He angles his jaw at me, and I can see it clearly, the scar I’ve always wondered about. “In fact, she did this one herself when I was twelve. Haven’t you learned this about the Sovereign Alpha yet? She caresonlyabout her own goals. She needed me to be stronger than I was and did not care what it took to get me there.”
“I’m going to end her.” A wind kicks up as the shadows start to spiral around the two of us, darkness spreading through the campsite in a maelstrom. It’s inside of me too, coating my veins until all I feel is a pulsing need to tear something apart.
Stark leans his face closer to mine, something hard and frightening in his gaze. “Not everyone gets a loving family, Meryn. Some parents see their child only as a means to an end.Thisis how you make a monster.”
Then he blinks, taking note of the dark vortex I’ve whipped around us without even commanding it. As usual, it’s out of my control. I don’t know how I started it, and I don’t know how it will end.
Oh goddess, I can’t make it stop.
“Meryn,” he says, stern and commanding. The assertiveness in his voice makes my blood thrum, and the shadows respond in kind. “Stop that.”
I can’t. Ican’t. But… maybe he can.
I have the strangest sense that if I just reach for him, he can funnel this feeling away.
If he’s such amonster, well maybe—
Only a monster can lead me out of the dark.
I reach and reach, but nothing.
“It’s not working,” I say in a gasp, tears starting to fall down my face. “I’m furious, Stark. My rage is eating me alive.”
Anassa chooses this moment to finally nudge her consciousness against mine.“Meryn. Breathe. Get the shadows under control. Siegrid is not here to direct your anger at. Even if she was—you need her, for now. When the time is right, we will seek retribution.”
Her words calm me, and the shadows slip back down to the ground, sink into the earth.
Stark reaches up, roughly swipes a tear from my face with his calloused thumb. I want to take the pad of it into my mouth, relish the heat of his palm against my face.
“Don’t waste your tears on me, princess,” he murmurs. “I’m glad she did this to me.”
I startle at the harsh words spoken so plainly. “You are?” How could anyone begladfor something so horrific, so unnatural?
“Yes,” he growls. “I don’t waste time on sentiment now. Iact. And it makes people fear me.”
I still don’t understand. “Why would you want that?” It’s the opposite of what I’ve been seeking to provoke in people, with arguable success.
He presses his mouth to the shell of my ear. The warmth of his breath causes a buzzing so electric I’m sure I’ve never felt alive like this before. “Their fear is a balm. I’ll be everyone’s villain to scare them away from you.”
He pulls back, catching my eyes with his dark, burning gaze, and there’s an avalanche from my head to my toes.
His face is so near mine. I can see all his stubble in the firelight, all the colors of his irises. They’re not a solid brown, I realize for the first time. They’re ringed in black, and flecked with gold toward the center, so subtly that it’s easy to miss. My stomach swoops.
It would be easy to close the distance between us.
Two inches at most.
Does he kiss like he fights, with lethal force and incredible skill? Or would he be gentle with me, take his time and explore?
Saela coughs. We both startle from the sound, and he steps away. The loss of his heat is instantaneous and keen, like something precious has been ripped from my greedy hands.
What might have happened if I’d pushed Stark over the edge? Finally found out what it means for him to truly lose control?
I’m not sure I’d ever recover from it.
And what about Noemi, whom Stark claims to love? Maybe I imagined the spark between us. Maybe he has no interest in me like that.
Even if he did, I would never act until I knew for sure there’s nothing going on there. If they’re together… I couldn’t cross that line. I’d never do that to another person.
