Page 86 of Servitude to Serpents

Everything is fucking over.

He doesn’t speak again as he leaves my office, quietly shutting the wide double doors behind him the way he has for years, and for some reason, it’sthatgesture that does it. The quiet, gentle click of the mechanism ignites in my chest. A guttural bellow rips from my throat as I turn my attention to the room around me. My vision tunnels as I rip the decanter off the desk, dumping it down my throat. It doesn’t help, doesn’t even touch me as my eyes find the screen again. Her delicate arms are wrapped around herself, her eyes on the window, the sprawling landscape beyond it.

Adrenaline battles with the exhaustion that pumps through my body, my breath harsh, my pulse in my ears. Even now, I want her. She has claimed the twisted bits of me. Myitch, my need for the hatred and violence. I want to give it to her, to exact it on the woman who ruined everything, changedeverything with her doe eyes and tears, her constant fucking adoration.

“Fuck!” I jerk the laptop displaying her, smashing it against the desk before I move on, destroying everything she touched, every artifact she ran her fingers along when she didn’t know I was watching. I erase her, hoping it might begin to quiet her pull.

Nightmares by Ellise

“The information comes straight from Tyet. Bloom tried to dip their hands in but, like usual, lacked the bite to back their yapping. Flesh and arms were the deal, but the buyer seems agreeable to amending as long as we move fast.” I pluck the biggest House of Serpents wax stamp off my father’s desk, tossing it in the air before snatching it. The bulbous thing is heavy, its handle taking up most of my palm.

I see Stuart approach from behind me in the reflection of the polished handle before he plucks it from my palm. “This was a gift from a foreign dignitary your grandfathermet in Dubai, and it's older than you.” He sets it back down beside the other two sizes in the set before turning back to me. “Last second deals are never—"

“Enough of your coddling.” Father laughs. “If my son says the deal is good, it’s good. We’ll suit up in an hour and be on the way.”

Irritation floods my chest where there should be pride. “You say you trust me, but you won’t let me go alone?”

“Warrick, there’s nothing wrong with an added layer of protection. It’s got nothing to do with trust.”

Stuart nods. “And everything to do with keeping your unseasoned ass from getting shot again.”

I spin my chair toward the closed office doors, looking at the destroyed room around me. My chest is heaving. It’s not enough, just like I knew it wouldn’t be. My grip on myself is nonexistent. That itch has changed into a pulse worming its way into my brain.

Hours have passed. She hasn’t once come to look for me.

My own fucking dog abandoned me after I threw away everything for her. The fairness of that statement is up for debate, but logic isn’t something I’m concerned with now. I need her, need her to take me like this, for her to see the problems she caused for me. Like a fucking child, I need her warmth, knowing whatever it is that’s deep inside her can fix this, fix me.

I’m drunker than I thought as I get up from my office chair, stalking over the rubble of my office and down the hall to my room.

She’ll fix me.

I’ll match her breath, and everything will be fine.

This feeling will end.

I know it’s a lie, and I should turn around.

Fuck, I shouldn’t go to her like this, but I don’t stop. I’m a fucking bastard, because I don’t even fucking hesitate.

The darkness of my bedroom greets me, her huddled shape pressing into my mattress as she sleeps. Shesleepslike my entire world isn’t crumbling because she made me care about her. Because she told me sheloved me,and I fucking believed her. She was the first good thing I felt in years, and in an instant, it rewired something in me, something primal that decided it belonged to her.

It takes a while of me standing in the darkness, glaring at her soft, gentle curves after I’d tugged the sheet from her before she stirs. She yawns before those big, sad eyes find mine. “What do you want?”

What do I want?

What, indeed.

My fists clench at my sides, stepping closer to her, and those sweet little eyes widen as the moonlight from the large windows hits me. I’m bloody, my bare chest rising and falling with my breath. Far from the master she gave her love to, right now, I’m Basilisk, the twisted, fucked up monster who wears the skin of the calm, controlled man.

I’ve never been either of those things, not for a moment.

Her bratty little mouth opens, concern disrupting her anger before I cut her off. “You ruined everything.” It’s not what I meant to say. Fuck, it’s not. I meant to crawl beside her and shove my nose into her sweet-smelling hair so I could breathe again.

“I ruined everything…”

No honorifics in sight, I see.

My form towers over her as I brace my arms on the four-poster bed, breathing in the scent of her, remembering when I scrubbedhimoff her earlier. I felt it so deep in my chest, wanting to push her under the water. I wanted her to beg me, to tell me she was mine, to say sorry for something I forced her to do.

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