Alina stood there, watching me.
Her face was unreadable—smooth, detached, utterly unfazed by the corpse at our feet. Not a flicker of surprise, not a tremor of fear. As if what she’d just witnessed was nothing more than a change in the weather.
Her brazenness stunned me.
And yet, it thrilled me.
If I were another man, I might have been repulsed. But I wasn’t.
I wasenchanted.
With quiet, fluid grace, she stepped forward and took my bloodstained hand in hers. Then, without hesitation, she leaned down and licked the remaining blood from my fingers. Her tongue was warm.
I stared, transfixed.
She lacked fear. She mocked fear. And that made her dangerously irresistible.
We locked eyes, neither speaking for what felt like an eternity—just the corpse between us and the thick, pulsing heat of something unspeakable in the air.
Then she finally broke the silence, her voice a sultry murmur.
“Tell me, my beloved,” she purred. “Why did you kill her?”
Her gaze burned into me, demanding truth. And I wished—truly wishedI had an answer. I thought I’d done it to assert dominance. To make her fear me. Submit.
But now?
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I was suspended in a haze of rage, lust, confusion… and need.
She must have sensed it. Without waiting for my reply, she leaned in and pressed her mouth to my cheek, gently lapping at the stray drops of blood that clung to my skin. The gesture was so strange—so intimate—it disarmed me completely.
She, oddly, soothed the firestorm inside me. Her touch quieted the madness, even as it stoked my arousal.
“Did she hurt you?” she asked softly.
I shook my head, mechanically. I didn’t know if I were answering the question or reacting to her—this goddess, this creature who made chaos feel like comfort.
But the calm she gave me—it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t right.
This hadn’t gone the way I’d planned.
She was supposed to break.
Instead, she stood tall. Proud. Unshaken.
Still in control.
And I couldn’t have that.
The rage returned like a flame to dry tinder. In one swift motion, I grabbed her by the throat and shoved her back, bending her over the lifeless body at our feet.
The air between us vibrated with tension, strung taut by a fragile cord of fear. I towered over Alina’s petite form, her long auburn curls cascading over her shoulders like wildfire. Her eyes were wide, not with innocence but with something close to terror as my grip tightened around her delicate neck.
“What are you playing at?” I growled, my voice dark and curling like smoke around her ears. “You think you can tease me like this? You shouldfearme.”
