“You’ll let me do anything to you, won’t you?”
I forced myself to nod. “Yes.”
“Then touch me,” he ordered softly.
My jaw clenched as I placed my hands on his shoulders, smoothing them over his chest.
“Honestly, I really don’t like redheads.” His hand moved fast, closing around my throat. “I hate them.”
Oh, hell.
He squeezed not too gently, digging his fingers into my windpipe as he drew me forward. His icy breath danced over my lips as I winced at the spike of pain. “Why?” His other hand was on the move, sliding down my spine, going lower. “They remind me of the bitch halfling.”
I knew exactly who he was talking about.
Ivy Morgan—wait, she was Ivy Owens now, having gotten married over Christmas to Ren.
Then, before I had a chance to process what he was doing, his cold mouth was on mine. Lips. Teeth. Tongue. It was harsh and brutal, and I wondered if he even knew how to kiss or if he cared. He let go of my throat, and I figured there’d be bruises there later.
I held still as he eased the straps of my dress down my arms, fueled by one of the most powerful emotions known to man.
Vengeance.
I was so close to retribution, I could taste the bitter sweetness of it on the tip of my tongue. It burned through the iciness his kiss left behind.
The top slipped, pooling low on my hips and exposing the black, seriously uncomfortable strapless bra. My gaze fixed on the ceiling as his cool lips skated down the column of my throat and then lower, over the swell of my breast. I forced my body to stay loose, accepting even as the tips of his fingers skated over my sides to where the material bunched. His fingers brushed the thin, silver chain that rode low around my hips.
Tobias drew back, and I could practically feel his gaze roam over my chest and then my stomach, and I knew what he saw. Not smooth, unmarred skin. Pale, shiny scars that covered the entirety of my stomach. Teeth marks. Multiple ones that had healed and faded to a shade or two lighter than my normal skin. Deep grooves made by sharpened claws. All of them a permanent reminder of the night nearly two years ago when the fae who’d supported the defeated Winter Queen had sought bloody vengeance and commenced wholesale slaughter. They hadn’t even fed on us. They’d just wanted us to hurt.
And we did.
The night my mother, who had already suffered so much at the hands of the fae, had died, nearly ripped apart by their teeth and claws.
The night I should’ve died.
His hands clenched my hips, digging into my skin. “What the hell?”
I lowered my chin as he tugged on the chain and the small, circle medallion pulled free from the dress. I knew the exactmoment he recognized the encased four-leaf clover. Tobias knew what that meant.
I wasn’t under his glamour.
Tobias’s pale, furious gaze flew to mine. I smiled then. “Remember me?”
Powerful muscles coiled underneath me as recognition flared in those eyes, but I was faster than I had been that night, than I had been for my entire life, and the Order had gotten smarter at hiding our weapons. I twisted my right wrist and the wide cuff bracelet disengaged a collapsible iron stake. The deadly metal shot out over the palm of my hand. Clutching his shoulder, I jabbed my right arm out, slamming the iron stake deep into the fae’s chest.
Surprise parted his lips as he gasped out, “Bitch.”
“Yeah.”
Then it happened.
As quick as a heartbeat, the sick bastard collapsed into himself as he was sucked back into the Otherworld, locked away and as good as dead to me. Falling forward, I caught myself on the back of the chair, my knees slipping across the cushion. I disengaged the stake, hearing the mechanical click as it folded back into the bracelet.
Dragging in a deep breath, I held it as I squeezed my eyes shut. There had been five of them that had found my mother and me. Five of them that had gone after an old woman and her daughter. Three were now as good as dead, and that left two more. A fae and a—
An odd thump hit the wall outside of the room, causing my eyes to snap open. Pushing off the back of the chair, I spun around and dragged the straps of my dress up my arms. There was a hoarse shout and then the sound of the door unlocking from the outside was like cannon fire in the room.
Damn it. I hadn’t planned on anyone coming in this quickly. I needed time to—
