Knox continued backing away from the bed, staring at me as I whispered his name with swollen lips, pushing messed up hair away from my face. I smiled, staring at him before my hand lifted to him, ready for more. His hand moved over his face again, and emptiness and anger entered his gaze.
His fingers pushed through his hair, which caused his stomach muscles to tighten as my gaze dipped to the monstrous thing I’d just had inside of me. Even sated, it was huge and intimidating.
“Knox?” I viewed his face closing down as his body tensed. The tick in his jawline began hammering while staring at me coldly. The temperature in the room dropped, and I became fully aware of my reaction to him and, worse, that I’d just parted with a piece of my soul that I couldn’t ever get back. My stomach twisted with the look in his eyes, and I wanted to flee the room.
He didn’t answer me. Instead, he walked into the bathroom, and I watched his perfect ass moving with absolute precision as the muscles bunched with every step he took. He exited the bathroom and threw a cloth at me. I caught it and stared at him, watching as he grabbed sweatpants and shoved his legs through them angrily.
“Wash your cunt off, it’s bleeding all over my bed.”
I blinked slowly, noting the anger that now filled his tone. I frowned in confusion, shaking my head as my heart stuttered, and then beat faster. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You’re breathing, isn’t it enough, witch?”
“You’re un-fucking-believable.” I wrapped the sheet around me as unshed tears burned my eyes and threatened to choke my words off as my throat tightened with them.
“Am I? Good,” he snapped harshly. “Get the fuck out of my room, woman.”
“I didn’t ask for you, Knox. You had no fucking right to take someone else’s place if you didn’t want me, and yet I didn’t scream about it. You are the one who is in the wrong, not me. I came here to do a task, and it’s done, so what’s the fucking problem? What did I do to piss you off now?”
“You are. You are the fucking problem, Aria. Get the fuck out of my room—I’m done with you. I got what I wanted, now leave.”
He stared at me as tears glistened in my eyes, and pain shot through me. “You’re a bastard.”
“I can live with that.”
My mouth opened and closed as I shook my head, turning around before I decided to attack him. That was one fight I wouldn’t win. I was done with him, finished. You didn’t do that to a woman; you didn’t take something special and throw it back at her as if it was trash. I was going to find a spell and curse the asshole to be impotent for eternity.
I stepped to grab my panties, glaring at the shambles he’d made of them, and turned to stare at my bra. They were both ruined, just as I was from his cold, dismissive demeanor. I grabbed the dress and slipped it on before I left the room in bare feet, passing the sitting room to slam my hand against the elevator button.
Knox walked toward me with a bag in his hand, smirking as he took in the angry glare that filled my eyes.
“You forgot this,” he stated, tossing it at me.
“I don’t fucking need it, prick. There’s enough left to do the blessing.”
His gaze lowered to where the blood was dripping down my legs, mixed with his cum. I felt disgusting, used, and discarded like trash, which I was certain had been his point. He opened his mouth, but I beat him to it.
“You can stay the fuck away from me, Knox. Don’t speak to me, don’t look at me, and if you see me on fire, don’t bother getting water. Let me fucking burn, because I want nothing from you. I’d rather burn to ashes than see you ever again,” I whispered thickly. I touched the button, and he dropped his gaze to my bare feet, shaking his head.
“Aria,” he uttered.
“Fuck you, Knox, just fuck you!” Tears slipped down my cheeks, while anger ignited.
“You deserve better, but I’m a selfish prick, remember? Get smarter, little lamb. Get smarter faster, or you’ll get eaten.”
I smiled coldly through emotionless eyes. “As long as I’m being eaten by anyone but you, then I’m okay with that.” I turned away from him, pushing the button repeatedly to escape him. When I turned back, he slammed me against the wall and stared into my eyes as his head pressed against mine. His chest rose and fell with his labored breathing while his nostrils flared as if he was fighting something internally. His hand held my throat just hard enough to keep me there, and I swallowed harshly. “Do it, Knox. Do it or get the fuck off of me.”
