Page 46 of Devoured

He exhales sharply, recoiling. “I’m sorry—”

“No. You don’t get to say that to me.” I push closer, forcing him to withdraw his hand lest our bodies touch. Forcing him to retreat. The muscle in his jaw continues to throb, and I wish I could rake my claws through it. I wish I could wrap my hands around his throat and choke the life out of him. How dare he apologize for murdering Celeste? “An apology from you changes nothing. You ruined my life. You stole me from my father. You killed my best friend.” My voice cracks on the pain, the anguish and rage. “So yes, Calix—I hate you. Sometimes I hate you so much that I can’t think, can’t even breathe through my anger. Is that what you want to hear? That I replay the night you slaughtered her again and again in my head?”

Hurt flickers across his face; I take perverse pleasure in the sight of it. I want him wounded. I want him to bleed as much as I have. I want someone in this damned castle to hurt the way I’ve hurt, even if that’s cruel and unfair and sadistic.

“I know,” he says.

Breathing heavily, I shove him hard in the chest. “I wish you were dead.”

He nods with cool understanding. “I know that too.”

My chest heaves, and my vision washes red. I’m shaking, or maybe he’s shaking. I want to twist the knife deeper. Right in his heart, the way I should’ve done that first night. “You were so consumed by your own guilt that you spent months threatening me when you should have realized what was happening with your cousin. You should have known about the massacre, Calix. That was your job. All those people died because of you.”

I snarl the words like a wild animal—the worst I’ve ever spoken. Honestly, they’re not even words I’ve thought before this moment, but it should be enough for him to leave me alone.

And that’s what I want, isn’t it?

He doesn’t move, however. He doesn’t even flinch. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t see that solstice every goddamned time I close my eyes? I should have stopped it. I should have known. The blood is on my hands.” He clenches his fists, his gaze flaring hotter and brighter with each passing breath. “I made a mistake. I’ve made a lifetime of fucking mistakes. Every single one haunts me.” He moves forward, enough that we’re toe-to-toe. My chest brushes his, and his head drops as he stares down at me. “You’re no different, Vanessa. You haunt me too.”

I blink up at him, and the fires inside me snuff out. The poison in my veins, in the hollows of my heart, evaporates with a gust of self-loathing.

I hate Calix, but I hate myself more. And I’m tired.

I’m so, so tired.

Glancing toward my bed, I lower my voice in another pathetic attempt at apathy. “Then go visit Arielle instead. I’m sure she needs you more than I do.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. It’s the right thing to say.

Calix snarls, seizing my chin and forcing my gaze back to his. He’s not rough, though. Calix is never rough with me, even if I deserve it. “Why do you keep mentioning Arielle?”

“Who is she? How—how do you know her? Why was she looking at you like that?”

He stiffens, and he’s so close that I feel his abdomen tense. Another bolt of heat lances my stomach at the movement. At how his hand hardens on my chin, his heart beating a brutal rhythm that thunders through the room. His scarlet eyes search mine. “Are you jealous, Hart?”

“No,” I say quickly. Too quickly. Even though I don’t understand it, even though it’s foolish, the word is a lie. An embarrassing, shameful, inexplicable lie. He knows it. I know he knows it. “No,” I repeat, as if that will finally make it true.

His gaze flashes. I hold my breath.

“You don’t need to be jealous of Arielle,” he says slowly, and his hand slides to my throat, to my pulse. As if he can’t decide whether he wants to caress me or choke me. “You are my every waking nightmare, Vanessa. My life was normal before you showed up, and all you’ve done since is torture me. Enrage me. Drive me insane.”

Truth. Truth. Truth.

The honesty does little to ease my pulse or the tension in this room. It’s thick and taut and painful now. I shiver at his proximity, at the light clasp of his hand on my throat. I want him to press harder. That mindless, anguished part of me wants to feel the scrape of his calloused fingers against my skin. All over my skin.

“You are my every waking nightmare, Vanessa.”

“You haunt me too.”

They aren’t romantic declarations; they’re obsessive and hateful, and I feel the same. We are the same in this moment. The world is burning around us, and we have nothing left to cling to but our own torment. The only way we can feel at all anymore is if we keep hurting, keep bleeding ourselves dry, keep punishing ourselves for our sins. Touching Calix hurts like that. Like the crack of a whip against a bloody back. Like the desperate cry of a sinner in confession. It’s repentance, unholy and wicked as it may be. But god—at least I’m not hallucinating. At least I’m not crying.

Without considering the consequences, without thinking at all, I press my palm over his heart. It beats rapidly against my hand. Thump. His gaze flicks to my lips. Thump. I lean up on my toes. Thump. My head tilts, and our lips very nearly brush. He uses that hand on my throat to stop me, however, even as I taste sweet cinnamon on his tongue.

“Hart,” he growls, his voice still filled with loathing. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s wrong.”