“I’m going to kill you.”
My grin grows. “Yes, you will.”
Her brows snap together, clearly not understanding her own promise. “I hate you.”
“You think you hate me now?” I chuckle lowly. “Just wait until you love me.”
I throw us both over the fucking cliff.
The moment my feet leave the soil of the island grounds, my chest lurches, yanking my shoulders and head back, in an invisible yet physical tug that leaves us suspended in the air for a split moment rather than falling as we should. I grit my teeth as white-hot pain sears through my veins like fire.
And then we’re free-falling again.
The ache is still there. It’s like nothing I’ve ever known and canexplain, but it must be a bond thing. I look forward to every little sting she brings me, but not as much as I look forward to giving it in return.
Hope you’re ready for what comes next, little menace.
You’re mine now.
Chapter Three
Haide
I wake with a gasp, flying to my feet so fast my vision blurs before catching up, adrenaline flooding through my veins like liquid fire. Sickening pink and white palette glare back at me from the walls ahead. I stumble backward until my hands collide with something solid.What the fuck even is this?
It’s cold beneath my touch. Pristine white, with veins of marble snaking through it like arteries. A mirror stands at the center, caged by a line of bulbous lights. Delicate bottles of glass filled with mysterious liquid lurk in the corner.
“Wha—” I lose my footing, crashing onto my ass. A cascade of crystal rains down on me from above in an obscene display of wealth.
And the fucking smell.
The scent of sulfur and stone is obliterated by rose and something disgustingly expensive. But there is another smell: smoky, rich, familiar. I can’t name it and that’s annoying.
Whatever it is, I want to devour it.
Where the hell has he dragged me?
How did he take us off the island?
How the hell did he getonthe fucking island?
In the four hundred years of the island’s existence, not a single gifted has ever managed to make it past the magical wards thatimprisoned the exiled.
Except for me.
A fact I accidentally discovered a few months ago and that I have since strived to keep hidden for my own safety.
The ease with which he came and went makes no sense.
A sharp static crackles through the air, jolting me back to the present and off the ground. My attention snaps to the frame on the wall opposite where a picture flickers to life in a glass box. I step back slightly, my senses razor-sharp.
“Have you managed to take a look around, little menace?” My fingernails carve crescents into my palms when the kidnapping king invades the frame. He’s sprawled in a chair, a fire breath stick of some sort dangling from his arrogant, perfect fucking mouth.
“I have.” The corner of mine curves into something wicked. “Tell me, Lord Dickship. Am I to be…” I gesture around the room with a dismissive sweep of my hand. Dirt and dried mud crust my skin, and I know my hair has never tasted the kind of luxury his has, but I don’t give a damn. All I see is crimson fury. “Impressed?”
His laughter burns acid down the back of my throat as he leans forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs. He truly is devastatingly beautiful, even if he does look a little paler than normal, with a darkness under his eyes that wasn’t there before.
I wonder if these royals decay the same way we lesser gifted do. Whether their bones crumble to dust and their blood nourishes nature the same way ours does.