He dropped his hold, stepping back before he turned, pushing in a code and stepping out of the elevator. “We’re done here. Your sisters are outside, and they have the items to bless the house. Get the fuck out and don’t ever come back. Understand me? You have ten minutes, and then I hunt you and any of your sisters that remain in my domain. Your time starts now. Tick tock, little girl.”
The elevator door closed, and when it reopened, I took off through the hallway, not bothering to stop and grab my things. I’d get new things. Fuck him.
At the entrance to the house, Brander turned, dropping his gaze to my blood-covered thighs as I moved past him, flipping him off without saying a word.
“Open the door,” I demanded of Greer, who turned, doing the same thing Brander had done. It was as if the assholes couldn’t give a woman any sense of dignity.
“I can’t,” he stated, and I hissed, moving him with magic as I opened the doors myself and marched out of the house.
“It’s not safe,” Greer called to my back. “Fine, end up dead, and I will animate your corpse to torture it!”
“Fine!” I screamed over my shoulder, watching the dark SUV as it pulled up to the curb outside the gates. My eyes followed it as it came to a full stop. The moment Sabine exited the SUV, she smiled.
Power ignited around us, and I turned, staring briefly at Knox for a moment before dismissing him outright, coldly. I moved toward Sabine, waiting for the rest of them to exit the car.
“Look who’s a woman now,” she giggled until she noticed the look on my face. “What’s wrong, Aria?”
“Who plucked it?” Kinvara asked as she landed on the curb. “Was it Knox? I had fifty dollars on him intervening to tap that cherry pie first.”
“You won, we need to go home, now,” I stated, not bothering with further details as I moved past them into the street.
“Aria, what is wrong?” Callista asked. “If it was painful, it’s normal. Did he hurt you?”
“Let’s just say it was educational, and I never want to do it again, ever,” I muttered, tossing the bag at her. Hearing a car speeding up the road, I turned, staring at it. “That’s Amara’s car.” I watched the car as it accelerated toward us. My eyes noted the driver was male, and I swallowed. “Fuck,” I hissed, turning to look at where my sisters stood huddled together and then back at the car that raced up the road.
Without thinking twice, I held my hand up, stopping the car as I rushed toward it, intending to throw it back away from my sisters, but the driver continued applying pressure on the gas.
My sisters cried my name as I approached it, slowly pushing more magic against it, staring at the driver who lifted his hand and clamped his thumb down on something. The car exploded, and pain shot through me. It was violent, brutal, and debilitating pain, and everything tried to shut down as it consumed my mind.
My body absorbed the blast, and I was thrown against the concrete to stare up at the stars. Echoes of the explosion continued inside my head as I frowned, realizing what I had done. I’d fucked up this time. There were moments in your life where you realized mid-step that you had fucked up. This was one of those moments. I was on fire.
I could hear the screams of my sisters. I could hear Knox, as well as his men, trying to calm them. I stared at the mangled car where the man should have been, but he wasn’t in it. The entire top of the vehicle had imploded, and he’d been ejected or consumed in the blast. My ears rang as I lay on the ground. I could see everything. I could feel the flames as
they licked my flesh, but that wasn’t what hurt. My bones hurt, probably percussion from the blast.
Of course, I was on fire, because that was just what I’d told Knox, wasn’t it? I was inside the carnage, with flames licking my flesh, and yet it didn’t hurt, not even a little. Only my bones ached and cracked as if something was within me, fighting to get out.
Slowly, I rose to my feet as my vision grew sharper. The ringing in my ears stopped, and over the sound of the screams, I heard insects buzzing in the yard beside us. I cracked my neck, whimpering as pain rushed through me before darkness consumed me.
Chapter 34
The Creature Within
I stared curiously at the people who watched me emerging from the flames. They smelled familiar, and yet I didn’t know them by sight. I lifted my nose, inhaling them into my lungs to see if they were prey I could devour, only to grimace at their combined odor. The screams irritated my ears, making me itch to end their constant cries.
