“Noticed, but even so, you won’t find them.” I crossed my arms, staring at him blankly.
“I can torture you to find their location.”
“Get to it then, big boy,” I stated firmly, smiling wickedly at him. “You think I didn’t foresee this as a possibility, Knox? I spelled my body to contain my secrets; even in the event of death, my soul will hold them. Break me, rip me apart, do whatever you think will work, do it. I assure you nothing will come off my tongue. The anger I saw in your eyes was raw, but the unguarded glimpses of pain? They were debilitating. You wanted to hurt me, but you also didn’t want to hurt me, and that pissed you off the most. You were at war with your demons, and in the end, the demons won, because those types of demons always do. I planned for it, and so I took steps to protect my family from my foolishness.
“You were let into my home because of me, but you messed up. You came in too soon when I still suspected you were an enemy. The House of Magic showed me all the cameras you installed to watch what was happening inside the house and throughout the property. The video you saw? With a simple spell, you only saw what I wanted you to see. The trackers you placed inside the house in our things? I found those too, and I disabled them. The piece of vellum you added to the grimoire room when you shoved me against the desk? I rewrote it. I planned for betrayal, Knox, because my life has been one big letdown after another, and you’re just the newest one in a long line of disappointments. My mother taught me that no matter who you let in, they weren’t always on your side, and more often than not, they would seek to destroy you the hardest. She would say that those we let get too close to us, are often led there for a reason. If not for a reason, then they sought you out and did so with a motive that shouldn’t be trusted. So, you see, I trusted no outsider even if they’re fucking me. I may not be as strong as you, Knox, but I will go toe-to-toe with you in intelligence.”
Knox turned to face the gargoyles at the top of the shelves lining the library walls. “Cyan, Ker, and Lars go watch the spot where the House of Magic sits, and if you see any movement in the house or anyone on the property, snap their fucking neck and bring them back here to me.”
I turned as the gargoyles left the top shelf, nodding before they shifted from their solid form and vanished. I smiled sadly, slipping my gaze back to his as he watched me, still covered in chainmail.
“You may be smart and capable of waging logical warfare, Aria, but the thing is, we don’t play by your rules. We have our own, the first rule being there are no fucking rules in this war. Get up and get out of that dress, now.”
I stood, holding my hands out, hoping he would remove my cuffs. Shaking his head, he walked over and ripped the dress off, brushing his hand over my breast in the process. A whimper of pain slipped from between my lips at his roughness, and I tried to turn away from him, holding my wounded breast with my arms, but his hands caught my shoulder, holding me in place.
His eyes lowered, and he scrubbed his hand down his face, then he moved to a drawer and withdrew a white silk nightie. Carefully, he placed it onto my shoulders, tying the shoulder-straps into delicate bows as he pushed the fabric down, covering my naked body.
“We’re going to war, Aria. One way or another, you’re in it. You can either be on the right side or the wrong one.”
“My sisters?” I asked, and his eyes lifted as a frown tugged on his lips. “Which side are they on?”
“You are being offered sanctuary, only you are allowed to choose a side.”
He leaned down, touching his nose against mine, glaring into my eyes as the chainmail touched my flesh through the nightie, creating a chill that settled into my bones as he held me there.
“Don’t make me fight you,” he whispered before tilting his head to brush his nose against my cheek.
I stepped back, gazing at him. “I will not willing wage a war with you while my sisters are on the other side of that war. I won’t do it. I get that this place needs a reboot, I do. I get that we dropped the fucking ball, and I even agree with you. I understand why you are doing this, Knox. The laws state that if a queen or king oversteps and commits treason, then they are to be held responsible for their actions. You want to remove them, okay, fine. But that isn’t what you want. You want to slaughter the original bloodlines and end their reign in the Nine Realms. You want to put new people on our thrones, and the only way to do that is to kill us all. You intend to commit genocide on the witches, for the deeds of a few? No, absolutely not. That is like finding one bad apple and tossing away the entire batch because of it.”
