Page 7 of Prince of Wrath

My hands were shaking. I put my phone face down on my nightstand. I couldn’t answer yet. Nothing good would come from my giving Jim my first reaction to that news. Hot, angry tears filled my eyes for the second time in less than an hour. The two men responsible colliding once again on the same night was too coincidental.

Ben dragged my heart all over three countries for the better part of two years. We’d met at college during a game. He was a hockey player; I was covering the away game for the school paper. I fell for him harder than a center taking lumber.

When Ben left me stranded in Phoenix, Arizona, with no way back to Toronto, I called the only person I thought would answer. Rick Donnelly was the goalie for Ben’s team and had always said things to me in passing that made me wonder if he’d always known Ben was a piece of shit.

That phone call changed my life.

Rick offered not only to let me crash at his place—and gave up his bed for me—but he offered to call Seere to see if he could help me. He also paid me to care for his exotic fish while he traveled for games. Turned out that as a young rookie, Rick had made a deal with Seere to get into the NHL with a full contract. Overnight, Rick was connected to one of the best agents at the time and was signed within the week.

I’d refused his offer to meet Seere at first.

My plan was to apply to all the schools I could with a new major in mind: sports law and management. I had been in the last year of my environmental law degree when Ben was recruited. He’d caught a scout’s eye during one of his last senior games. He was a lazy player and relied on his supports to score. Going pro hadn’t been in his plans, but when the opportunity to make millions of dollars a year fell into his lap, he took it.

Weeks after moving in with Rick, I had been rejected from every university I’d applied to. I was still too broke to get a ticket back to Canada. During a night of sad drinking, I asked Rick about Seere, and the devilish asshole showed up in a blink of an eye.

Much like he had tonight, he turned my world upside down and left me feeling like a stone had sunk in my gut. Seere knew things about me that no one else should. The intrusiveness of his ability was like someone finding your diary from the sixth grade and reciting it at a poetry slam. Embarrassing. Mortifying. Defrocking.

Then his attention shifted. The first time he’d done this, I was so surprised that I’d easily fallen under his spell. Every promise he gave filled me deeply.

“You want him to suffer.”

I did.

“You want your name to outshine his in his own field.”

I was starved for it.

“You want him to never feel satisfaction with anyone else—or himself—for the rest of his miserable life.”

That was everything I could have ever wanted and more. And Seere had granted those wishes without hesitation.

What more could a woman want than a man who did exactly what he said he would, especially when the world was full of ones who never fulfilled their promises?

Through the years, Seere had done things to my mind and body that ruined me. Sex, like everything else he did, was both rough and sensual. Enthralling and debilitating. With every gasp he drew out of me, he injected his darkness to replace it until he’d dragged me so far into the deep end that I didn’t need the light to survive. I only needed him.

The withdrawals I lived through were devastating and eventually pushed me to find ways to banish him from my life entirely. He owned my soul, but that didn’t mean he had the rights to my life or body.

I thought I’d finally settled into a life without Seere. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in months. And now I was left wondering why he and Ben had both found their ways back to me on the same night and what the next day would bring.

Chapter 4

Seere

Sloane meant more to me than just another soul or notch on my headboard. Being inside of her gave me more than pleasure; it gave me existence. Heaven above and Hell below were for nothing if I wasn’t thrusting deep inside of her, making her moan my true name in ragged, spent breaths until we both collapsed from exhaustion.

When she’d inked that fucking ward on her skin, I felt my connection to her soul deaden. It hadn’t disappeared. She could never sever it completely. Even in death. Especially in death. But the clear sight I usually had on her had blurred like looking through a foggy window onto a hazy morning.

I knew she couldn’t run forever. She needed me. She never would admit it, but she needed me. Chasing her to the ends of the Earth only intensified my hunger, and finally laying my eyes on her tonight had brought me back to a time when I didn’t have boundaries.

After the Fall, I’d been merciless. Destroying lives and empires had been an insatiable thirst that only the blood of thousands fulfilled.

That was the need I felt bubbling to the surface tonight.

How beautiful Sloane would look painted in blood and ash. With my ass firmly planted on my throne, she would be my crown.

But she’d run. I had to remember that. She would come to me on her own eventually.

So I would wait. I wasn’t the most patient demon. By my own admission and faults, I would rather sift through rubble for what I desired than wait for the statue to weather to my will. But Sloane was worth every agonizing moment, and I could feel that our time apart was coming to an end.