Page 4 of Nyx

It starts with slaps or rough manhandling.

The violence isn't supposed to start with a stabbing.

"Graham," I whisper, looking up and trying to see him through the tears pouring from my eyes.

He's blurry at best, and I don't know if it's the tears or the pain I'm experiencing that makes him so hard to see.

He takes a step back, the knife still in his hand, and maybe this—the sight of the blood, the real pain I'm in—is what will change him. Maybe this is the step he needed to take to see just how wrong he's been treating me.

Through the pain and heartache, I feel a flicker of hope.

It doesn't last very long as I watch him look from my wounds to the knife in his hands.

He doesn't drop it as though disgusted with what he’s done.

He grips the handle tighter and rushes forward, sinking the blade to the hilt right into my stomach.

My eyes snap up to his, disbelief coating me.

I knew he was capable of terrible things, but I never let myself imagine him being the type of man who would do this.

"You'll never leave me," he growls, twisting the knife inside the wound.

I take a step back, the sear of pain radiating from the wound as the knife comes free from my body.

"The babies," I whisper as my knees give out under me.

My vision fills with darkness, the sound of the knife clattering to the floor like a bomb going off in the room.

The last thing I hear before my entire world fades to black is the sound of his footsteps carrying him away and the soft close of the front door.

Chapter 1

Nyx

I'm not a man who can change.

I've been who I am for well over twenty years, more than half my life.

I know I can't change, but what I hate is seeing other people change because of me.

I noticed those changes a very long time ago.

People smile.

I sneer.

They stop smiling at me.

I don't take pride in it.

It doesn't make me happy to see a friendly smile slip from someone's face. I don't sneer because I want people to fear me.

It's just who I am.

Or rather, who I had to become.

"You were saying?" Slick prods.