Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
“I don’t even know anymore. Does that scare you?”
“No,” she says with a smile. “It turns me on.” She hides her mouth with her hand. “I sound deranged.”
“No, it’s okay. Give it to me. Give it all to me.” Because something is still bothering her, and the need to figure it out is crawling under my skin.
“I want to ask some questions.”
“Ask.” Because at this point, I’ll give her anything. I just want to be close to her. Breathe her air. Study her wicked little face. I can’t stop touching her, and even though my skin is more sensitive than ever, I want her to touch me.
“You told me you had to fight. You had to. Did you kill them all for Fraternitas?”
“No, there were years that I was fighting in the underground for a man known as Maestro.”
“I heard you killed your trainer.”
“He wasn’t our trainer. He was our slaver.” Her eyes search my face.
“He’s the one who made us fight. The one who figured out how to heal us so we could fight again.” I flex my fingers. The compounds he gave me numbed the pain but probably fucked up my nerve endings. That and the stuff he did to me at night, when I was helpless in a cage.
I shake my head to get off the path of those dark memories. “No one thought we would win. No one.”
“You and your brother?”
“Yes. Watching Jaeger fight was the worst. Knowing that at any moment, he could die. I would have done anything to save him from the ring. We trained together, taught each other everything we knew. We had to. And we met Atticus there. He learned how to heal people fast. How to dose us with stuff to make our muscles grow. He has a lab too, you know.”
“Lab Daddy.” She licks her lips. “He’s hot.”
“Yes. Watch it.” I tighten my grip on her hair again. “You’re mine, little bride, and I don’t share. I want you all to myself.”
Her gaze drops from mine for a moment. The predator in me can sense something is wrong, but I don’t know what.
“What is it, Bella?”
She shakes her head, sighing. Her tone is solemn when she says, “You have me.”
My heart surges in my chest. I want it to be true, but I don’t know if I can believe her. She sounds so reluctant. “You’re really not afraid of me. Even though I’m a killer.”
“Death is inevitable.”
“I thought you’d be this sweet innocent virgin. Too innocent for me.”
She gives me a wicked grin that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Who says I’m not?”
“No. I know better now.”
Her gaze drops to study my tattoos on my chest and shoulders. I feel uneasy, knowing she’s seeing the scars under the tattoos. Her fingers flex like she wants to touch them.
“You were made to fight. Is that why you don’t like to be touched?”
I guess it was inevitable that she noticed that. I ache, wanting her touch, but fearing it. Just under the surface, my nerve endings are on fire.“Yes.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, pulling back her hands. “You’re safe with me.”
28
Bella
* * *
I did a bad thing.
I remember when Kaiser told me he would never fall in love.
Now he’s gazing at me like I’m his whole world.
My plan worked. The poison I used bound him to me. Not the candles—the lotion I’ve been slathering my skin with. It’s specially compounded to make him love me.
It should make me gleeful, knowing that I’ve got him under my spell.
It doesn’t. It makes me feel like shit. My stomach churns. I’m trying to hide it, but Kaiser is perceptive. He knows something is wrong. That I’m not happy.
It’s all a lie. His attention, his tenderness, is all because I made him feel this way.
He’s obsessed with me, just like I wanted him to be. But not because he actually likes me. The connection he feels with me is manufactured. It’s fake.
I thought I’d enjoy having the upper hand, but now that I have it, I hate it. It was better when he was really fighting me. At least then I knew what we had between us was real.
I tamed the beast, but it’s horrible. Like declawing a lion.
Why did I do this? I don’t want Kaiser to be like this. I want him to be… him. I want him surly and dangerous. Whatever he really feels for me—lust, distrust, even hate—I want it. I want it all. I’m greedy for him, the real him.
Because he was perfect in his own awful way. Evil and bad with a kill count greater than mine. Of all the people on Earth, he would be the one to accept my supervillain tendencies. To encourage them. If I hadn’t used the love potion, we could’ve had something real.
Now I’ll never know. We’ll never have a true connection, communion. He’s taken all my firsts, and I can’t even really be with him. Not while I’m still poisoning him.