Page 43 of Haunted

This intruder is not the interrogator I’m always prepared for, though she comes with questions. As she crawls over me, curving her body seductively against mine, she halts, straddling my waist. My body tightens underneath hers. I find myself wanting to submit to her because she touches me and makes my skin pulse with heat.

She finds my arms, brings them to my sides, and kneels on them.

Alarm slams into me, but it’s too late.

The empress is not here for a romantic interlude.

As my arms go numb, her fingers grab my throat and squeeze. My breath is choked from me before I can gasp. Her hair cascades into my face, and I inwardly dare her to squeeze until my eyes bulge from their sockets.

Maybe she’ll put me out of my misery.

With breathy words, the empress hisses into my ear. “Why don’t you tell me where your loyalty lies? You swore fealty to me.”

So she believes I’ve been disloyal. How does she not grasp what she’s done to me, how she holds me and commands me?

I do whatever she asks.

The empress releases her grip just long enough for me to draw breath, but I still can’t answer.

“What did you do to me?” she asks. “What passed between us?”

The bond. She believes it was my doing. She believes it was an act of treason.

Why hasn’t the Dark Master told her the bond was formed by his hand? That is, if what Siana and I have assumed is correct.

How do I prove myself, especially while she’s choking me to death, especially while I can’t utter a word to convince her?

I gasp again. The empress blows hot breath into my ear, and then she bites down on my earlobe. I jerk my head, knowing she’s drawn blood.

“Convince me,” she says. With one hand on my throat, she moves a leg off my left hand, laces hers with mine, and pins it near my head. My forearm throbs from being crushed under her knee. But that’s nothing. Her teeth sink into my neck, and I buck underneath her.

This loosens her grip, and she lets me throw her down as I roll on top and pin her. Blood trickles from my earlobe. My neck warms as blood bubbles around the injury and drips down my clavicle.

Rage courses through my veins. “Do you want me to show you?” I ache to rip her apart, to destroy her, but I won’t let my control slip further. “You expect loyalty? You expect answers when you come in here and abuse me like this?” This is the freest I’ve ever spoken to her. She’ll likely kill me for raising a protest.

“You will suffer if it is my wish.” Her chest heaves against me as if my threats stir her.

I pull away to create space between us. “I am loyal to you, you spiteful wench.”

When she slaps my face, I understand her game. Not wanting to disappoint her, I answer with a bruising kiss. It’s not the answer she wants, but it’s a bonus she doesn’t turn away.

She yanks on my hair and jerks me back a few inches. “Show me. Open the gate.”

I growl. She understands I have control over the bond even if I don’t know how it happened. I try an explanation. “This was not my doing.”

“I don’t believe you.” Her fingers tighten in my hair, and I grunt.

Fine. She wants answers? I punch her mind with one open floodgate. The empress gasps and flinches. The only sensation that gets through is my loyalty.

Loyalty because of my twisted obsession over her.

I don’t let her feel more, or I will be exposed as a spy.

“There it is,” she purrs. “I knew you couldn’t be a traitor. I’d hate to have to kill you.” Even in the darkness, I sense a smile on her face due to her smugness.

“That would be a shame.”

I kiss her again to silence her and satisfy my want.

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