Page 62 of Marriage of Revenge

Like a dancer to music.

Like a heart to the blade that will end it.

His jaw tightens - that tiny tell that says he's fighting pain. Something in my chest twists, and my fingers ache to touch him. To learn the topology of his scars like I used to learn choreography, to map every inch of damaged flesh until memory becomes touch becomes healing. The need burns hotter than chemo ever did, this urge to trace his wounds with fingertips, with lips, with whatever it takes to make him feel whole.

He lifts his hand, beckoning me closer like he used to motion me to the piano. The air between us carries more voltage than those machines that used to monitor my heart - all that history, all that hurt, all that want we can't kill.

My feet carry me to his bed while my pulse performs its own dangerous dance. This close, I can read the storm in his eyes - pain and rage and hunger swirling like the cocktail of drugs they used to pump through my veins. But there's something else there too, something that looks dangerously like desire.

His hand finds my neck, pulling me down into a kiss that steals breath like bad news. The moment our lips touch, electricity shoots through me sharper than any treatment ever hit. A moan escapes before I can catch it, and heat floods my skin like fever.

His mouth claims mine with desperate hunger, but there's something else there - a softness he can't quite hide, like those moments between music and movement when everything aligns perfectly. He kisses me like he's trying to burn away our past and forge something new in the flames. It's destruction and creation all at once, leaving me dizzy with possibilities I shouldn't want.

My heart forgets every warning my doctors ever gave it, racing toward whatever this is - redemption or ruin, I'm not sure which would hurt more.

When we part, his breath ghosts across my lips like a dark promise. "So, Bell'cenda," he growls, and that nickname does things to me that no threat ever could. "Already planning my murder?"

The words vibrate through me like music before a fall, like danger wrapped in desire.

My heart pounds against my ribs - not from fear, but from wanting things I shouldn't.

Because how do you tell the man you might have to kill that his kiss makes you forget about revenge and reality? That it makes you want to dance with the devil himself?

CHAPTER 31—ANTONIO

"How will you doit?" I press, but she just stares at me - confusion dancing with something that looks too much like guilt in those eyes that haunt my dreams.

And fuck if I don't want to kiss her again, to taste that guilt on her tongue. To make her forget whatever poison her father's planning.

My side screams where Henrik's blade tried to write my ending, but that pain's nothing compared to the hunger clawing through my veins. Raw need that doesn't care about plots or plans or the fact that she might be here to kill me. All that matters is making her understand - she's mine. Has been since before flames rewrote our story.

I drag her back to me, rough enough to prove I'm not dead yet. Her honeysuckle scent hits like expensive whiskey, like memories I can't burn away. No more games, no more pretty lies between us. Just this - my mouth claiming hers like territory,my tongue demanding answers she won't speak. She tastes like danger and desire, like every dark thought that kept me alive through fire.

When she moans into my mouth, something primitive roars to life inside me. Beast recognizing prey, or maybe recognizing its match. Because even if she's here to kill me, even if this is just another performance, that sound is real.

As real as the scars that mark us both.

My hands find skin beneath silk, soft enough to make my callused fingers feel like weapons. But she yields to my touch like she was made for it. When I bite her lip, she doesn't fight - she surrenders, head falling back to bare her throat. An offering I claim with teeth and tongue, marking territory everyone else just borrows.

"Feel what you do to me?" My voice comes out like gravel and sin against her pulse. "How fucking hard I am for you?" Truth burns between us like acid, like need too raw to hide.

She's straddling me now, every shift of her body sending fire through my veins. The sound she makes - half plea, half surrender - drives me wild. This is her power, her poison: making me forget about revenge, about scars, about everything but the way she moves against me.

I'm about to flip her underneath me, show her exactly who she belongs to, when Cerberus' bark shatters the moment. Reality crashes back like cold water, like remembered betrayal.

The world outside still exists.

The game still needs playing.

But god, her taste lingers on my tongue like sweet violence.

For one heartbeat, I'm tempted to ignore everything but her body against mine. Send her back to Daddy dearest with my marks on her skin, proof that his perfect princess belongs to the Beast now.

But I wait. Because this isn't just about claiming flesh - it's about breaking walls, about making her surrender more than just her body.

"You didn't answer me," I growl, watching color flood her cheeks. That scar peeking through her shirt makes my fingers itch - what stories has she collected while I was burning my way back to her? I brush her cheek with my lips and whisper in her ear, "How. Are. You. Going. To. Murder. Me?"

And then I lean back, watching her again.

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