My presence gave them pause as they watched me closing the distance between us. Once I stood in front of them, cries turned to gasps of shock, and I paused, peering past the females to a large male who narrowed his eyes on me, lifting his nose to the air as he watched me carefully. He was the largest, and definitely the biggest one I’d have to worry about if I chose to fight them. Something whizzed past my head, causing me to turn in the direction it had come. Another male stood in the distance with metal in his hands, pointing it back it in my direction.
“You’re on fire!” one of the women screamed, and I turned back, staring at her as the familiarity of her voice touched my mind.
“Aria, roll, or something,” another one shouted, and I turned in the direction of the man who continued sending metal flying in our direction.
Dismissing the women and men, I started toward him as he lowered the metal and stared at me in horror. His mouth dropped open as I caught his scent on the breeze and smiled for him. Lifting my hand, I fixed my hair as I walked in his direction. He started to run, and I laughed as I followed, using my muscles to rush toward him as he dropped the metal to the ground. He was slow, not fast enough to escape me. The moment I reached him, hunger pangs ignited, and I lunged, sinking my teeth into his throat as everything within me craved the meat of his flesh. My mind shut down on everything, but hunger and a red haze took over.
Something moved beside me, and I hissed. Growling, I turned with my kill still struggling in my hold, staring at the man with oceanic eyes, watching me holding my dinner with a curious look. I snarled in warning, baring my teeth around the man’s throat. Another male approached and stopped short, noticing that I’d made a kill. His gaze lowered and slowly slid down my body.
“What the fuck are you doing, Aria?”
I snarled around the mouthful of meat, warning him as my body tensed to fight for the food I held. I peered into pretty eyes that held ancient knowledge banked within them. Familiar eyes that were like mine, hiding something within them. I didn’t look away while following his movements.
“Aren’t you pretty, fangs and all? What are you, my naked little firebug?” the largest male asked, and I hissed, knowing that whatever I did, I should never give him my back. His power filled the area, and whatever he was, he was dominant and lethal.
He also wasn’t touching my kill. He could get his own damn dinner. He was all male, his scent oozing off of him in waves that created a new ache deep within me. Blood dripped out of my mouth as I watched him, knowing that he was big enough to take my dinner, but that didn’t mean I planned to let it go without a fight.
“She’s on fire,” another male uttered softly, “yet there’s not a single inch of her touched by it, she’s fucking immune.”
Another male moved in close to where I stood as well, staring at me as he sidled up next to the other male. His amber eyes slid down my body, narrowing as they came back up. I ripped a piece of meat from my dinner, shoving my kill to the ground at their feet. Stepping back, still holding the meat against my mouth, I took another bite before swallowing it down ravenously. Blood dripped down my chin as I gripped the flesh tightly, chewing it while they observed me carefully.
“Fangs and flames,” the large, masculine one with sea-blue eyes, uttered. “What are you, Aria?”
“No hair, though,” the one with sapphire eyes muttered. “Nothing else has changed, but she smells different. You smell that, right? Tell me she doesn’t smell like…”
“I smell it, but that’s fucking impossible, and you know it.”
“My money had been on a hybrid wolf or lion shifter,” the amber-eyed male said as he chuckled. “Naked little pussy, all hairless and shit, it’s perfect. Fucking hell, you beat that shit up real nice, Knox.”
“Stop looking at her pussy, asshole,” the leader snapped angrily. His hands drifted lower at his sides, and I watched them, inhaling the leader’s scent and smelling his mixed with my own. “That’s right, you smell yourself on me, don’t you?”
“What the fuck is happening to her?” A female demanded. I turned my stare toward her, never giving the males access to my back.
“Sabine, I suggest you back the fuck up, now,” the second guy demanded.
“She’s on fucking fire!”
“The fire isn’t hurting her. It is coming from her; do you understand me? Whatever the fuck your mother mated with, it controlled flames, and now Aria can as well, which is very dangerous and precarious considering she doesn’t know how to control them.”
