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“What did he do, baby?” His voice was so, so lethally quiet, while his blood roared inside his head.
“The day he died,” Hazel said slowly, softly, “we had a big fight. It started out about something small and inconsequential, like usual, but then he turned it into a tirade about how weak I was. I’d rarely stand up to him, because I kept feeling sorry for him on account of the fae spell. He knew that I could have easily shut him down with my magic, that I could have long put an end to his abuse. But I wouldn’t. You see, we’re raised to never use our powers against humans in a malicious way. And he knew that. He taunted me with it. And even if it weren’t for any witch law that forbade me to strike at him with magic, he knew I wouldn’t fight back against him. He didn’t know my reason, but he somehow felt my reluctance anyway. He took it as weakness.
“He’d often mocked me for it already. He’d shove me a little here and there, or hold my wrist too tight until it hurt. It seemed to delight him how I refused to use my powers.”
“Motherfucking fucknugget son of a shitbucket.” Tallak steered the car to the side of the road and stopped. He couldn’t fucking keep driving with his blood turned to corrosive acid.
“That day,” she went on quietly, “he was relentless. There was this mad glint in his eye, a fierce delight in how he’d sliced at me with his words until I flinched. I don’t remember what exactly happened before, but I remember his hands around my throat and…” Eyes staring out into the dark of the night, she raised one hand to her neck as if in a trance, like a ghost of her memory. “My pulse, I heard my pulse so loud in my head, and I couldn’t breathe, and then things started going dark. That’s when he let up. He stepped back, and I sank to the ground, gasping for air. He sneered at me, scoffing at how weak I was. How pathetic. How I should be ashamed of myself. And then he turned to go.”
Staring straight ahead, Hazel was so still she almost didn’t seem to breathe. All color had left her face, her energy a tight ball of tension.
“That’s when I killed him.”
Tallak had fully turned to her, one hand on the headrest of her seat, his entire being laser-focused on her.
“I lashed out at him with my magic. I made his heart explode in his chest.” Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. “I don’t know how long I sat there, just staring at his collapsed form. Isabel came. As head of the family, she’d felt the spike of magic when I’d used my powers to kill him, and since it was unusual for me to use that much at once, during the day, she came to check on me. She saw Robert on the floor, took one look at my throat, and then crouched beside me to heal the bruises. I lied to her. I told her I didn’t mean to kill him. She shushed me and said she’d take care of it. And she did. Never, in all those years, did she tell another soul that I’d killed him. Not even when others suspected her. She took my secret to her grave.”
Her breath hitched. “So there it is. I’m a murderer.”
“Hazel—”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered, cutting him off. “It wasn’t self-defense. I didn’t kill him while he was choking me. He was walking away, and I ended his life.” She turned to him then, her eyes haunted. “Because I wanted to. Because I was so, so angry.” She said the last word through gritted teeth.
He gently wiped the tear that spilled from her eye.
“I could have let him walk. I could have simply divorced him. But I took his life.”
He stared at her intently, long enough for her to realize the force of his gaze and look at him with her full attention.
“Babe,” he said, “do you expect me to be appalled? Do you honestly think I’ll judge you for killing the bastard who was tormenting you for fifteen fucking years?”
The lines of her face were drawn with pain. “But I could have let him—”
“Go on to merrily abuse another woman after you?”
That shut her right up.
“You never considered that, did you?” he asked softly. “Guys like that, they don’t stop at one. Chances are you weren’t the first either. And they always seem to fucking get away with it. But not him. Because you stopped him.”
She studied him with wide eyes, the brown of her irises shimmering in honey tones in the half darkness.
He gently clasped the back of her neck, his thumb stroking underneath her ear. “Others might look down on you for this. Me? I fucking love the fact that you gave him his just deserts.” He shrugged. “I’d have tortured the fuck out of him first, though, but that’s just me.” He leaned in closer until their foreheads touched. “I know you’ve probably been beating yourself up over this, love. Don’t do that anymore, okay? You did the right thing.”
She closed her eyes and sucked in air. “Wanna hear another secret?”
“I’m all ears.”
A heavy pause, then her soft, soft voice. “I never really beat myself up over killing him. I hated lying about it. I was worried others would find out and judge me for it. I was afraid of what the other witches would say, how they’d argue that I was at fault.” She looked at him then, her eyes luminous with an inner fire. “But I never once regretted killing him.”
I fucking love you.
He wanted to say it. He wanted to say it so bad. His beautiful, murderous, perfectly imperfect witch. Breath hitching, he opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. Fear of rejection a shard of glass in his heart, he claimed her lips with his own instead, poured all the things unspoken but wished for into the kiss.
It would have to be enough, at least for now. He had time yet, to woo her some more, to pave the way, before he’d rip out his heart to give to her and hope she’d claim the bloody mess for herself.
CHAPTER 24
Hazel woke up to a pounding headache and a dry mouth that felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
