“You need to go.”

I ignored my full-body quake of fear. “There’s time to discuss—”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Eleanor goddamn Grace. There is no time.”

“There’s always time—”

“No.” He bared his teeth. “I’ve made up my mind. You’re leaving. Immediately.”

It took everything I had not to buckle at his feet. I reinforced my spine with steel and narrowed my eyes. “You’ve made up your mind, have you? But what about my decision?”

“You don’t get one.”

“We’re equals, Sully. I get a vote in whatever madness you’ve decided.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I brought you here. I can evict you just as quickly. You can scream and beg, but the fact remains, you will not change my mind.”

I prickled with anger. “And you think by sending me away that I’ll remain unhurt?”

He nodded savagely. “You’ll be away from me. Therefore, you’ll be safe.”

“I’ll be in more pain than I’ve ever felt if you send me away.”

“Pain means you’re still alive, so I’m okay with that.” Arching his chin at the helicopter, he muttered, “That’s your ride.” Snatching me around the wrist, he tugged me down the beach. “Get as far away from me as you can.”

My temper might’ve been locked up while I offered a haven for a broken man, but those gates smashed wide apart when faced with a stubborn jackass who ran on exhaustion and emotional bereavement. “Don’t do this. If you send me away when you need me the most, you’ll be the one who suffers.”

“Threats now?”

“Just truth.”

He stumbled as if I’d driven an ice pick into his heart. Swallowing hard, he growled, “And if I don’t send you away, then you will suffer.” He kept his eyes far from mine, not denying that this would rip him into pieces, just ploughing ahead with his agonising choice. “I’ll take the suffering, Jinx. I need you gone. I have too much blood on my hands to add yours.”

“What makes you think you’ll have my blood on your hands?”

He stopped and spun so fast, I smashed into him.

Our bodies collided.

Our chemistry ignited.

Lush, lusty connection that would never fade.

Our fight scrambled as our bodies primed for a different kind of battle. My nipples hardened to diamonds as his body shifted from raging to raw need.

His fingers spasmed around my wrist as if he had the uncontrollable need to break my bones, make me bleed, and fulfil his prophecy that my life force would one day stain his hands.

In his wild, washed-out stare, I saw just how stricken he was. How wretched and wounded.

And I didn’t think.

I just acted.

We moved at the same time.

His head came down.

My mouth tilted up.

Our lips crashed and collided.

Our kiss was everything that love wasn’t.

There was nothing gentle or kind, just nasty and noxious, sloppy and savage.

His gruesome hands cupped my head, twining his fingers deep within my hair, trapping me to kiss me deeper, rougher, with an unholy appetite that spoke of the hell that he’d stepped from.

I moaned as our kiss turned obscene with how much lust and loathing we shared.

Thanks to our bond, secrets couldn’t hide, lies couldn’t convince, and in the end, it was love that turned out to be our greatest suffering because it gave us nowhere to hide.

Nowhere to pretend.

We were both the poison and the antidote, killing and reviving each other with every plunder of our tongues.

His hands dropped from my hair, down my back, and grabbed handfuls of my ass. He hoisted me up until my tiptoes barely tickled the sand, and drove his hips into my belly, imprinting me with the pulsing hardness between his legs.

I choked on his tongue as he groaned so brokenly, so ferociously.

I pulled away and bit his ear, ensuring he listened with his body and not his mind when I hissed, “Don’t say goodbye when you’ve barely said hello.” I rocked my hips against him, making him shudder. “We have time, Sully. Take me home. Fuck me. Remember me. Keep me.”

He grunted with tattered violence, tore me from the beach, and stormed with me in his arms away from the helicopter, away from our ending, away from the ghosts that haunted him.

Chapter Five

“FUCK!”

I dug my hands into my hair, dislodging a rain of ash and death as I bellowed at the ceiling and motherfucking destiny who’d given me a woman who shared a piece of my filthy soul.

A woman who knew exactly what I was going to do before I’d even decided.

Who sensed my decision before I’d even gotten up the strength to go through with it.

Who had an intuition about me.

Who defied me.

Who goddamn ruled me.

How the fuck was I here, inside her villa, primed to fuck her while covered in the massacred carcasses of rodent and canine and not waving goodbye as she flew away?

Pika and Skittles—who’d followed us from the beach on whispering wings—squawked at my violent, bitter curse, peltering around the rafters with green feathers.

In the clutch of my fury, I only saw them as more things to die because of my failures. I wanted to cage them up, ship them away, extract them from my calamity so they could be safe.

Just like Eleanor.

Yet she was still here.

On my shores.

In her villa.

Walking into my goddamn arms.

I stiffened as her embrace wrapped around my waist, her ear pressing against my heart, her body resting flush to mine. She dared kiss the absolute butchery of my t-shirt, making my stomach roil and pulse stutter with so many aggressive things.

“Sully...speak to me. What did you see? What happened? You can tell me.” Her arms squeezed my waist, lying to me that she was strong enough to handle the spillage of such horror. Doing her best to convince me that the imagery of mangled paws blown from bleeding cadavers and snouts with broken teeth wouldn’t turn her into what I’d become.

A sorry, pitiful, raging, rabid human who would give anything for his own claws and fangs—to be a powerful predator so he could rip out the jugular of his enemies and feel the gush of blood down his throat. To be able to kill in primal, chaotic ways instead of being so weak to require weapons to do his massacring for him.

A knife wouldn’t be enough.

A gun wouldn’t be enough.

Nothing would be good enough to exterminate the life of my brother. The brother who threatened my creatures and my goddesses.

Who threatened her.

Snatching her chin, I arched her face up and stole her gasp with my teeth.

I kissed her brutally, brokenly. I kissed her until blood tainted our taste and something inside me snapped.

She thought she could help me?

She thought she could convince me to keep her?

I’d prove otherwise.

I’d show her just how dangerous loving a monster like me truly was.

It’s still over, Jinx.

You’ve just delayed the inevitable.

Seizing her from the floor, I carried her into the bathroom.

The same bathroom where she’d painted herself in magic, dressed in myth, and came to me gowned like a goddamn queen, all so she’d trick me into keeping her.