Every moment his hand had touched me, he’d dragged something out of me that felt feral, twisted, and unholy. Once that thing was named, it would become real. And if it was real, it meant I had wanted it. But I couldn’t let the world know that part of me existed. I couldn’t even let myself see it written down.
“It’s not that–”
“–We’ll talk about that later.” He swung his legs off the bed, rising to his full height. “Here’s the real question I wanted to ask.”
His steps were slow as he began to cross the room to me, his presence clouding my mind and suffocating me. “Where have you been? Why did you go? What did you do?”
He stood before me now, looming, gaze sharp enough to slice through my flesh, while my body pressed against the door, willing it to swallow me. “Who was he, Elizabeth?”
“It was no one.” I shook my head.
His lips curved into a smirk, then he leaned in, inhaling the scent clinging to my skin. “Don’t lie, little witch. It’ll only make it worse.”
Then he leaned back, jaw clenched so tight, I feared his teeth might snap. “Who is he?”
“R-Rowan.”
“The teacher?” he sneered, eyes hardening.
“Zaghan, I’m so–”
“You were with another man, Elizabeth,” he stated, a poisonous edge to his voice. “And you don’t just smell like him, you fucking reek of sex.”
My body trembled. I was going to say nothing happened. That we just hugged…for a second.
“You had only one job.” His words sliced like a blade, the intensity of his suppressed rage sending a shiver down my spine. “Don’t fucking let another man touch you. It was so fucking simple, Elizabeth. So…simple.” He dragged in a sharp breath, his muscles taut as he slipped his hands into his pockets, a vein sprain across his jaw.
“Another man fucked you, Fraser.” There was a gentle quiver in his voice, not of vulnerability, but of lethality. “I’m not very pleased about that. And do you know what happens when something doesn’t please me?” There was a flash of something dark and deadly across those fire eyes. “I do bad, really, really bad things.”
Then he raised his hands, and my heart leaped. I expected the weight of fingers wrapping around my throat, crushing the pulse feathering beneath my skin. But I got just a gentle shove until I was away from the door.
Without turning, he walked out, his steps heavy and controlled as he slipped out of the house, leaving behind the fear he so carefully wrapped me in.
Fuck.
I’m dead.
39
ZAGHAN
They all must die.
A low whimper wove into the cracks of the thin walls, a delicious sound that even the song playing from the radio couldn’t swallow.
And I could feel it, something humming in the dark, lingering in the corners, watching, waiting. A smirk lifted the corner of my lips.Death. That motherfucker was so obsessed with me. Clingy as a shadow, patient as rot. He followed because I bled, and where there was blood, there was usually a soul to be taken. And death without souls to harvest was just a god starving.
“P-please,” a trembling voice cut into my thoughts, reminding me of the man somewhere in the room, drowning and choking in his own pool of blood. “D-don’t–”
Because I was playing god here tonight didn’t mean I had become merciful. I wasn’t sure why he was wasting his last breath asking for my mercy. But then again, he had never met me, never bothered to know about me. If he did, he would realise the moment I showed up at your doorstep at midnight, there was only one transaction that was going to happen between us.
You give me all your terror, your screams, your tears, and blood. And in exchange, I’d give you something inevitable, something even nature placed a stamp on, death.
Unlike my brother, I wasn’t made a man full of chances to give out. Once I aimed a gun at you, death was already decided. If I lifted a dagger, I wasn’t testing the weight, your limbs were forfeit. My ears were not tuned to pleas or mercy. I believed anyone who wronged me deserved to die. It had been like that from the beginning. I would not be changing the rules, certainly not for a man who defiled what belonged to me. No, not a foolish teacher who dared to touch what I already marked as mine.
I walked across the room to where the fool laid helpless, and clicked my tongue with a distasteful shake of my head. Fucking pathetic, weak, undesirable.
I was thinking of what to do next, my hand hovering over my dagger when my phone vibrated against my thigh.
