The fragile dam holding me back shatters and unleashes everything I’ve bottled up for too long, and I charge forward in a blur of fury. My fingers grip the collar of his armor, yanking him to his feet in one desperate pull. I tilt my chin up to meet his height, dragging him close until his scent floods me again.
Sweet amber.
Familiar.
Devastating.
“No.” I hold him there, our faces inches apart and breaths mingling in the charged air. “No, if you did, you wouldn’t be standing here right now. You wouldn’tdare.”
We stare, chests heaving in syncopated rhythm, as a single tear slips free from his eye, carving a glistening path down his cheek.
I shake my head as I watch it fall. “You don’t know the first thing about pain.”
“I do,” he argues, voice wobbling.
Anger narrows my vision as I shove him back again, but still, he doesn’t fight.
Shoulders back, palms flat, he offers himself to my whims. That hollow place inside me screams with the unfairness of it all.
I want to knock him to the ground and hurt him until he understands what it’s like to be half a person. Leave him to crawl his way back to something even resembling alive.
I want to fist his hair and drag him close and tell him it’s okay. Kiss him until I remember what it’s like to be whole, then hurt him all over again.
His eye closes as another tear falls.
I move to do something—anything—to fill this void inside me, but a hand bands around my arm.
“Dom, stop,” Cato says, pulling me to a halt inches from Xeni. “Whatever you do right now, you’ll regret later. Let’s lock him up until you’re ready.”
My breath comes hard and fast, and Xeni’s eye opens, meeting mine with that same broken edge.
“Come on,” Cato urges, tugging my arm with a gentleness that’s unlike him. “Let me handle it. Get some air.”
I drag in a few ragged breaths, tracing the lines of Xeni’s face one last time. Then I turn to Cato, the concern in his eyes steadying me as I slide my arm around his neck and pull him close.
“Yeah, alright,” I whisper against his mouth, holding his eyes before kissing him.
It’s slow and deliberate, and drawn out until Xeni’s rage crackles in the air behind me like a squall.
Heart pounding in my chest, I don’t spare Xeni another glance as I kiss Cato once more.
“Come to my room when you’re done with him, okay?” I say.
“Count on it,” he murmurs with a hundred questions in his gaze, but I can’t answer them now. I turn and storm out of the door, ignoring Xeni’s shout of my name that cuts straight through my soul.
Xeni
Ragetramplesmybodylike someone dumped acid straight into my bloodstream. It’s fizzing and molten hot, and it eats through every fucking nerve ending as Bash’s arms slide around Cato’s neck.
They touch with that comfortable, familiar ease that used to be ours. Their bodies press tight, hands clutching and tugging like the space between them personally offends them.
The want, the intimacy…
It used to be mine.
My blood boils, and it isn’t just anger anymore. It’s fury with fangs, chewing through my ribs, clawing up my throat, and screaming to rip something apart.
Preferably Cato’s smug fucking face.
