Page 96 of The Beautiful Dead

I turned the page and started again.

The elevator dinged announcing someone’s arrival, I didn’t need to look up to know who had entered. The air pressure changed, became charged, and the temperature dropped. My hand continued to move as I lifted my gaze to meet his. Domino walked in, dragging hell in behind him.

His clothes were soaked in blood but there wasn’t a mark on him. I could smell it—copper and sweat, the thick, cloying scent of someone else’s suffering. His hands were coated in it, staining the creases of his knuckles, the ridges beneath his nails.

His eyes were wrong. Wide and wild, pupils blown, his chest was heaving like he’d run the whole way here. Like he was still running from something. I rose to my feet, taking him in, watching how his fingers twitched at his sides.

“You’re shaking,” I said.

Domino flinched. Just for a second. Then his face twisted into something sharp and dangerous. “I don’t shake,” he snarled.

I didn’t move, didn’t break eye contact as he pulled out a cigarette and flicked his lighter open. But when he tried to ignite the flame, his grip slipped. The lighter clattered to the floor. A beat of silence passed between us and stretched, the world was frozen still.

His jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. That’s when I saw them—the demons tearing through him, whispering in his ear, sinking claws into his spine as he bowed under their relentless torment.

Without a word,Domino turned on his heel and stormed down the hall, muscles wound too tight, hands still bloodstained.

I followed. My feet moved without conscious thought. “Domino?—”

“Go to bed, Remi.” His voice was raw, uneven.

I kept following, refusing to let him walk away from me. “You think you can just come home like this and not?—”

He spun to face me faster than I could blink, his hand latched around my throat, digging into the bruises that stained my skin. Pain pulsed beneath his cool fingers, zapping like lightning through my body. The world blurred as his grip tightened, and he threw me onto the bed.

My body crashed onto the bed with a vicious bounce. He followed swiftly behind me like a beast. His humanity was splitting at the seams, revealing the snarling monster beneath. He stalked up the bed, crawling on his hands and knees, body caging me in, pressing me down.

His hands shook where they pinned me. Fingers digging into my skin and leaving fresh marks that made me come alive in his presence. Drawn to him by an invisible magnetic force, the wilder he became, the more I craved him.

“This is your fault,” he rasped. Not cold. Not detached. Furious. Fractured. “You did this to me.”

I swallowed hard, staring up at him. His chest heaved, blood smeared across his skin. He was unraveling. The mask was gone. The control was gone. I had torn him apart, and I didn’t regret it.

My hand cupped his face, fingers tracing along the sharp line of his jaw, his stubble biting into my skin. He tensed beneath my touch, eyes darting between mine like he was searching for something—waiting for me to push him away.

I didn’t. I never would. Because he was mine, and I was his. We were interwoven into one another to where I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.

“Your pain is mine too,” I whispered, cupping his face and placing a feather-light kiss on his forehead.

He swallowed audibly.

I placed my other hand on his chest, over his racing heart, feeling it pound against my palm. A frantic, erratic rhythm. A war drum. A warning.

“I can bear it with you,” I whispered. My voice was steady, but inside, I was burning.

Domino’s breathing hitched, his chest rising sharply beneath my hand.

“Use me,” I said. My fingers curled into his shirt, clenching in the fabric like an anchor. The blood of his victims stained my skin, and I smiled.

“Take it out on me.”

His jaw locked, eyes dark and storming, but he didn’t move. He just watched me, gaze flickering between my mouth, my throat, the bruises he’d put there. His mark.

“Break me,” I murmured.

His fingers flexed where they still pinned me down.

“Make me into what you need.” I let my thumb brush over his lips as he released a shuddering exhale. He was wrecked. “Iloveyou.”

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