch—I curled.
Male. The flavor of possessive arrogance, and something… primal. Something not quite right.
Rough fingers took liberties. Callous, catching at my scraps, he traced the flare of my hip, fingers bumping up, over my ribs. Teasing between my breasts where beaded tips strained against black silk. Up, to circle my throat in a grip that flirted with murder and trembled with scarcely contained need.
The need for retribution, payment for allowing the priestesses to touch what belonged to him. Punishment for my endless disobedience.
And for clenching, slick heat to yield to all that was thick and rigid. Swollen, fit to burst.
A tiny puff of air was the only question I could muster.
But he understood the barest whisper of confusion that surfaced in my befuddled head.
Instead of answering, he pressed a grin into my hair. Took a breath that rattled against my skin and sent a ribbon of gooseflesh tumbling down my back. And with it…
Fear.
It pushed all else out and filled the void with barbed, rusty terror.
Because I knew.
Itwasn’tthe man draped over my back.
It was the monster.
And then, lips caressing my ear, he peeled back the last of the layers and let me take a stuttering breath not throttled by the choking fumes of his power.
Because he wanted me to feel it when he whispered a single, cursed syllable against my skin.
“Run.”
23
Savage, liquid heat pulsed through me, and with a desperate squeal, I dropped to my haunches and rolled to the left. Scrambling to stand before cruel fingers might find purchase in my hair, I spun around the corner of the island. Panting.
He was gone.
Twisting, heart thrumming at the back of my throat, I braced for violence. Eyes flicking at a manic pace as I scanned the gloomy, windowless kitchen and found nothing but a weighted dark.
A dark that grinned.
Ice washed down my nape, and, sliding one foot to my left, I inched back. Away from shadows bundled too tight. Shadows that shifted to reveal the flash of teeth inside a predator’s hungry smirk.
Berserker.
He was loose.
Untethered… fixated onme.
