I leaned in, pressing my face to hers. My lips grazed the edge of her cheek, hot breath mingling with hers.
“I killed a woman like a brute. I’m a monster. And yet… you’re licking blood from my fingers?”
The grip around her throat tightened. Her lips moved, but no sound came—just a rasping gasp. Her wide eyes bore into mine, glassy with adrenaline. I held her there, suspended on the edge between pain and pleasure, control and surrender.
And then I released her.
She stumbled back, coughing, dragging in a ragged breath. Her long skirt swept through the blood gathering at her feet as she stepped away from the corpse.
“You need to stop tormenting me,” I barked, though my voice cracked with something more than rage. “Your games will get you nowhere. Remember who’s in control here.”
I wiped my brow with my hand, the anger still simmering beneath the surface. “Alina, you’re driving me insane.”
But then she grinned.
That same wild, wicked smile that haunted my nights.
“You’re so powerful when you unleash your monstrous self, Balthazar,” she purred. “It takes my breath away.”
The air around us seemed to hum, as though the universe held its breath. She was magnetic, charged with something ancient and untamed. I expected her to shy away from the chaos, to shrink from the monster I’d become.
But she didn’t.
She looked at me like she craved the monster. Like she understood him.
I was hard now, my arousal undeniable, throbbing in time with the madness pounding through my veins. And she sensed it—ofcourse she did. Her cheeks flushed, her body leaning into mine, warm and pliant. She melted against me, as if welcoming the darkness I tried so hard to control.
She had inherited power from her father. But mine? Mine was something darker.Worse.
And yet… she wanted it.
I couldn’t resist her anymore.
With a quick gesture, I tore a rift through the air—a swirling vortex of shadows that howled like the void. The fabric of reality bent to my will, cracking open in a spiral of black winds.
“Come,” I said.
Alina shrieked as the vortex snatched her, lifting her into its whirling arms. Her body spun weightless, suspended in an otherworldly embrace. I stepped in behind her, and in a blink, we were gone.
We emerged at my estate—vast, ancient, and alive with darkness.
The winds died as we stepped through the veil, the last threads of the vortex curling into nothingness. Alina staggered, quivering with adrenaline and awe, eyes wide as she took in our surroundings.
And then she crumpled into my arms, gasping, overwhelmed, her heart pounding like a war drum in her chest.
I held her close.
And at that moment, I knew she would never be the same again.
Chapter 9
Alina
My heart thundered wildly in my chest as I found myself in an unfamiliar place, the rhythmic pounding echoing in my ears.
Balthazar was gone.
I stood alone on the threshold of a sprawling estate, its grandeur shrouded in moonlit shadows. The night air was warm, perfumed with jasmine and olives’ rich, earthy scent. Tall cypress trees framed the landscape, their dark-green foliage swaying in the summer breeze, whispering secrets I could almost hear.
