“It is.” For a few seconds he doesn’t say anything, as if he were waiting for something, and then I know why. There are two things in this house that are calling my attention; one is down the hall, while the other is downstairs and frightened, her mumblings getting on my nerves. “Are you ready to hunt?”
“You brought me food already.”
“That’s just the appetizer. Her mother is the main course.” My eyes turn to slits and I sit up, throwing my legs over the bed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You’ll take that as the cue to clean up and meet me downstairs. I need to stop at my studio first.”
“Why first.”
“Because I’m not spending another second without your ring on my finger.”
“Good girl.”
“Always,” I say, and then lean over the bed to peck his lips before pulling back. “I imagine you have clothes here?”
“A suitcase full.”
“Of course, you do.” A giggle escapes me, and my eyes roll. “How often did you stand guard outside this house?”
“Never.”
“Never?” That’s shocking. “So out of character with the man I know.”
“It shouldn’t surprise you that I never left, pretty girl. My post was that wall next to the window each night.”
I leave him in the room after getting dressed and head straight for my studio. It’s calling to me, his scent meshing with that of metal, and they pull me toward a semi-open cabinet. The same cabinet that I once used to store the woman I thought to be my mother’s, a piece of crap locket that holds no true value.
Not anymore.
My real parents died so long ago, leaving my sister and I behind to face the hunting of my kind and the needs of our people. Because those with magic and powers are coveted like prizes and sought to control.
Isabella not as much as me.
Our younger brother isn’t as strong, but he holds himself with the same morals as our father.
I miss them.
Shaking myself out of those emotions, I vow to look for them after. Much after.
“Elise and her kin all need to die first.”
Striding to the furniture, I smile to myself when I find the half-opened drawer with a small leather pouch inside. It’s familiar to me. The same one I used to carry the earrings my real mother gave to me a few months before her death.
I pick it up with a shaky hand and open it before pouring the content into my hand.
My ring is inside. The same one from when we said I do with the large ruby stone in the middle of a gold band surrounded by black diamonds.
The heart that no longer beats inside my chest gives a hard thump, almost restarting again as I slip it on my ring finger where it’ll never leave again. I also catch the light of the charm he placed there, and the date engraved holding a special meaning; the day we wed. He was always trying to make me remember. He truly never gave up. Tears brim my eyes but don’t fall, my chest expands on a shuddering breath that I don’t release as so many emotions hit me at once.
I died.
I suffered.
But he brought me back. He’s always been there. Here.
And I’ve never felt more loved in my life as I do now.
Rushing down the stairs, I pause next to Diana and snap her neck, not giving a single fuck about her. Her wants or what she has to say hold no bearing on me. She’s as insignificant as her mother, more so as a human who’s been fed bullshit all her life and bought into a reality that was never part of her destiny.
Her hate for me was clear back at Theo’s warehouse. Nothing had changed from now to then.
Their plan failed, and I’m here with my King and that’s all that matters to me.
“That was your meal.”
“I know.” Placing my hand wearing his gift over his chest, I grip his shirt and pull him down. Those amber eyes I love darken at seeing his ring there. “But first, I need a kiss.”
“Just one. You need to eat.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I have time to drain her, but nothing will ever come before my need for you.” And then he’s kissing me, groaning into my mouth while destroying my clothes that lay in tatters on the floor while my legs are wrapped around his waist.
