Time for my judgment.
Hands wrenched me out of the car, guns digging into my ribs, shouts I didn’t hear. My eyes were wild, my breath rough as they bound my wrists. They forced me to kneel on the cold floor of this cold mansion that wasn’t our home.
I belonged on my knees for her, begging and bleeding. She was my safe place.
I swayed, vision distorted. The laughter wouldn’t stop.
Petal… I found you.
Now do it. Love me or kill me.
Either way, I win.
Chapter 65
CEZAR
The masquerade doors swung open, flooding the concrete with light. And then she appeared.
A fucking angel.
Lina, my petal. My executioner. My salvation.
I looked up at her, no shame in how I loved her. “Please, Petal, don’t leave me.” My voice trembled. “Don’t stop touching me.”
The air felt too thin.
“I don’t care what you do to me,” I admitted hoarsely. “Just don’t leave me empty again. I love the way you hurt me.”
I’d crawl, I’d beg, I’d bleed out.
Kill me, keep me, I don’t care.
Just don’t make me nothing.
I saw it then—the dagger in her hand. Gleaming. That blade had ended lives, stained halls, and buried men with reputations greater than mine. And now, finally, it was my turn.
She saw everything I wanted.
“Let me beg one last time,” I whispered, my voice painful. “Mark me. Brand me yours before you put me out of my misery.” My body shook, hungry for her hand, her blade. Proof that I would always be hers.
“Come on, Petal. Kill me, slowly, just like how we play.”
She moved closer, darkness clinging to her. Her voice was sharp when she finally said, “You won’t let me go, will you?” Her hand tightened around the dagger as I frantically shook my head.
“Then I’ll carve myself into your skin instead,” she vowed. “You’ll never forget who you belong to.”
On my knees, I inched towards the blade. It touched my chest—right over my heart. I arched into the cold kiss of steel.
“Make it deep,” I rasped. “Make it so no one can ever touch me without touching you.”
Blood welled, hot and alive, spilling for her. She shaped the petals of a rose—her rose—into my skin.Her symbol.
My Petal. My Reaper. Mine.
The sounds leaving me became something between agony and ecstasy, and I welcomed the pain. Every cut meant I still belonged to her. Every drop of blood was my devotion to her.
“I want you to be the last thing I ever see,” I choked, tears mixing with the blood on my lips. “If I’m meant to die, let it be now. Let it be you.”
