Page 48 of Ink Deep Devotion

“Mila?” Damian shouts.

“Please hurry,” I whisper as I take a few steps back.

“You made a fool of me, Mila.” Dom shakes his head.“I can’t have that. Not when I take over from my father. We could have been perfect. I want you to know that before you die.”

Any sign of obsession he had for me vanishes.“Run!” He purrs as he pushes off the car and begins to round it with that dirty bloody knife aimed directly at my beating heart.

Chapter 17

Mila

“N…no.” I chatter, trying to raise my voice through my rapid inhales. My senses are bombarded by the scent of pine, car fluids, burnt rubber, and my anxieties, leaving me feeling trapped and overwhelmed, as if I’m wearing a thick rubber raincoat on a scorching hot day.

I look around. I’m going to die alone.

Sure, Dom will be here;he’sgoing to kill me, but I’ll be utterly alone. Denied holding the hand of the person I love. Rejected from the ability to look into the eyes of my love one last time.

Dom tilts his head, pausing halfway around the car, which now begins to smoke from the engine. A new smell of oil begins to choke the forest air.“Excuse me?” he repeats, dumbfounded as the smoke begins to float around his face, making the atmosphere more menacing.

I attempt to swallow, dragging my tongue against my palate in search of saliva, but it feels like I’m tasting rough, unpolished concrete. My anxiety is dominating every ounce I have.

“Mila,” Damian shouts through the phone.Oh, I forgot about the phone in my hand.“I’m tracking the phone, and we’re close. Ten minutes out. Hang on. Titan drive faster!” He whispers the last, knowing it will suffocate the little hope and confidence I have.

Ten minutes? That’s an eternity.

“I don’t have ten minutes.” I choke on a whisper.“Tell Dash I love him,” I say, then hang up, allowing the phone to clatter to the forest ground. Dash doesn’t need to hear my final moments, nor have it haunt him.

My poor broken prince. I wish we could have escaped together. Life would have been so lovely, like a fairytale. At last, we all must wake up.

I squint with a menacing expression, hoping it will distract from my quivering bottom lip and the tears forming in my eyes.“N…no.” I’m not running!“Why would I give you what you want?”

Leaning closer, his nostrils flare open wide like the wings of a dragon summoning its fire to incinerate me.“Run, or I’ll make it slow and painful.”

Coldness crawls up my legs, momentarily lessening my fear.“You’d do that anyway.”

He eyes me critically, then nods in approval.“I see what the King does.” He smirks hungrily.“You hide it so well, but underneath all those broken layers is a queen.” He looks at the knife and then presses his index finger along the blade as if he can make Blazes’s dried blood fresh again.

Hunger oozes out from Dom’s eyes like a plague, strangling everything in its path.“It’s too bad you’ll never sit on a throne.” Eyes lock with mine, shattering my mask of false confidence.

Ten minutes.

Hope dangles in front of me, but it’s fruitless. I feel like all my life, I’ve been thirsty; I struggled to dig a well so I could drink and taste something. Then I reached water. I found Dash, drank down a twisted love, but it was love nonetheless.

Yet as soon as I found water, it started to pour down on me from above, as if god himself was laughing at me.

“Your father’s dead,” Dom states. He braces himself, thighs locking, biceps bulging, ready to hunt me.

Every letter pierces me like a thorn under a fingernail. I shake my head, but Dom nods.“My dad was going to ambush him after his doctor’s appointment.”

My forehead wrinkles.

Dom chuckles,“Oh, by the way, did your dad tell you he had cancer?”

What?!My chest caves in.

Dom shrugs.“In reality, my dad did him a favor. He’s dying anyway, so I might as well speed up the process.”

“You..you’re lying.”

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