“I don’t want us to change. That’s all.” Her voice cracks, eyes glassing over. “I don’t want us to…”
My hand flies to her throat, fingers locking tight like a vice and I squeeze until her breath stutters.
“Does thislooklike fucking change to you, my little corpse?” I snarl against her trembling mouth. “You think I get to evolve into something safe? I was born a fucking monster.”
She stares into me, through me, as a tear slips sideways, tracing the shape of a girl who’s already lost too much.
“This,” I hiss, tightening my grip just enough to blur the edges of her world, “this is what I wasalwaysgoing to be. Doesn’t matter where it started or who lit the first fucking match. I was set up to burn from the moment I took my first breath.”
My nose grazes hers, lips brushing like a threat or a prayer and her eyes flutter shut.
“It’s just a damn shame,” I murmur, softer now, bitter, “that the wreckage had to be someone you loved. That my ruin had to bleed into you.”
We hold intense eye contact as I continue sincerely.
“I don’t want to be the one who breaks you, Aurelia,” I growl. “But I will. I’ll shatter every piece and still beg you not to fucking leave me.”
I bite her bottom lip, just enough to draw the smallest sound from her, a gasp, a surrender.
“I don’t know how to love right. But I know how to bethis.Us. The fucked-up miracle we clawed out of nothing.”
“You’re not a miracle,” she whispers, breathless. “You’re a punishment.”
“Damn right I am,” I rasp, my grip on her throat easing just enough to let her breathe again. “And you? You’re the silly little dead thing who begged to be punished.”
“I was already broken,” she gasps as I press further against her the tension building. “Your darkness just slipped in seamlessly through the cracks.”
I let my head drop to her shoulder with a growl, my breath steaming across her flesh as my hands slip down, trembling with restraint.
“I don’t want peace, Aurelia,” I murmur. “I want you clawing at my fucking back like you’re trying to dig your way into hell just to stay with me.”
She lets out a quiet, shattered giggle, more tears spilling as her fingers tangle into my hair.
“Then take me to hell, Wrath. Just don’t leave me behind in it.”
My mouth finds her jaw, her delicate neck, my pierced tongue dragging across the sweetness of her.
“I couldn’t leave you if I tried,” I say against her ear. “We were sewn together with barbed wire. Rip me out and you’ll fucking bleed too.”
She gasps, her body trembling as she melts into me. I lift my head, my face just inches from hers, and her hands, shaking, find my face before her gaze drops to my mouth.
I slam my lips against hers, and our tongues collide, wild and desperate, an instant, feral connection. I grip her behind the thighs, lifting her off the ground fast and slamming her into the tiles, my hands gripping her body harshly.
I pull her closer, feel her heat of her cunt as I grab my cock and force myself inside her in one brutal, merciless thrust, burying myself deep.
She moans into my mouth, each violent thrust driving her harder against the cold tiles, her legs spread wider with every punishing movement.
“This is what you fucking needed, you slutty little corpse. Wasn’t it?”
“Yes!” she screams, and I just watch as she comes undone.
Exactly where she should be. Caught.In my Wrath.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Wrath
As I peer around the corner with one red eye, I watch her standing with the girls, laughing and joking. Darkness shrouds me, and she has no idea I’m watching. She has no fucking idea what’s about to happen the moment she steps out of the light.
