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‘I should leave you here until the wards hollow you out.’ His voice stays velvet-smooth, which only makes it more dreadful. ‘Or I could summon my Twelve. Let them take turns at your resolve until every pretty lie drops bleeding to the floor. Let them drain you dry until not a trace of my signature remains in your body.’
Something cold shoots through me before I can stop it.
He feels it instantly. And a terrible satisfaction glints in his gaze. ‘There it is.’
I bare my teeth. ‘Enjoying yourself?’
‘Immensely.’
Liar.
No. Not a liar. That’s the problem. He’s enjoying this on some dark level. Not the fear itself, perhaps, but the proof of power. The reassurance that I can still be made to react. That I’m not untouchable. Or in control.
He leans closer, his mouth near enough to mine that the air between us turns dangerous. ‘You seem to have mistaken proximity for significance, hunter. I did not survive centuries by being gentle with those who deceive me. I have had to become powerful enough, ruthless enough, that men older and worse than your nightmares think carefully before crossing me.’
His grip shifts from my throat to my jaw, forcing me to hold his stare.
‘And you,’ he says, each word sharpened to cruelty, ‘are human. Temporary. An inconsequential hunter I deigned to bed. And yes, while your cunt was quite exceptional, you are still nothing more than a bug beneath my shoe. Easily crushed. Forgotten before I have taken my next step.’
The words are a hacksaw to my chest.
For one vicious heartbeat I’m back in his rooms, naked and burning under his mouth, hearing all the things he didn’t say but let me feel anyway. The hunger. The terrible, almost reverent greed of a man losing ground by the second and loving and resenting every inch of it.
And now I’m a bug beneath his shoe.
My face stays still through force of will alone. ‘Are you sure?’
His gaze hardens.
I smile with all the sweetness of a knife. ‘If I’m that inconsequential, why is the dungeon still shaking? Why do you still refer to the Twelve when there are only Ten now, thanks to my inconsequential self?’
That resonates so hard the space between us seems to go soundless.
Then he lets me go… slowly and deliberately. Which is somehow worse. His hand leaves my jaw first, then my wrist, and I have just enough time to drag in a full breath before he steps back.
The loss of his body heat feels obscene. My arms ache as I lower them but I refuse to rub at my throat because fuck that.
He puts several feet between us, all lethal elegance and banked violence.
Then he says, ‘Your connection to Selphine Rousseau is no longer in dispute.’
I stiffen.
His eyes never leave my face. ‘Her scent has been confirmed at her shop in New Orleans. Three of my Twelve investigated before dawn.’
The words come so coolly I almost miss what they mean.
How long have I been in this cage, locked up, if he’s already gone hunting in the direction of the only person whose name has begun spinning in my head like a blade in a wound?
Surprise escapes me before I can stop it. ‘You already went looking for Selphine?’
A mistake. I hear it the moment it leaves my mouth. Valentin hears it too.
‘What did she say?’ The question rips out of me in a different tone altogether.
His expression doesn’t change but I notice it. Maybe because he’s been inside me. Been close enough to baring himself as a creature like him can manage. Or it could be something as simple as my trusted instincts taking pity and not having completely deserted me.
Because something’s off.
