Page 107 of Filthy Royal

“Don’t tell me who I am or what I’d relish.” He leaned in close. “You. Don’t. Fucking. Know. Me. Anymore.”

A painful breath shuddered through her.

“Give me the intel I want, or we proceed.” His tone thickened with ominous promise. “And, as you already know from what happened with the prince, it won’t go well for you.”

Scarlett swallowed hard. She did know her fate.

It didn’t matter though. She couldn’t do anything that might look like she was cooperating with Damien.

Not when Darvish still had his bargaining chips. Not when he still held the lives and deaths of those she cared about in his palm.

All she could do was endure.

Shadows crept up the walls. A large clump of rock and dirt tumbled to the ground, her gift leaking out as her anger built.

“No more of that.” Damien gripped the throat chain tighter.

Scarlett bared her teeth. “I warned you what could happen.”

The walls shook harder.

She had no idea how these new abilities of hers actually worked. She hadn’t asked for her gift to alter, or to keep evolving.

Moreover, she hated what it had turned her into. She also despised the monsters it had drawn into her life.

Because it hadn’t taken much time at all to realize that, while Darvish had likely noticed her because of her connection to Damien, he’d kept her with him because of her gift’s ugly nature, a match for his own.

Her initial gift, shimmering colors she’d projected onto her skin and across the walls, had been wavelengths of light she’d manipulated without much thought.

Now she wielded the absence of color, a dark, seething storm of vibrating shadows that absorbed all her pretty colors and compressed them into something infinitely dangerous. Something that erupted from her whenever she was upset or scared or enraged: waves of dark light that weren’t always visible to the naked eye but were powerful enough to rattle walls or burn holes in reinforced crystal. Or absorb another’s life force, leaving them scorched and dead.

Thankfully, Damien had proven he was immune to it, but her gift could hurt him in other ways.

Just the thought of the danger he was in sent more rocks tumbling down. Worse, the more she tried to rein in her so-called gift, the more the walls rumbled.

Stacked supplies slid backward, smacking the wall. The chair followed. Then the other cage somersaulted through the air before crashing into the far side.

Shadows took over almost the entire wall, flickering like monstrous omens. If it had been anyone besides Damien touching her right now, she suspected they’d be dead.

His gaze followed the destruction. “You will stop that.”

“Fuck you.” Scarlett refused to admit she couldn’t control it. Refused to look weaker than she already did.

“Strike one.” He shook his head. “Time to take things up a notch.”

No, no, no.

The chain hummed as it activated.

“If you thought it was rough before, just wait.” He rubbed the links at the base of her neck, and the force of the vibrations increased tenfold.

Her nipples instantly went tight with need, rubbing against the fabric covering her breasts and tormenting her further.

Breathing in and out through her nose, Scarlett told herself she was still in control. That this time would be different from the last. This time, she’d fight the chain—just as she did the darkness—and remain immune. Give Damien nothing more. Certainly no further admissions like he was the only one who’d ever made her feel the way he did.

The last four planetary rotations hadn’t broken her. This wouldn’t either.

“Tell me about this special access you have to Darvish’s private suite in Consortium headquarters. How does it work?”

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