“Scare me?” she says, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.“Scare me?”
Her eyes take on a fevered, crazed glint as her voice sharpens, going up in tempo.
“You don’t scare me, you moron. You’re embarrassing me and yourself.”
“Umbra…”
“Stop fucking calling me that, Killian. I am not your umbra, nor am I yours in any way, shape, or form.”
She is full-on screaming right now, her snake-like black shadows pouring from her skin directly onto the ground, forming a sable halo around her shaking form.
“You have no right to call me yours. Not after the way you’ve been treating me. You have no right to decide who touches me or not.You. Have. No. Fucking. Rights. Over. Me. At. All!”
“Don’t say that…” I trail, trying to placate her. She’s right, yet she’s oh so wrong. I might be the biggest bastard on the face of Imiryion, but I’ll sooner die than let anyone else take her from me.
“Don’t you fucking tell me what I can say or think. I hate you, you idiot. I hate you, I hate you,I HATE YOU!”
She’s vibrating with unrestrained fury, her eyes ablaze as angry tears pour down her face. She glances at the human on the ground, sobbing.
“Mael, I’m so sorry,” she whispers in a broken voice before she turns and bolts out the door.
The predator in me roars like a caged beast inside my chest, and I growl in frustration.
“No, you don’t fucking run from me anymore, Aimee. I’m done with this shit!”
I give chase after her, not giving the human even one second’s thought or parting glance.
This ends tonight.
I’ve been avoiding this confrontation for weeks, burying myself in grief and bloodwine, but no more.
It’s time we fucking faced the music.
Chapter 10
Aimee
Myrushedstepsechonoisily as I run blindly through the corridors and gardens, rage and tears blurring my vision. I don’t know where I’m going, but I have to get away from here.
I burst out of the palace gates, my feet taking me toward the darkness of the silent dunes. I easily jump from the pathway bridge directly onto the sand below, rolling twice before I continue my sprint. The sand beneath my bare feet is cold; all the warmth of the day gone.
I can barely breathe, my lungs constricting in outrage.
How dare he?
How dare he humiliate me this way in front of Mael? To treat me like an object that he can stake his claim on, to attack and scare the poor human that was nothing but nice to me. A little flirty, sure, but I can flirt with whomever I Godsdamn please.
I heave, my muscles burning from the exertion, and I’m suddenly too weak to keep running. The palace is only a blip behind me, and nothing but sandbanks stretch all around me. I raise my head to the cursed heavens, wondering not for the first time in my life, what I have done in my previous existence that could warrant such misery in this one?
First, it was my father not giving a shit about me. My mother dying in childbirth.
Then it was Aurora and her perpetual torment, each time more wicked, more soul-crushing, until I became an anxiety-riddled shell of who I was supposed to be.
Murdering Chip in front of me.
Orchestrating my abuse.
Belittling me every chance she got.
