Page 130 of Barbi and the Villain

“I was three thousand years old when I met her. She was…the only person who ever believed in me. Back then, we were at war with Aperion, and I had already seen my fair share of fighting. She was everything the battlefield was not. Pure. Shy. Mischievous.” He smiles fondly. “But she was not a daughter of Tenebreis. I took her as my wife against my family’s wishes. Back then, I was not aware of my brother’s plot to kill me. I had always known he did not like me very much since I inherited my teleportation abilities from our mother’s side and my dark matter manipulation from our father’s. He inherited none. Our conflict began when our father died, a few years after my sister was born. My brother assumed the role of the leader of our clan, but he always saw me as a threat to his power. So one day, he tried to kill me.” He stops abruptly, his eyes squeezing shut. “Yet it was not me he killed. It was her. Mo.”

A tremble racks his body.

“She died instead of me.”

The pain in his voice is unmistakable. It’s raw, a wound that is still bleeding.

“Nykander…”

“I could not even say goodbye. Her soul’s essence was destroyed, so nothing remained of her. Nothing,” he says on a ragged voice.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

She might be my opponent in this game of love, but she is also the reason why Nykander is standing here today. With me.

She…saved him.

How can I hate someone like that?

How can I resent someone who saved him so he could find his way to me?

He brings his hand to wipe a tear of blood dripping from the corner of his eye. He looks away from me, not wanting to show me this vulnerable side of him. Yet it’s this side that makes my heart beat faster in my chest and my soul clamor even more for his.

“It’s okay to cry if it hurts, Nykander.”

He shakes his head, blinking back more tears.

“Since then, I have been trying to find a way back to avenge her. It was the only thing on my mind until…”

Before I can help myself, I reach for him. I cup his cheeks within my palms and bring his face closer to mine, urging him to look at me. His eyes are a tumultuous gray surrounded by a sea of blood. His eyes bleed just like his soul does, and it breaks my heart despite knowing he bleeds for another—for someone who is not me.

“Grieve her. Cry for her. But if you want to come to me, you will have to leave all your baggage behind,” I tell him gently. “I like you. I really do. Maybe I more than like you, which, I’ll be damned if I know why, considering how you’ve behaved toward me. But there is something between us. I will accept that. But I cannot envision spending an eternity with someone who wishes I were another woman. I cannot—will not—be with you unless you let her go. I am not asking you to give up your revenge or forget about her—it would be cruel of me to do so. But I am asking you that if you are with me, you are only with me. There is no place for a ghost between us, and I would rather spend my life alone than with someone who was hung up on another woman.”

He blinks and the blood drops fall down his cheeks. I lean in and lick them with my tongue, tasting the sweetness of his blood.

“What are you doing to me, Barbi?” he asks in a ragged voice. “How is it that you make me forget everything when I am with you?”

He grabs my nape with his hand, bringing me close to him and resting his forehead against mine.

“I have not been with another in seven thousand years,” he mutters, his mouth close to my skin. His hot breath fans against my cheek, making me shiver in response. “I have not looked at another female in seven thousand years. Until this. Until you.”

“Nykan—”

“Let me get it out, Barbi. Words are not my strong suit, and you might find many instances in which I say the wrong things because I cannot articulate the right ones.” He swallows. “I was raised in a military household. I trained and fought. After I left Tartareia, I scoured world after world in search of the artifact, doing nothing but scheme, fight, and kill. In all those years, nothing shook my focus. Until you ended up in the same cell with me—until you made me laugh for the first time in forever. I have been fighting this all along, thinking I could not betray Mo’s memory. But someone helped me realize that allowing you in would not betray her memory, it would be honoring it.”

My lashes flutter in confusion, but he merely smiles.

“I am not a good male, Barbi. I do not have honorable intentions. My plan still stands.”

“I don’t need you to be good, Nykander. I only need you to be good to me.”

His hands caress my jaw as he regards me with longing in his eyes. Leaning into me, his lips part over my pulse point as he traces it with his tongue. His fangs elongate, grazing my sensitive flesh.

A low moan erupts from my throat.

In the blink of an eye, I am on my back on the grass, with him looming over me. His features are swathed in darkness. There is only the dim light from the moon that illuminates half of his face, revealing his starved expression.

He brushes his lips over my neck, but he doesn’t bite me even though I give him unfettered access.

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