And then he threw me.
Gods.I screamed as my back slammed against the stone wall. The impact knocked the breath from my chest in a sharp, strangled gasp. White light exploded behind my eyes as I slid down the cold surface, the room spinning around me.
He advanced, fury replacing the polished charm he wore so easily in public.
“You will not strike me ever again,” he growled, looming over me. “And you will not defy me. You are mine, Elariya.Mine.” He came closer, stopping a breath away from my face. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with. So, let me give you a rude awakening. I know your powers aren’t bound. Your miserable family broke the laws between realms for allowing such a thing. That meansdeath. Death to all of them if I tell the right people.”
Straight from the horse’s mouth.
What a fucking asshole. But this was who he was. The real Thayden.
I widened my eyes, pretending this was the first time I’d heard the threat. “You bastard. Our fathers have known each other since they were children. I grew up with you. Do you seriously have no love for my family that you would have them killed?”
The wicked smile that slid across his lips sent a shiver through my nerves. “Your loathsome, magical family? No. I have nolovefor them. All knowing them has done is cost me my reputation. So, no, there is nothing in my heart for them. Butyou. You’re different. I have love for you. And youwilllove me, too, if you want to keep your family alive.”
“You are evil.”
“Poor girl. Evil is that bastard you spread your legs for.”
He was talking about Wolfe, but I had to pretend I didn’t know what he meant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He chuckled off key. “Of course, you don’t. How convenient to be cursed to forget certain things. In your world, it’s like those things never happened.” He caught my throat and squeezed. “Just be sure you spread those legs wide for me, too, when I fuck you. Or there’ll be hell to pay.”
The demon's illusion of Thayden had been rooted from my deepest fears, but standing here, trapped against him, I realized it hadn't been an illusion at all. It had been a glimpse of truth. A warning of what I was walking into with my eyes wide open.
The man holding me now, with his perfectly-styled hair and refined manners, was the same one who would ruin me without hesitation if I didn’t do as he said. He’d watch my family burn and feel nothing but satisfaction.
The dread that had been simmering beneath my skin since returning to the mortal realm crystallized into something sharper. Every fiber of my being wanted to flee, to tear myself from his grip and run as far as my legs could carry me. But there was nowhere to go. No magical realm to escape to. No Wolfe to tear through dimensions to save me.
Just me and Thayden and the terrible inevitability of what tomorrow would bring.
“Do you understand me?” He stared me down.
I was too choked up to answer, but when he squeezed my throat, I cried out. “Yes. I understand.”
The door swung open abruptly, and there stood my mother. She must have heard my cry.
Horrified, she stared at Thayden, her eyes flicking from him to his hand around my throat.
He released me and smiled as if she didn’t just witness his brutality.
“What is going on in here?” Mother demanded, moving toward us.
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Thayden replied.
“It doesn’t look that way to me.” I was so happy she challenged him.
But it was to no avail.
Thayden met her halfway and stopped right in front of her. “It will look however I say it looks. If I say it was nothing, then it was nothing,mage.” The venom dripping from his tone was unmistakable. Even my mother looked taken aback. “Elariya and I were having a heart-to-heart. A prep for tomorrow when she becomes my wife. She knows what’s at stake now.”
The flash of fear in my mother’s eyes told me she understood, too.
He threw her one last cutting stare before he headed out of the door, slamming it shut.
As soon as we were alone, Mother rushed to my side.
I was shaking so hard I couldn’t talk.
