“We’re done here, Alina,” I growled through gritted teeth. “Not another fucking word about where I come from. Do you hear me?”
She fought back like a wild animal, nails slashing at my skin. I could’ve subdued her easily and snapped her wrists. Crushed her voice. But instead, I ground my hips into her, letting her feel exactly how much power I held over her—how muchwantcoiled beneath my fury.
She shuddered.
Even as she clawed at me, her body betrayed her. Her breath hitched. Her eyes fluttered. She closed them as my arousal pressedhard into her belly, and I knew—she craved this chaos as much as I did.
I grabbed her face, fingers rough, unrelenting.
Our mouths collided.
I sank my teeth into her lower lip, biting until I tasted blood. She gasped, but I didn’t stop. I drank the copper tang of her pain like it was the first mercy I’d tasted in years. Sweet. Warm. Human.
Then, just as suddenly, I rolled away.
Distance killed the heat. Cold air rushed between us.
Alina lay there, chest heaving, her hair tangled across the pillow like a crown of thorns. Her eyes burned with hunger, fury, andunderstanding.
I grinned. Wicked.
Dare me again,that grin said.
“What else would you like to know?” I asked, my voice a drip of honey. “What dark little secret are you desperate to pull from me next… since the story of my birth is off the table?”
She licked her bloodied lip, then met my gaze with something feral—like a fox caught in a trap, bleeding but still smiling.
“Tell me more about what my father was like,” she said. “Tell me about Mathias.”
The mention of Mathias sent my heart into a tailspin.
“He was always more than a friend to me,” I said, voice tight. “He was a teacher—someone I emulated, someone I respected. For a time, I believed he was the only man who truly understood me.”
I hesitated, the ache already rising in my chest.
“When I killed him, it left an irreplaceable void in my soul.”
I exhaled.
“But he betrayed me. So, in the end… I was glad I ended his life.”
“What did he do?” Alina curiously asked.
I stared at her for a moment, my silence heavy.
I wanted to tell her that her father was never the hero she believed in. But I couldn’t, not yet. I knew the storm would stir inside her—the confusion, the fury. She wasn’t ready for that.
So instead, I told her something else.
Not thewholetruth—just the part I could survive speaking aloud.
“There was someone,” I said. “A woman.”
Zara.Her name flared in my mind like a match to dry kindling. My one true love. My first descent into ruin. The only person who ever saw me for what I truly was and didn’t flinch.
I kept my tone neutral, distant, even as grief slashed at the walls I’d built around her memory.
“She was one of Mathias’ students,” I continued, keeping my voice even. “But she was different. Dark. Dangerous. Lethal. We had an unnatural bond—twisted, intense. We pushed each other to the edge. Always competing, always craving more blood, more power.”
