“Getoffhim!”
I pummel my fists into his head, but it’s only when my nails rake down his cheek that he roars and rears back. I use the momentum to wrench him off of Kai and onto the cold stone floor.
“Christ!”
He flips over, trying to grab my wrists, but I’m attacking him like a rabid ferret, straddling his chest, clawing at anything within reach—his face, his throat.
“You leave him alone!”
I want—fuckingneed—to hurt him the way he’s hurt Kai. Make him bleed the way he’s mademebleed, over and over. Physically, mentally, every fucking which way.
“Haven—” Again, he tries to grab me. Again, I move too fast.
My nail catches his eyebrow, splitting the skin. Blood oozes into his eye.
“You’re a fuckingmonster!”
I go for his eyes next.
I have every intention of blinding him. To dig my thumbs into those dark, calculating eyes and gouge them out until there’s nothing but hollow, bloody sockets left.
His hand locks on my throat, and the panic is instantaneous. This is nothing like when he held me pressed against the wall.
I. Can’t. Fucking. Breathe.
The world spins.
My back slams against the granite hard enough to knock out what little air was left in my lungs. I’m skidding across the floor before I even register that he threw me—actually threw me—across the room.
My shoulder slams into the edge of the sarcophagus. Sharp pain explodes down my arm, wrenching a yell from me just as I’ve dragged air back into my lungs.
I try to get up.
Try to scramble back toward Kai, toward Bastian, but my body won’t cooperate. My lungs are burning, desperate for air. My shoulder throbs in time with my heartbeat. And when I finally manage to lift my head, what I see freezes me in place.
Bastian is on his feet.
Blood streams down his face from the gouges I left—four parallel lines scoring his cheek, another splitting his eyebrow, his neck a mess of scratches. He looks like he lost a fight with a combine.
And he’sstillhandsome enough to make my mouth go dry.
He touches his face and stares at the blood smeared on his fingers, almost wonderingly, like he can’t quite believe the damage I did.
When his eyes find mine, the cold rage is still there. But beneath it, burning bright?—
He wants me more now than he didbeforeI tried to claw his eyes out.
And fuck, some awful, broken part of me wants him too.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t even know if Kai has a concussion or brain damage…and all I can think is how much I want Bastian to fuck me against this sarcophagus.
I finally manage to drag air into my lungs and push myself up onto shaking arms. My shoulder screams in protest, but I ignore it, my eyes darting to Kai’s crumpled form.
Oh, thank God. He’s breathing. I can see his chest rising and falling.
But he’s still unconscious, and I have no way of knowing when he’ll come to.
It’s just me and the monster now.