“One bad apple?” Snorting coldly, he shook his head, glaring at me as the room exploded with raw, undiluted power leaking from his pores. “There are entire fucking castles filled with covens that are using people as shields on their walls. They’re also sending unsuspecting people into crowded towns, spelled to drop potions that erupt, killing everyone inside the barrier erected by the witches the moment their victim is deep enough into the town. Another coven is filled with debauchery, only anyone who joins in the revelry is spelled and not there willingly.
“When the witches created life with anyone other than human, and if a male child were to be born, they fed that child to the father as punishment for giving them a son. The witches are destroying the Nine Realms, and they’re doing it because they can. Freya and her sisters were the molds from which the witches of the Nine Realms followed, but somewhere, they got off-course and adopted their own fucked-up rules. No one has intervened in over five hundred years, allowing them to go unchecked.” He watched my chest rise and fall with anger, with fury at his words. “That’s it; get mad. Your house betrayed you, not me, little girl. Not until they forced me to choose between saving your life and removing that beautiful fucking head of yours.”
“If that is true, then it is our bloodline’s job to clean our house. When your house is messy, you don’t ask another to come clean it for you. You handle it yourself. I will clean my house, but I won’t do it on your terms.”
“My army is fifty thousand strong and growing daily. I am the head of the fucking rebellion, Aria. If you’re unwilling to help me, I will chain you to my bed and protect you from those who crave your pretty head be removed. I will keep you, as I have claimed you in a way that can never be undone. You are mine forever. There is no way out of this situation for us now. Not for you, not for me, not for anyone.”
“You won’t keep me, Knox. I am Aria fucking Hecate. I am a survivor. War is in my veins, and I assure you, if you do this, I will escape you. I will fight against you. I will always fight for my family. It’s in my blood and burned into my bones to protect them. You’re fighting for the memory of your ghosts, but I’m fighting for the lives of mine who are still here.”
“There is no escaping me, Aria. And I, too, was created for war, and I have declared war on you personally. That rattle you hear? That’s my beast calling to yours, and she answers him. The purring? That’s rare, very rare for them to purr to one another in this day and age. I may hate you, and you may hate me, but the things inside of us? They enjoy one another immensely. Not to mention, I branded that sweet flesh of yours, and I left my mark on you. My scent clings to your flesh, warning other males that you are mine, and mine alone. There’s nowhere that you can hide from me that I won’t find you. You can’t run from me, because I know the taste of you, the scent of your flesh, and every secret inside your beautiful soul. If you get free, never stop running because I will be in every shadow and dark corner, waiting to get you back, and I will because I never fucking lose.”
“I’m okay with running; you no longer scare me.”
He smiled, moving his fingers as chains slipped around my ankles, while the others dropped from my hands. I stared at the blood-covered bandage and back up at him. He had used magic. Swallowing hard, I studied the way he watched me, knowing that he’d wanted me to see he could use it as well. Our studies had informed us that only witch’s wielded magic, but he wasn’t a witch. He was something
else, and he’d just used it too.
“Do you plan to keep me in your bedroom for the entire time you have me here?” I asked, watching as he reached into the fire and pulled out a piece of red-hot metal.
Knox walked over to me, staring through emotionless eyes while he stopped in front of me. He grabbed my arm and pushed the branding rune against my skin, causing the flesh to sizzle as I screamed out in pain, fighting against him. He held my arm firmly, watching me as the metal painfully burned a design into my red, raw flesh. Knox placed the branding rune back into the fire and grabbed a pitcher of water, pouring it over my arm as tears ran down my cheeks.
“That will prevent you from casting, and where else would you be held? You’re mine, remember? I prefer you inside my bedroom, in my bed, where I know you are safely hidden from the world. No one can trace you here, or use a spell to detect your location. If you leave this room, I will know it. You’re in my realm now, little girl.” His hands came up to touch my cheeks. “I am the wolf that hunts the lambs, and you are fucking delicious,” he whispered raspingly.
