Page 20 of His Eternal Claim

I crowd into her space, my thighs pinning hers, my hands framing her head. Her eyes widen, the pupils blowing out until they’re nothing but black ink.

She’s scared.

She should be scared.

She’s playing with a detonator.

“You think you’re going to belong to someone else?” I hiss, my voice vibrating with a dark, tectonic rage. I lean down, my nose brushing hers, my lips a hair’s breadth from the mouth that’s undoing me. “You think another man is going to lay a finger on what’s mine? I will burn this fucking city to ash before I let another soul even look at you.”

She swallows, but she doesn’t back down.

She’s always been my bravest little martyr.

“I will,” she whispers, her voice unnervingly calm against the storm in her eyes. “I’ll find a man. A stranger. I’ll make him my husband. I’ll let him touch me where you won’t. I’ll let him kiss me… fuck me… I’ll give him the heir you’re so desperate to secure for the Cosa Nostra with Crystella. I’ll be his, Zagreus. Every inch.”

Fuck.

The image of it hits me like a physical blow to the gut.

Another man’s hands on her skin. Another man hearing her breath hitch like that. Another man claiming the only piece of light left in this goddamn world.

The resistance I’ve been building for weeks dissolves.

It’s a chemical reaction, so fucking volatile and violent.

“You’re mine,” I growl, my hand sliding up to fist her hair, tilting her head back until she’s forced to look at the wreckage in my eyes. “In this life or the next, Selene. You are mine.”

She glares at me, and despite my grip in her hair, she leans in. “Then don’t do this to me, please. I’ve never known love besides you, and I’d never forgive you for this.”

I know the game she’s playing. She wants me to break. She wants me to get on my knees and beg for her love. I’d never forgive myself for this, my Selene.

But I will not back out of this and ruin everything.

“I don’t care. Do what you want, but I am ending things.”

The hope in her eyes dies. “Zagreus…” She cracks. “Tell me you’re joking.”

I bite back the urge to grab her wrists as she shoves against my chest. “Tell me!”

I don’t move, and neither does my expression. And she sees that I was not joking. She staggers back as if I’ve struck her. “No.”

“You said I was yours!” Her voice rises as she slams her tiny fists against my chest, hurting herself. I want to kiss her knuckles. “You just said I was yours! You promised me forever and now you’re marrying the other woman!”

“You are the other woman, Selene. Not her.”

I need her hurt. I need her to hate me. I need her to look at me and see a monster, and not her forever.

“What… did you just say?”

“Selene—”

“Do not touch me!” She shoves against my chest, harder this time. “You do not have a heart, you monster. And for the way you’ve used and discarded me, I hope and pray to the Lord every second of the hour, the person close to your heart is taken away from you!”

“Don’t say that.” I take a step toward her, and anger simmers in me until I hate her for saying it.

I fist her hair and pull her closer. “You do not know what you’re saying.”

“Then what am I supposed to be? Your mistress?”