Page 105 of Vengeance Becomes Her

“So, we take more time. Train more,” Kyra insisted.

“There is no time. It will come for me. Soon.” She took the glimmer of fear rising in Samara’s eyes as an opportunity. “It doesn’t make you a coward to leave. This isn’t what we agreed to. Think ofyour families.”

“Have you thought of yours?” Tristain pushed off the wall, crowding her space.

“That’s not fair.” She raised her chin. “I always knew this would likely end in my death, evenif you didn’t.”

“Why are you so eager to die?” His voice broke with frustration.

Rhiannon shifted her gaze to Kyra and Samara who promptly left them alone.

When the door shut, she laced her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging his head back roughly to expose his throat.

“I’m not. But I can’t live if that evil exists in the world.” She tightened her grip in his hair forcing him to meet her gaze. To finally see her pain. See the truth he’d been desperately outrunning.

“It’s time to admit you’re going to lose me one way or another.”

“Ican’t do that.”

“You can and you will. For both our sakes.”

He reached back, tugging her hands away. And then he just stared at her. Chest heaving. Eyes heavy. Lips parted.

Her heart was pounding in her chest under that gaze. It was dangerous. His desperation for her made her want to live. She didn’t allow herself to move, afraid of what she was going to do.

“I hate you.” The words dissolved in the space between them when he reached up and caressed his thumb against her lips.

“Hate me. Love me. Break me. I’m yours whether you want to accept it or not.”

“That’s not how it should be.”

“It’s love.” He shrugged, defeated. His eyes slowly moved across her face as if he were memorizing her features. Every flutter of her lashes. The sweep of her cupid’s bow. The fullness of her cheeks that rose into a smile most often for him. She could see his thoughts plainly across his features.

He was preparing to lose her. Not let her go. But to choose himself if she was going to be ripped away from him by their circumstances.

Seeing his acceptance tore her heart out just as well as if fate had shoved its hand in her chest, claws shredding, squeezing the muscle mercilessly in its clenched fist, stealing the last of her life.

She wavered. Shifting forward with just the slightest movement.

It was the excuse he was looking for.

His lips devoured hers. Prying her mouth open, consuming her as if they were sharing oxygen to make it through these last moments. They were dying. This was death. The death of everything they had. The death of everything they could’ve had if everything had been different. If death hadn’t started it all for them.

His grip was hard. His touch persistent. She’d sentenced them to this fate, and he was punishing her for that.

She was shaking. Whether it was with grief or need she couldn’t tell. She leaned away as much as she could in his grasp. “You will break whatever is left of me.”

“Then we’ll be even.”

He hit his mark, shattering her defenses. She was begging him to destroy her as she peered up at him through blurry, tear-thickened lashes.

He only shook his head slowly as tears welled in his eyes. And then he sealed their fate with a sweltering kiss that nearly knocked her off her feet. He’d decided to damn them both. But it was his choice and that was what mattered to her.

The salty mixture of their tears broke past her lips as she granted his tongue entrance once again. His hands made their way to the top of her thighs, lifting and shoving her back onto the bed.

She leaned onto her elbows, ensuring she had his attention. “Tristain, I want you to hurt me.” She wanted her pain to be tangible. She wanted to regret ever starting this.

“Shhh, beautiful.” He straddled her, pulling her blouse above her head along with his own. “I know what you need. Let me give it to you.”

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