“I’m not a lamb that you can hunt. I’m the woman who rattles your beast. I intend to shake your entire fucking realm, Knox.”
“You think you can rattle me, little girl?”
I smiled past the tears that flowed from my eyes, watching him as I closed the distance between us and rattled from deep in my chest as his beast answered the call loudly. I leaned up on my toes, brushing my lips against his as the purr sounded from deep within me, and he answered it with his own as he lowered his mouth.
“Let’s go to war, asshole. I’m about to rock your fucking foundation and rewrite history. War is brutal, but so is love. Let’s rattle the realms, monster, and see which one of us ends up burning in the ashes of the fire we set, and which of us will rise as a legend these realms will never fucking forget.” I nipped his lip moaning against it, stepping back slowly with the challenge burning in my stare.
“Love isn’t brutal, and it’s nothing like fucking war.”
“You’re wrong; it is the exact same thing as war. And don’t assume I speak about loving you, Knox, far from love as a comparison to war, as both are brutal and bring you to your knees. If you’ve never gone barebones or felt your soul being rattled right down to the very thing that makes it burn, you did it wrong. Love should rattle your soul, but so should war. There’s a very thin line between love and hate, but also between war and peace.”
“Elaborate, woman,” he stated, watching me through narrowed slits as he folded his arms across his chest, glaring at me.
“If love isn’t brutal, then you’re doing it wrong. It is barebones banging together beneath the full moon, stronger and more forceful than any storm could ever hope to achieve. The sound of flesh hitting flesh, and the feeling it leaves when the body cools and the sweat dries but the soul continues to slowly burn, lit from the connection it shared with another. It is the brutality of ripping apart a soul, learning what is within it, and accepting it at face value without wanting to change a single thing. Love is a fucking battlefield, and you fight because you want it with every fiber of your being. It’s the exact same as war, which I assure you, Knox, you’ll learn to love war with me. On the other hand, you may decide you hate it, but either way, you will know the difference between the two.”
“What the fuck would you know about love, Aria?”
“That when I find it with the perfect mate, it better be exactly like that,” I whispered, smiling sadly. “I don’t want no basic bitch romance, I want to rip it apart and watch it grow from the ground up. I want to build it so fucking fortified that no one can ever touch it because me and my guy? We’d fight the entirety of the Nine Realms to keep it safe. That is what I want, and I won’t find that here, and sure in the hell won’t be with you. You live with ghosts and are fueled by the need to avenge them. I live in the now, here, right now.”
He stared at me through narrowed eyes as if my words had found their target. I bowed my head, exhaling. His chest rose and fell as he scowled, unwilling to look away as I challenged him to go barebones with me, only I didn’t want his love; I wanted the war he promised.
“I will fight you, Knox. Not because I want to, but because to stand beside you, I have to choose between my family and a man who doesn’t even like me. You made this decision easy for me.” I dismissed him, giving him my back as I walked toward the bed, dragging chains across the floor. I crawled onto the bed, peering at him as I rested my head on my hand. “I’m about to become your worst fucking nightmare, so go and enjoy the party below. I will rest, as I have a war for which to prepare.”
“I hope you’re ready to lose because losing isn’t an option for me. I’ve had five hundred years to plan; you’ve had five fucking minutes, little one.”
“I’m a woman, Knox. We only need a few minutes to rain hell down upon men. I wish you luck because you will need it. I’m about to rattle your fucking soul and bring you to your knees.”
Chapter 59
I felt a body pressed against mine as hands roamed down my curves in a slow exploration. Lips touched my neck, and I moaned, turning to claim them in a demanding kiss. My body arched off the bed, rocking against fingers that pushed through the naked heat between my legs, and I heard a dark chuckle at my response. I spread my legs, giving more access until my eyes popped open, and I sat up, wide awake, and pushing Knox away from me before he could hold me down with his weight. My body flushed with a raw, brutally aching need that soaked into my bones.
