Page 77 of Dance with Death

I stand, whipping around the chair in a flash. My arms open for him and our bodies crash together with force.

No one protests or stops him, but naturally, he’s taking me away from them, pushing me backward as he holds me tight, walking me to the farthest wall in the room. He doesn’t stop moving until he has my back to the wall. He holds me tight, refusing to move.

My heart is pounding for no other reason than his body pressed against mine. My current and former master are in this room with no escape. Danger swirls around us like a dark cloud. But being in his arms feels like constant lightning strikes, shocking me with a relentless fire of desperate need.

“I love you,” I whisper into the side of his neck. “I love you, I love you.”

My hands slip up to catch his cheeks, and I look at him, giving him all the sadness and hurt and love and longing that’s twisted and tangled in my soul for him. His green eyes give it all back to me in equal measure and it’s how I know he’s the only man that ever would’ve been for me.

“Made for each other,” he says to me.

The perfection of his words—reflecting exactly what I’m feeling inside—crushes my heart in all the beautiful, tragic ways love ever possibly could.

Urgency washes across the reverie and he dips his head to kiss me. I hold nothing back, swiftly seeking his tongue to mingle with mine, to speak that language without words that only the two of us know. It takes only seconds to lose myself in him, to forget the world around us and drown in the pure satisfaction of his lips on mine.

But then I open my eyes and I see Vigo.

He stands just behind Ezra’s back, hardly a foot away.

It startles me to see him so close and I pull my head back too harshly, breaking our kiss. The back of my head lands with a thud against the wall behind me and my eyes narrow on the demon himself, angry with the way he so cruelly pulled me back to reality.

Ezra registers my unease, his face falling as he sees my expression. He spins around, pinning me between his back and the wall.

“Well, isn’t this a precious moment? It really is too bad that no one gives a fuck about a slave who can make love to them sweetly. We might’ve been able to sell you two as a package deal.” Vigo clicks his tongue and Ezra presses harder against me, protective in his stance. “As it were, my clients prefer something a little more extreme. So, I guess it’s time for me to take back my sad, broken little doll so I can rent her out for what she’s useful for—dark, dirty, heathen fucking.”

I gasp as I see Nikolai rush toward Vigo from behind. He reaches him quickly and drags him away by the back of his shirt. I grip Ezra’s biceps, willing him not to react and flee when all I need is him right in front of me, keeping me safe. I turn my head and rest my cheek against his back, breathing in his scent.

Nikolai drags Vigo across the room and they stop in the corner farthest from us. They speak in hushed tones, though we can hear them all the same.

“I thought you understood the terms of your contract,” Nikolai seethes. “You spent the night reviewing it with Cordelia, didn’t you? Or were you too busy fucking each other to handle business?”

“Relax,” Vigo tells him with a knowing smile. “I’m only trying to get a rise out of them.”

“Anya isnotto be shared. Have you been renting her out to your clients?”

“No, though she has had a fair number of offers since the video of her fucking that stuffed rabbit in her sweet little pigtails and blue dress. I’m losing money off the bitch by following your terms, Nikolai. You should be grateful she’s still alive.”

“How much?”

“How much?” Vigo cocks his head to the side. “How muchwhat?How much have I lost?”

Nikolai inhales a thick breath and speaks through bared teeth. “How much to buy her back?”

“What?” Ezra says and they both snap their heads to look at us.

Their tempers flare, heating their discussion.

“I’m not selling her back to you, Nikolai,” Vigo tells him. “I enjoy tormenting her far too much to give that up for money. In fact, the torment it causesyoumakes her priceless to me.” I can hear the smile in Vigo’s tone.

Cocky bastard.

“You said you’re losing money on her,” Nikolai asserts. “Sell her back and cut your losses.”

Vigo laughs. “You make it easier and easier to deny you every time you open your mouth. Every ounce of passion for her that you show me strengthens my desire to keep her and do awful,awfulthings to her. This conversation is over, Nikolai. Unless you want to go to the board and waste their time asking them to reaffirm what you already know. She isminenow. I purchased her fairly and that’s that.”

I hear the way Nikolai hisses through his teeth. “Then you can go and take her back from my slave.”

Ezra straightens to his full height and widens his stance.

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