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His eye twitches, nostrils flared, lips pressed to a hard line. One hundred percent angry right now. “I wanted you for myself. I craved you then, and I still do. Every night, I’ve dreamed of fucking you. Of stowing away with you for hours on end.”

I let his words simmer in my head. “What are you saying? You killed Will out of jealousy?”

“I eliminated a roadblock in my quest for you.”

This isn’t the Titus I’ve come to know in the last week. The one who cared for me. Who saved me from the Ragers. This is a villain. The ruthless, mindless Alpha beast I was warned about.

Tears distort him as I glare back, wishing I had the gall to punch him in the face. Hard. “You’re a fucking monster!” I draw back a fist, but he catches my wrist mid-swing, yanking me into his body. “Let me go!” Like a cat caught in a trap, I kick and scream, wriggling to break free. “I hate you! I fucking hate you!”

He gathers up my arms, holding them together in a single grasp that molds to my wrist like a shackle. With little effort, he manages to wrangle me to the ground, the vulnerability of my prone state only exacerbating my fury. Cheek pressed to the dirt, and his chest at my back, I wriggle beneath him, kicking up plumes of dust that I breathe in and cough out. His fingers curl into mine. Hot breaths fan across the back of my exposed neck. “It isn’t right to want you this much,” he growls out, while an impressive erection strains his jeans and presses hard between my thighs.

Lying still beneath him, my whole body trembles with rage. “This is fitting for you, isn’t it? Feels more natural to take with a fight?”

“Nothing about what I feel for you is natural.” Palms to my hips, he flips me over onto my back as easily as if I were a rag doll, and pins me down again. “Fight or not, I still wouldn’t take from you.”

I lift my knee to slam into his groin, but with a shift of his hips, I miss my mark. More tears of frustration blur my eyes. “I should’ve let you die that day by the water.” The anger inside of me claws for a voice, and the words that tumble past my lips are meaningless and untrue, but I say them, anyway. I say them because I don’t know what else to say to him. How else to feel.

“You should’ve.” Still holding my hands captive, he grits his teeth, staring down at me. “You could’ve spared me a lot of fucking headache.”

“You didn’t kill Will out of jealousy for me. You killed him out of your own spiteful hate. You hate what I am. Where I come from. That’s why you killed him, instead. You wanted to hurt me.”

“No. No!” He bares his teeth in a snarl and presses harder into my wrists, giving one rough shake of my body. “You’re wrong. I should’ve killed Agatha.” There’s an air of torment on his voice that momentarily snaps me out of my anger. “But I thought if. If she happened to pull that trigger before I got to you …” When he pulls away from me, his brows are furrowed, eyes plagued by anguish. “I can’t think about it. Someone, or something, hurting you in front of me.”

The pressure of his fists squeezing my wrists coupled with the tightening of his jaw proves the point.

“That troubles you?” I ask.

The answer ignites in his eyes, silently telling me what hellish thoughts churn behind them. And beneath that is a layer of darkness, painting a bleak picture of what he’d do in retaliation. An ominous stretch of imagination, into which I don’t dare dip my fingers.

Instead of saying a word, he crushes his lips to mine.

I want to fight him, to hate him for what he said, but I can’t.

I can’t.

Because in all cases, no matter how little I understood it at the time, or how much I hate him for it now, everything Titus has done, he’s done for me. In truth, he’s been protecting me from the moment he stepped into that arena, and he’s been doing so since. This anger probably has nothing to do with his feelings. He’s protecting me from something again, even if I have no understanding of what that is.

All that aside, I can’t deny the fact that his lips on mine are absolute heaven right now.

The intoxicating scent of soap and fire pervades my senses. It wets my eager tongue as I dip it into his mouth to slake a thirst I can’t quite pinpoint. A craving I’ve longed for, but never tasted before, just as he said earlier. Pleasure beyond the confines of flesh and bone, down to the darkest corners of my soul.

Air stutters inside my chest, my stomach fluttering like a thousand butterflies are trapped inside of me. My heart is pounding so hard inside my chest, it’s a wonder the damn thing doesn’t slam right through my ribs.

His kiss tastes like an apology. Like sorrow and torment, but lust and longing, as well. It’s overwhelming and all-consuming, and, at the same time, not enough.

God, how can that be? How can I be so gluttonous with passion and hunger for so much more?

He groans, the agony vibrating down into my throat, as if he feels it, too. Arms planted at my sides, he holds himself over me and leans forward to kiss my neck. Up along my jaw, back to my lips. His movements are fervent and impatient, and the way he grips tight to my arms, it’s as if he thinks I’ll try to get away from him.

As if I could.

Every thread of my being is wound so tight around this man, he’s lucky to breathe.

My own lungs tug at my throat for a sip of air, but I can’t be bothered to break the kiss. The whole world could ignite into flames right now, and I’d simply revel in its warmth.

It’s Titus who pulls away first, and he rests his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling between us. “To answer your question about whether the thought troubles me,” he says in a ragged voice, “I would tear apart anything that ever tried to hurt you. And I would stab my own heart out, if it was me.”

“Then, Will. Killing him wasn’t out of jealousy?”