Closing his eyes, Knox leaned into me, inhaling deeply, savoring my scent while releasing a low, husky growl that made the smoldering flame inside of me ignite and catch fire. “Your body wants me, woman.”
“Yeah, well, my body makes awful decisions occasionally, and you’re its current worst mistake,” I muttered through sleep that clung heavily to my words.
“Ride me, witch.” Knox rested on his back, exposing his cock, which was hard and ready to use. I shivered at the explosive need to do as he said and hated that my body wanted him. It was bipolar, and it took everything I had in me not to straddle him and do just as he’d wanted.
My body flushed, purring huskily as I jumped out of bed and moved away from him. Distance was needed, because if I didn’t get some, he was going to end up getting some of me, and that, he didn’t deserve. I shook my hands out as I stretched my neck, inhaling slowly.
“It is right here, Aria,” he taunted huskily, slowly stroking his cock as he watched me warring against my needs. “All you have to do is take what you need.”
“Hard pass, literally. You don’t get to have me anymore, Knox.” I shivered again, fighting the need to inhale his scent and cave to the baser need that was driving me. “Put it away,” I warned, unwilling to look at him as he lay in the bed, pointing it at me.
“Oh, it is hard; that’s what happens when some sexy little nymph rubs her pretty ass against me all night, whispering my name like I’m a saint when she knows damn well I’m a fucking sinner.”
“Nightmares happen.” I didn’t turn toward him, uncaring that he couldn’t see the heat flaming my cheeks, or the anger burning in my gaze.
“If you won’t fuck me, we can do this your way, Aria. There are clothes on the couch for you to wear. Get dressed. I have a present for you downstairs.”
“Is this where you set yourself on fire, and I get to roast marshmallows on your cock?” I asked, adding a hopeful note to the latter part.
“I’m fireproof, little one,” he murmured behind me, and still, I didn’t turn around.
I could feel the heat of his body from his proximity, soaking into my bones even though we hadn’t touched. His breath fanned my shoulder, and I turned, looking into his eyes with the fire and lust I felt burning in my eyes and soul. I wanted to rip him apart, but worse, I wanted to ask him to remove the feel of Garrett from my flesh, to erase the taint that had been burned into my memory. I wouldn’t, but the urge was right there in my stare, and I couldn’t
remove it.
“Say it, and it’s done, Aria.”
“Pass,” I whispered through the tightening in my throat.
“Get dressed then.” His hand scrubbed over his mouth as his shoulders stiffened. He turned to leave, but my words stopped him.
“I can’t get dressed with chains around my ankles, jerk.” I crossed my arms, watching the struggle in his eyes. He dropped his heavy gaze to my raw ankles and then lifted it slowly over my body before pausing at the pink, pebbled nipples that pushed against the nightie.
He bent down, grabbing my ankle, causing me to go off-kilter, and I dropped back onto the couch. Knox smirked, skimming his fingers over my calf before magic pushed against the cuff, unhooking the clasp. He released the other cuff, and I stood, uncaring that my hip rubbed against his cheek or that my ass was in his face as I grabbed the dress, looking at it with a frown.
“No panties?” I questioned, turning to stare down at him where he was slowly breathing while his stare remained on my bruised, naked flesh.
“You don’t need them,” he stated unevenly, as if he was struggling with my body being so close to his in the tiny nightie he’d given me last night. “You won’t be out of this room long enough to warrant wearing them. Who fucking touched you?”
“Does it matter? Why do you care?”
“Tell me so I can end them.”
“That’s not your fight, asshole. It’s mine. You’re not my protector or my mate. I’ll deal with him when I escape you. So, I am to be kept in your bedroom, naked?”
“No, you’ll be watched when I am gone for extended periods. You’ll get clothes, Aria. Just not today,” he growled thickly as he stood and peered down at me. “Strip, I need to see the damage to know if it is healing.”
“As if, Knox. That also isn’t your job,” I snorted, but before I could argue, he reached up and snapped the straps apart without hurting me. I shook my head, frowning as he stepped closer, brushing his fingers over the angry bruise on my breast.
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