“Then it should be easy to figure out what she is, right?”
They continued arguing back and forth, and my eyes slid back to the male that held my scent mixed with his. He smirked roguishly, watching me through narrowed slits while his chest rattled loudly. My stare narrowed as the sound called to me, making my spine arch with an intensity I wanted to explore deeper, more carnally. I opened my mouth, answering his call, letting the rattle build before it escaped. It was loud, husky, and violent. It vibrated through me until his eyes lowered to my chest before once again locking with mine.
“That’s new,” the female stated. “Why is she rattling like a snake?”
“Yeah, you’re about to find out a lot of new things, if you fucking live long enough to and get the fuck back, woman. Listen to me and back the fuck up, now, Sabine. For all we know, she could be a fire elemental and level the entire fucking town if she’s set off.”
Dismissing them altogether, the moment I grew bored with their bickering, I tilted my head toward the male. He discarded his shirt, exposing ropes of solid muscle. His scent filled the air, and I lifted my nose, inhaling it deeply. A noise sounded behind me, and his hands went up as I turned, watching another male who stepped too close to me, and I hissed. I crouched down, letting my teeth grow, and claws extend from my fingertips.
“Back the fuck off her, now. She’s about to attack,” the shirtless male hissed.
“That’s not an element. She’s got fucking razor-sharp fangs and claws,” said another male.
I made myself small close to the ground to jump if I needed to, turning to take on the people who were boxing me in. They seemed and sounded familiar, but my ears pulsed as blood echoed in them. I was starving, my body ached with pain, and everything was too sharp, too bright, and just too much.
“Brander, get Sabine the fuck out of here, now,” the leader with ocean-colored eyes warned.
I pulled power to me as my chest rattled while fear of being trapped ripped through my mind, focusing my power on a goal: taking them all down to escape before they tried to capture me, or breed me.
“You do that, and you will hurt your sisters, Aria. Remember them? You love them and don’t want to hurt them, do you?”
My head tilted as the rattle vibrated from deep in his chest, and the other men joined him. Idiots, I wasn’t stupid. I wouldn’t give him my back in order to subdue me. I stood up, judging the distance between me and the woods, knowing there would be creatures to hunt within them. I stepped back, watching as th
e shirtless male took a step forward, crouching as if he intended to catch me the moment I moved—right, like he could.
“Can’t let you do that, little lamb.”
I took off running with a burst of speed, knowing that I was smaller, faster, and as long as my fire burned, he couldn’t touch me. My feet slammed against the pavement as the freeing sensation of running in the wide open hit me. My arms extended, and I started to leap into the air as something moved in front of me.
Skidding to a stop to prevent colliding, I slammed against the larger male. He fell to the ground with me, smoothly rolling back onto his feet, watching me as I began to circle him. My arms went out, extending talons as I followed him closely, intending to take him down quickly and claim him. Once he was subdued, I’d take him with me into the woods and mate with him after I’d sated my hunger for meat.
“Fuck me sideways. She’s trying to dominate you, Knox,” someone chuckled. “She’s fucking wickedly delicious.”
I didn’t take my eyes from the male I circled, knowing out of them all, he was the largest and most dominant male here. Take him down, and the others would leave, sensing the predator in me. He smiled as if he thought it was cute. He put his arms out wide like mine, and I shivered at the scent of him as he showed his sleek build that bunched his muscular abdomen with every step he took as we danced in a circle. I lunged, swiping across his bare chest before I ducked and jumped back, not allowing him to capture me.
“Fucking hell, little monster!” He peered down at his chest at where my nail marks had gone deep, drawing blood. I’d marked him, drawing first blood. I smiled victoriously as I started hunting him again, watching as he moved with me.
Everyone went silent around us, finally understanding that I wasn’t playing. A bitch needed to eat, and I was hungry. I didn’t want to play anymore, I had needs. I needed substance badly, and he’d interrupted my feeding. He could either feed me or get the hell out of my way so I could do it myself.
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