THE CREATURE
Every single long-lost method of torture flashed before my eyes. Taking fingers or severing his cock from his body would not be enough to satiate the rage I felt when I saw her forcibly cowered before him.
My poor Alina was made to endure thatbeast, such cruelty.
I wanted to find a way to make him feel like he was dying many times over without relief—like Prometheus when a bird of prey ate his entrails every day of his miserable, eternal suffering that he called a life.
No matter how violently I imagined Luka’s death, it did not satisfy me. Nothing calmed me. I was seeing red, and it would not end until reality matched my rage-colored lenses.
“This is all quite romantic. Are you sure you aren’t flirting with me?” Luka teased as he stepped into the garden from behind a neatly trimmed hedge.
My fist was already meeting the side of his face, andI heard a crack that could either be his jaw or my knuckle. I was too numb to differentiate. My limbs were moving only on instinct now.
I swung again, but he put his arms up for my fist to smack his forearms.
“Already hot and bothered.” Luka laughed.
“I am going to rip your limbs from your body and beat you with them,” I growled. “Do you hear me? I will ensure that you are only alive enough to feel everything I do to you.”
“Now you’re really getting me excited. This is more my pace.” He smirked. “What on earth could have you so bothered? It couldn’t be our new pet, could it?”
“She is no pet,” I hissed, grabbing him by his throat and backing him against the hedge. I could just yank his head and pull it off right here, watering the garden with his blood.
“Ah, ah.” He clicked his tongue in disapproval. He gripped my wrists and squeezed. “You forget yourself, Silas.” He yanked my hands from his neck and shoved me backward roughly. “Why are you getting so worked up over a meal?”
“You wouldn’t have tormented her if you really thought of her as a simple meal,” I spat at him.
“You are right. I admittedly have grown attached to that odd little raven of ours, but I was not the one foolish enough to have mated with her,” he sneered. “What were you thinking? That you would live happily? She would make you breakfast in the morning and dinner when you came home?”
“Of course not, but she has the potential to be greater than the two of us combined. I know that you see it.” I circled him as he mirrored my movements. “Her blood is even more potent than anything my father hoarded. Can you imagine what she would be if she turned?”
“Possibly, but for what purpose? It has been whispered for a long time that you planned to take your father’s Nest. Were youplanning on starting with her?” he asked amusingly. “Would you build an army from scratch?”
“Don’t pretend you have any loyalty to my father. As long as the money comes, you will follow,” I sneered, lunging again, and my knuckles buried into his gut.
He grabbed me by the shoulders and fell backward. We wrestled along the neatly trimmed grass, kicking up the lawn and dirt as we fought.
“While that is true, I do not have a reason to have any loyalty to you either.” He grabbed my hair and bit my neck.
I hissed and bore my fangs at him, attempting to bite back, but he held me at arm’s length once his teeth let me go.
I scratched at him, but he bit my hand and kicked me again.
Biting, scratching, kicking, clawing—we were going to tear each other limb from limb. None of it could come to any conclusion due to our equal match of strength and vigor.
By the end, we stood there, battered and bloodied. The sun had disappeared by then. All we could do was glare at each other and observe the wounds we had traded. We sat in silence on opposite sides of the garden, surrounded by foliage that trembled in the cool breeze, neither of us having the energy to continue this useless struggle.
“I will make sure you never know peace,” I promised.
“I have never known such a thing,” Luka replied.
Whether I liked it or not, we would never break this stalemate. Not yet.
I wentto see her that morning, not that she was conscious enough to know. I had never seen her so dejected, so detached. Even at rest, she looked like she’d lost something. Something was breaking inside of her. The maids said she was not eating, which looked to be true based on how pale she was getting. The soft rosy pinkof her lips and cheeks was pale and dull. This place was poisoning her. I needed a way to get her out, but Luka was watching me—waiting for a reason to tear into me like I wanted so desperately to do to him.
I sat on the edge of her bed as the morning light crept into the window, slowly moving across the floor as the hours passed. I just wanted to see her, to bear witness to her being alive and that she would not fade away, though she was certainly fading. She could not take much more of being in a place like this. It was unnatural.
I ran my fingers through her hair, lying face-to-face with her. She would not wake, but she was breathing. Whatever Luka did to her drained her enough to send her into a deep sleep.
