Page 171 of Hellbound

His eyes met hers. “Why did you ask?”

The silence stretched between them.

He let it.

“Don’t you recognize me?” she murmured, her voice warbling at the end.

His eyes searched hers.

Every day since her rebirth, she had been present in the castle, but unseen in her body.

And here was the last person who had truly seen her as herself.

She watched as the pieces clicked in place in his sharp mind.

His hand reached for her face, then faltered.

Her name was a prayer and a curse on his lips.

“Ksenia.”

Not Senka. Not Lady Sevrant. Not the serial killer.

As quickly as her softness had spread, anger took root. A familiar, seething heat beneath her skin.

She loathed that her subconscious led her to him in her time of need.

That he was her safety in the heart of darkness.

He watched her hand close around Caromir once more.

This was what she wanted. This was what she came here to do.

Exhausted green eyes peered back at her, as if she were his savior and damnation and he was done pretending otherwise.

Her grip closed around his throat, slamming him against the bedpost, straddling him.

Say something. Fight back. Be the monster.

Silence.

He was patient, entirely hers to do whatever she wanted.

Her body snapped tight, on the precipice of doing what she had trained it to do. The mindless reflex of driving her blade through flesh, expecting the warmth of blood on her skin.

Caromir hummed in her hand, yet she faltered.

The point dug into the side of his neck, welling with blood.

This was it.

She had poisoned his body.

She had poisoned his mind.

He was waiting for her to kill him, and he knew she was right to do it.

The steel lapped up the offering eagerly, power surging through her veins, clouding her mind.