Now it was not a matter of if; it was only a matter of when.
The years hadn’t been kind.
Every day, I woke up and wondered if today would be the day I’d do the unforgivable and push myself and my mates into total damnation.
Would it be in a crowded room? In a city surrounded by millions of unsuspecting sheep?
Someday I’d lead them all to slaughter, and the release would taste so sweet that I wouldn’t care.
Pain had a funny way of tearing you to shreds, piece by little piece.
And I was at my breaking point.
“Please, baby,” I whispered as loudly as I dared without using the full power of my voice.
Arabella shivered on the marble floor and didn’t turn her head to acknowledge me. She gave me nothing.
I took a step forward and touched her arm. Gently.
She scrambled away from me. Knees clacking against stone as she gathered herself to her feet and stumbled down the hall.
She ran.
Away. From. Me.
I slapped my hand over my mouth as I hurried after her, words burning my tongue and begging to be released.
As she sprinted down the halls, my vision wavered like it did when my tattoos activated. I felt the petals drifting down my neck and across my collarbone.
Arabella wasn’t supposed to run from me.
I’d been so nice to Aran. To her.
I was the one who kissed her lips.
I was the one who held her tenderly.
I was the one who told the men to back off.
I played the part of the good guy so she would run to me, not away.
I called her nice names and looked her in the eye and kept my body posture nonthreatening.
All of that work.
For her to run away like I hadn’t already claimed her as mine.
Would it be different if I could talk? Would she fall against me and melt at my pretty words?
I’d thought my lack of voice didn’t matter to her.
Arabella was the first person besides my mates who could read my lips.
She was the first person who seemed to actually see me and not just want me for my voice.
For the last months, she’d watched me constantly.
In class, at meals, in our room, pink had stained her cheeks as she stared at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. Her attention had been a balm to my frazzled soul.
Arabella provided the perfect distraction from the pain slowly eating me alive.
There was only one thing that kept me from remembering how trapped I was in my own skin.
One thing I used to cope—obsession.
Infatuation was too pleasant a word to describe it.
I was overwhelmed by a frenzied need to own, taste, and know everything about another person. To climb under their skin. To possess them so fully they didn’t know where I ended and they began.
It had started years ago with Corvus and Scorpius, and to this day, I still watched them compulsively.
I thought about them constantly.
Every second of my life was filled with planning. I planned how I would touch them. Defile them. Own them. Make them irrevocably mine.
But I couldn’t touch my mates without pain, not yet.
For years, my poison of choice had been outside my grasp. Thinking about them but not being able to act on my urges was damnation incarnate.
So I’d unraveled.
At the seams.
Until about two months ago when I’d found someone new to obsess over. Someone I could actually taste. I could ruin.
For the first time in forever, I’d had a purpose and a distraction that actually worked.
It had all been going to plan.
I’d played the part of the nice guy.
Smiled when Aran needed it and stuck up for him so he would see me.
I’d offered him comfort when he needed it most. Manipulated him into caring about me back.
In a dangerous, violent place, I’d given him what he needed. Someone nice.
Still, sometimes I’d forgotten to play the part.
Like when Aran was gasping for air beneath us as we’d held him underwater and I couldn’t stop pushing his head under. His helplessness was intoxicating. The noises he’d made were so exquisite. The way he’d fought and snarled against the overwhelming strength of my mates.
Would he fuck the same way?
I’d been dying to know.
When he’d glared at me with a wounded expression afterward, I’d fallen apart, convinced I’d ruined everything I’d worked so hard to create between us.
But all my worrying had been for nothing because Aran had still been interested in me. He’d seen behind my mask and still forgiven me.
After that, my interest in him had become a full-blown obsession.
And when Aran had turned out to be the most stunning woman I’d ever seen in my life…my interest had become mania.
I liked to play games.
I liked to collect treasures.
I already had two perfect men: two dragons that made the House of Malum crest proud. Scorpius and Corvus.
Now I had a sweetheart.
A fearless, blue-haired, doe-eyed woman to add to my collection.
Where their strength was overwhelming and in-your-face, hers was quiet and unassuming. It was still impressive. And she was just as manipulative as I was, disguising herself as a man.
She’d played us all.
Where my mates’ darkness was a loud explosion that destroyed the world, her darkness was a quiet implosion that pulled the world into her.
Arabella was a composition of mesmerizing turquoise: soft features, smoking lips, and haunted eyes.
She was a jagged construction of paradigms; she radiated strength, yet she was broken.
I wanted to know every single thing that made Arabella tick.
What did she think about that made her stare off into the distance?
Were her thoughts dark?
Why did she smoke so much?
Why did she avoid sex?
Why had she killed Horace?
Why did her eyes sometimes glaze over when she stared at fire?
Why did she constantly itch her back?
Why did she sometimes revel in violence and, at other times, hate it?
Why did she pick at her lip?
Why had we only seen her create two ice daggers if she was a powerful fae?
Why had she eaten her mother’s heart?
Why did she look away when I stared into her eyes?
Why did she keep pushing me away when we kissed?
Why did she seem more comfortable when she was masquerading as Aran than as Arabella?
She was a puzzle, and I wanted to solve her until I knew the consistency of every breath she took. I’d been so close to figuring her out and pulling her into my web.
With centimeters to go, she’d pulled away.
The slave tattoo had put a wedge between us, and she no longer gave me coy glances. All I got were shuttered stares. The enslavement had destroyed any trust I’d earned, and it wasn’t fair.
But it would all be okay because Arabella didn’t realize that trust was never hers to give.
It was mine to take.
She thought she could just choose not to be my sweetheart. A laughable idea.
That wasn’t how this worked.
I’d already decided she was mine because she kept my madness at bay. Kind of. Mostly she just gave me something else to fixate on, and that counted. Right?
Now I just had to catch her.
Stained-glass windows refracted rainbows through the empty halls. Arabella sprinted down them with impressive speed.
Her bare feet slapped loudly against the marble floors.
I pounded after her.
I was larger and faster, but she was frantic and had gotten a head start.