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“Hey, Tate, it’s okay.” Ruin inched toward me and slowly captured my face between his palms. “He attacked you. You were only defending yourself.”
I shoved him away. “Bullshit! I wanted to torment him. I wanted to slowly kill him and watch him choke on his own blood. That isnotself-defense.”
Perry gripped the shifter’s wrist to check his pulse. “He’s going to be okay. I already called a witch to help heal him. He’ll be perfectly fine, Tate.”
My body shook as a metallic tang choked the room. Why was I always covered in someone else’s blood? “Why did he attack me?”
Ruin moved to block the injured shifter from my view. “He could be a newly bitten shifter. Something might have scared or threatened him so much that he transformed without warning. He must have been confused.” He stroked my cheek as if that would make me feel better. “We found a busted window on the left side of the first floor. He came in from the street.”
This didn’t make any sense. Preston, Fane’s cousin, told me shifters were still aware of who they were when they changed. Did he only say that to make me feel better? Could that happen to me?
Ruin cursed and touched my leg. “You’ve got a pretty big gash. Let’s get that cleaned while Perry helps the shifter.”
I let the demon lord pull me up and tow me out of the room, but as I glanced back at the naked guy, my insides wanted to shatter into a million pieces. If they hadn’t interrupted, I would have killed him.
* * *
I saton the window seat padded with a hundred silk pillows while Ruin grabbed the vanity chair, dragged it to me, and folded his lithe frame onto the velvet cushion. At his request, I’d changed into shorts to expose the gash the shifter had sliced into me. Blood dribbled over my flesh.
“That looks nasty,” Ruin said as he used a wet rag to clean it. “Want a drink for the pain?”
“No.” I already had too much alcohol. Was that why I’d easily lost control and almost killed that shifter?
No, that wasn’t it. When I went dark in that alley with Karn’s demons, I hadn’t had a lick to drink.
Nothing was to blame for this but my weak defenses against the Infernal Sol.
Fane thought I could dig deep and find my shifter side, but like I feared, the Infernal Sol overpowered everything. A thick fog had encompassed me, blurring the lines of morality. The only good thing that came out of this was discovering I could force Fane out of my head.
Too bad I had no clue how to do it. And tapping into that power again to figure it out was not an option.
Ruin dabbed a clear salve on the cut. “Are you okay, Tate? You seem a little out of it.”
“I should have died the night I killed Warin.” Saying his name instead of demon or monster reminded me that he was a victim too. Fane claimed his brother was a good person. “And I shouldn’t have survived the night I stole the Infernal Sol from Karn.”
The demon lord grabbed a roll of gauze and wrapped my thigh. “You did survive, so that’s what should have happened. You can’t punish yourself for living.”
“But it’s not just that.” I dragged my fingers through my gnarled raspberry locks and shoved them out of my face. “I shouldn’t have been spared to only turn into this dangerous, evil thing with no control.”
“You had control, or that shifter would be dead.” Ruin used medical tape to secure the bandage.
I turned away and rubbed my forehead where a headache pulsated, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror behind the bed. Shadows coated my hazel eyes and darkened them. They always looked haunted, but now something sinister churned within the depths, waiting to break free.
“You saw me, Ruin. Did I look like I was in control? I only stopped because you hit my tattoo to jolt me out of it.” Once again, Fane Maverick’s hold on me proved even deeper if he could reach me while not even in the same vicinity. For all I knew, he could be miles away.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tate. It won’t do any good to dwell on the past or the things you can’t change.” He stood and reached his hand out for me to take. Thankfully, he’d buttoned his shirt, so I wasn’t staring at his carved muscles or tattoos. “I want to show you something.”
Unease slinked down my back. “I’d rather not.”
“Just trust me.” His smile was anything but trustworthy. “I promise it’s nothing bad.”
The demon lord wanted me to trust him? I didn’t even trust myself right now.
Ruin pulled me off the window seat, the drapes fluttering behind me. “You’re so stubborn. I thought Fane was exaggerating.”
I groaned. “Can we not talk about him right now?”
“Sure.”
