Page 69 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

“Why are you so infatuated with me? I don’t think it’s my ability to wield your magic that captivates you. It’s the fact that I can’t be bribed or corrupted, isn’t it? You couldn’t tempt my mom to the dark side, and you see me as a second chance at that because bending strong people to your sick will is what gets you off.”

A single, dark brow hiked high on his forehead. “You’re declining my offer? Is that your final answer?”

“Of course, it’s my final answer. I’ll die before I let you lay a single, decrepit finger on Julian again! And I know you know that’s his true name. You kept it from him all those years because your priority was never his feelings or his heart. All you want to do is possess. Dominate. Break. You don’t love him. You know what I think? I think you loved my mother. In your evil, twisted way, you loved her. And you despise that fact. Why? Maybe I’ll never know. But you let her get away. And now you’re obsessed with owning people with even a shred of love in their hearts because it’s the only thing your money and your power can’t buy.”

I was so numb, I couldn’t feel my mouth peel into a poison-dipped glower, but I could see it reflected in his grave-dark eyes. “So take your deal and shove it. I’d rather stick hot stakes in my eyes than bow to you.”

He laughed.

He fucking laughed. The booming sound was so shuddering, it shook the ground beneath us. The old-school bad guy music grew so loud, my eardrums split. Blood oozed down my temples. The flames stretched higher as if someone had tossed gas on them.

“I can make that happen.”

He lifted my hand over my head and spun me. I twirled, my dress fanning out at my knees and my head rocking like a vessel at sea. My rear slammed into something unforgivably hard.

My hands shot out to steady myself, and I realized it wasn’t a piece of library furniture.

It was Eros’ torture bench.

I barely had time to register that the flames filling my vision were now coming from the furnace in Eros’ den. The king had shifted the scene and had transported me to a different place. Sterling was nowhere in sight.

Before I could do or say anything else, Eros came out of nowhere, shirtless and covered in blood. For a sliver of a moment, my heart lifted with relief and then dropped to the pit of my stomach like a sinking stone.

This wasn’t Deathwish. This was a nightmare wearing his face.

My father’s eyes, as black as night, glowered at me from the illusion he held to appear as the coven’s torture master. He shoved me against the bench, clutching a metal stake in his hand, the tip glowing a maleficent, molten yellow. He held it so close to my eye that I could feel its deadly heat.

A manic grin split his face, his facial piercings gleaming in the furnace flame.

“Hot stakes, you say? I can make that happen. You wouldn’t be the first of my possessions that I’ve blinded.”

Chapter thirty

From Hell and Back

Heatrolledoffthestake’s smoldering tip, licking at my cornea with its scalding kiss and evaporated the tears whelming in my right eye. I barely twitched, and an eyelash sizzled, the scent of burning hair filling my nostrils a second later.

“Aw, don’t weep, little gem,” my father crooned, Eros’ face screwing up into an expression he’d never worn. Not in front of me. “I’m only jesting. We’ll have to wait for us to be face to face before I can physically harm you. Here, you’ll only know the pain of the wound… Consider it a small sampling of what’s to come.”

Eros’ body pressed into me as the illusion pushed me backward, my spine bowing over the edge of the workbench. I could feel every damn inch of him cutting into me from the contour of his corded abs to the jab of his hip bones.

Being this close to Eros always hurt. But never like this.

There was no pleasure here. And there was definitely no promise of reprieve if I screamed for mercy.

I wouldn’t give the vampire king the satisfaction.

Because this wasn’t him. It wasn’t real. This was just one big, twisted distraction to freak me out so my demented father could keep the upper hand.

He leaned into me, bringing the stake down to penetrate my eye socket. The vampire king’s jaw flexed, causing Eros’ beard to twitch. “If you won’t sit beside me as princess, then it’s true death for you. But I won’t make your death quick. No. The time for that is gone. You steal my mate, yet I summon the magnanimity to not only forgive you and allow you to live, but to offer you a place on my council and keep one of your mates for yourself. And yet, you still dare to deny me. Now you must suffer my full wrath.”

My hands shot up to catch his wrist, the stake’s needled tip barely a paper’s width away from my eye. I threw every iota of strength I had into holding him off while my spine bowed backward over the torture bench. A vein throbbed in his temple. His fangs gnashed as he fought me harder, and his eyes flared with untethered violence.

“Yieldto me, damn you!”

“Fuck you!”

I drove my knee into his groin, not expecting him to so much as flinch. It didn’t hurt him, but he did stagger for just a moment. Long enough for me to grab another stake from the rack mounted over my head, the one I specifically knew was silver.

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