Page 121 of Red Ruin

I sense her. Deep underground.

My fists light up as I attack a crack between the floor stones.

Rock by fucking rock, I tear through the ground.

My knuckles bleed, burn, rip their scabs, then bleed some more.

I can’t feel pain when I’m heading to her.

My wife.

My firefly.

My blissful fucking doom.

I grin through showers of fire and rock shards, digging closer to hell where I belong.

I can’t rip out my own fang.

Nothing’s stopping me from ripping out Azrid’s.

CHAPTER32

IRIS

Winking only takes a breath.

When the shadows unfold, I’m lying on my back in a vampire’s four-post bed.

Candlelight glitters off the flickering, red-and-black eyes of the Sentinel braced above me.

The sheets rub satiny against my bare back while Remy’s uniform pants drag roughly between my legs.

My shirt didn’t survive the jump.

I scowl up at him, wearing nothing but my boring, white bra. “Do you always solve your arguments by running away?”

Hello, hypocrisy, it’s me again.

“Argument? No.” Remy drags his nose along my jugular. His breath tickles my throat. “You can’t argue with a single-celled organism.”

“Remington,” I say sharply.

“Hmm?”

I fist the lush, dark hair that I still owe a hack job as I yank him off my throat. “What in thestarry hellare you thinking?”

I can feel Remy churning out fully human thoughts. There’s no excuse for ditching Vhex again.

His eyes spin with vampiric thrall. “Let me show you what I’m?—”

“No. You canlisten.” I pinch the bridge of his nose to stop him from biting, nuzzling, or drawling that dark, musical voice that makes me want to offer him my veins. “I’ll play games with the monster, but when you’re lucid, I’m the ringleader of this circus.”

“I’m the major,” he says, nasally with his nose pinched.

“I’m the major.” I pinch harder. “You abandoned your post.”

“Ah. Yes. That is preferable.” Remy snakes his arms around my sides and hyper-fast rolls us across the bed.

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