I will never get her out of my head.
There is nothing that could ever come close to the way her nearness makes me feel.
Slowly, I glide my fingertips over her sternum, pricking up her shirt, but only a little, not enough to expose her. I don’t look at my missing fingernails, the dead nail beds, the lumps of once-broken bones along my hands. I only focus onher,and the sensation of the cotton of her shirt beneath my touch. I move higher, touching the hollow of her pretty little throat, pressing perversely against my teeth marks and the blooming bruises on her skin. Not enough to wake her, or hurt her, just enough forher breaths to falter, then pick back up, evenly and calm, as if she welcomes my hideousness even in her sleep.
I spread out my touch to her shoulder, wanting to massage her, calm her, but I know she needs rest. When morning comes, we have to leave, and nothing good will come from where we go.
I am not sure she’ll arrive at my final destination at all. Can I drag her into a hell she doesn’t deserve?
I draw my fingers along her upper arm, then lower, to the sleeve of her shirt. Slowly, carefully, my gaze on her pretty, perfect fucking mouth, I shift up the fabric, wanting to kiss her inner bicep. It’s not crossing a line, but it’s something.
When I’ve tugged up the sleeve enough, easy to do with how loose it is on her body, I look to her arm, leaning in slowly, ready to press my mouth to her skin.
But all at once, I freeze.
A sick, cold feeling curls in my gut, pulling at my stitches, causing me to feel feverish and icy at once.
I shoved her shirt up enough to expose her shoulder, the outside of her bicep.
And I knew this would be here.
All along,I knew.
But I didn’t think about it, when I wanted nothing more than to eat her alive after spending the day with Sanford. When I wanted to get out of my own fucking head for once in my life.
The cluster of purple and black, yellow and green marred along her shoulder, down her bicep, trailing to her elbow, it’s like getting stabbed all over again.
An assortment of bruises, swollen skin, a testament ofpain.Proof that she has done nothing but profane and befoul and desecrate herself for me since we were reunited.
In my head, I catalog all of her wounds. Her nails are broken, there is a healing cut under her eye, flecks of ruin from glass slivers on her palms, a jagged scratch over her thigh, bitemarks along her throat. I’m sure there will be a bruise on her breast, too, as hard as I grabbed her, to say nothing of the ones forming right now on her hips. Now, there’s this, from when she slammed her body into the door that separated her from me, down underneath the hotel.
What have I done to you?
The haunting thought pierces my brain.
What will I keep doing?
I can’t get it out of my head.
How far will I drag you into my hell?
But I remember what she said to me.
Don’t be the fucking hero. You arenotthat.
My palpablegriefover her injuries doesn’t recede, but I bow my head over her arm and instead of kissing her, I drag my canine along her bruises. I can feel the heat from them, this close, and I know it hurts, the way she whimpers in her sleep. But I close my fingers around her wrist, feeling her pulse kick up, and I tell her sleeping form the truth, my lips brushing her skin.
“This is what it means to be with me, Little Sun. Don’t forget, you asked for this.”
Chapter 21
Karia
Sullen is watching me. I can’t see him, but his gaze is a physical, icy thing, a serpent wrapped around my throat. Yet when I claw at my neck, trying to ease the chill, I only cut my own skin. I open my mouth to scream but frigid air fills my lungs like ice, freezing any sound I might make.
My hands are their own, an entity no longer belonging to me. But it’smynails scraping againstmyflesh.
I cannot stop clawing at my own throat.
