Page 155 of Black Sea

“No,” she rattled, then kicked me in the balls.

I gritted my teeth with a grunt, and as punishment, I slammed her head against the door once again. “How. Did. You. Do. It.”

“I . . . did . . . nothing,” she replied.

I understood it a moment later.

The meaning of those words pierced my heart like lightning. My heart, for fuck’s sake. A heart that should feel nothing. A heart that in an instant felt every damn single emotion.

I felt myself falling into Nauriel’s eyes. Those eyes that clawed me to the bone and wouldn’t let go. Eyes that were the nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

Eyes that made me feel. Too much. Against my will.

“It was you,” Nauriel breathed, shocked, causing me to realize with anger that I had unintentionally loosened my grasp on her neck. “ You called me. You were thinking of me.”

I released her roughly, horrified that she had understood it, too.

Horrified by my weakness.

Nauriel landed with her feet on the floor and touched her throat, where the delicate skin showed the reddish marks of my fingers. She cast a sidelong glance at me, her eyes filled with a mix of arousal and caution.

“Tell me why,” she whispered.

I stared down at her, my face as hard as stone. I refused to answer her. I refused to admit that I wanted to answer her. This damn elf had no power over me, not now, not ever. She was the one who was my slave. She was the one who moved under my command.

Yet.

Yet.

Her siren gaze held me captive with such intensity that it fueled my ire more than her resistance to giving me the Crystal. That it made my blood boil with an uncontrollable need to have her eyes locked onto mine as I fucked her in that wild way that made her lose her mind.

“Tell me,” she pressed, raising her hand without any fear and placing it on my chest.

The moment her cool palm touched my warm skin, the anger in me became so unbearable that I suddenly grabbed Nauriel by the jaw, forcing her head back so abruptly that she screamed.

“Because you should be here,” I snapped. “You should be there”—I pointed behind me with a sharp gesture—“on a throne next to mine.”

“My throne is in the Kingdom of the Elves,” she replied firmly, her hands crushing my wrist in a futile effort to free herself.

“That’s not what you want,” I growled, looking hard at her. “It never was. You want something bigger. You want violence. You want the fight. You want blood.” My voice vibrated at the idea of tasting hers again, and from the way her pupils dilated, I could tell she had just had the same thought. “I can give you the army you’ve always longed to lead. You will not only be my queen but my commander. And together, we will get what we’ve both always wanted.”

Nauriel blinked rapidly, as if trying to erase the image of that near future from her mind, then pushed her fists against my chest to make me back off. I did so.

“I am not like you,” she declared fiercely.

“Oh, come on, Elf,” I mocked her. I paused to ravenously gaze at the darkness flowing through every single blood vessel and nerve ending of hers, making her a true work of art. “Do you really think the Spirits would have bound you to me if there wasn’t rottenness in you?”

Her heart skipped a beat. The blood fled her cheeks.

A smirk crept onto my lips, as if saying: You never thought about it, did you?

She slowly frowned. “No,” she stated.

I invaded her personal space once more, pleased that she didn’t recoil even an inch. “Have you not figured it out yet?”

Nauriel stared at me stoically, almost combative. “You are wrong.”

I ran my fingers through her hair and tugged it to tilt her head back. To my satisfaction, it caused her to scream again. She grabbed my hips in anger, clearly unsure whether to shove me away or pull me closer. I simplified her decision by pinning her against the door with my lower body. The deep sound she made coaxed a sneer from me.