Page 82 of Her Blood Revenge

Shit. Cole’s trigger. It still lives and has her in its grasp.

He ordered her to kiss him. She did. But in order to complete the command and free herself of her trigger, she needs to be punished. Three strikes delivered by her lovers. Three strikeswith all my strength.

Or she will not take another breath.

She takes my hand in hers, her eyes pleading with me to end this curse of hers.

I don’t hesitate and pull back my fist before slamming it into her face. She goes down, and I shudder at the sound of my knuckles meeting her skull. She still can’t breathe. So I drive my boot into her gut. She rolls onto her back, clutching her middle.

I tower over her and deliver the final blow, hating how a twinge of justice brews inside. As if making her hurt is warranted for making me watch her kiss Cole earlier. For taking me back to hell. For being the creature that she is.

Her nose explodes with blood and makes a gut-churning snapping sound.

Fuck me and my twisted soul for any shred of satisfaction I gain from that noise.

I truly do deserve to be in hell with my old mistress.

But then Ashe takes her first breath, and that noise has relief coursing through my veins, and any satisfaction I felt turns to nothing but bile at the back of my throat.

I tear the flesh from my wrist and press it into her mouth. She knows what’s best and drinks deeply before she shoves me away, groaning and rolling onto her front.

‘Are you alright?’ I ask.

A foolish fucking question seeing as although her broken nose is mending and the ribs I cracked are snapping back together, she’s in absolute agony. Her blood drips onto the floor, and the painful moans she releases are far more than physical pains.

‘That was… Gods… That was really her,’ she whispers, shaking her head as she struggles to fix her body. ‘It was her.Her!’

I fall to my knees, my body exhausted from the memory of my dark goddess. Even my shadows are silent. Hiding in the depths of my soul. So many shadows, all rage and death and desire.

Hiding.

To see her again. To smell that ocean of blood and hear all those pathetic, agonised cries of the sycophant souls reaching for her. It took me years to rid myself of the sights, sounds and smells of my home. And I was solely unprepared to see them again.

Ever.

Poppet Doll is still muttering her disbelief, holding herself up on all fours and shaking her head.

‘All those souls. All that blood,’ she cries.

Honestly, it takes all I have to hear her over the ringing of my ears.

She slowly looks back at me, rainfall trickling down her cheeks, watering down the blood I put there. Her pretty wedding dress is splattered and torn. The black sands of hell stain her gown. The blood from the sea soaks her skin.

And the horror of seeing the blood goddess herself has taken root in her eyes, making them look harrowed.

‘Athir,’ she whispers. ‘You saw him, too. You heard what he said? Was it true?’

All I can do is shake my head. Fuck. That revelation is one I can’t seem to process right now.

Athir. The earth god himself.

He pulled us out of hell and called Ashe his daughter.

Hisdaughter!

My ears need to stop ringing. I can’t think straight.

‘A gift,’ Ashe whispers. She sits, her skirts now soaking in the mud. ‘“Give her to me. As you swore you would.”That’s… That’s what she said. What did she mean by that, Dorian?“As you swore you would?”What did you swear to her?’

---