Page 186 of Filthy Royal

“This ends now.” His jaw clenched, so tight a muscle ticked within. “That’s the last time you ever make that request.”

“Damien—”

His mouth claimed hers. Hard. Angry. Hot.

And because it was him, because he was her everything, and this was goodbye, she rose to her tiptoes and claimed him back, her fingers threading through his hair, yanking him closer, as she poured every last bit of her need, her grief, and her love into him.

Then she ripped her mouth from his because any longer, and she’d be unable to leave. Already, the need pulsed between her thighs. “Damien—”

“Quiet.” His thumb traced along her lower lip. “Still no pain?”

“No pain,” she whispered, the dark energy radiating from him finally penetrating her own pain and panic. He might not be shouting back at her, but he was far from calm.

Rough fingers curled around her shoulders. “I get it. I left you. Now you keep threatening to leave me.”

Shock blasted through her. “You didn’t leave me. I chased you away because Darvish made me. I’m not trying to hurt you. Or get payback. I am trying toprotectyou.”

“I had my so-called reasons for staying away too. They seemed like good ones at the time.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Maybe not, but the underlying lesson is. And it’s one webothshould’ve learned by now.” Fury flared in his gaze. “There’s no excuse, no reason, good enough for the two of us not to be together.”

“I could hurt you.” She shrieked the words at him, desperate to make him understand. “Or someone else we love. Then you’d hate me. I couldn’t bear that.”

“I could never hate you, Scarlett.”

“It would destroy me if my gift brought you harm.”

“You think it would gut me any less if you walked away from me?”

Scarlett swallowed hard. She had no good answer for that.

“It took so much damned pain and misery to find our way back to each other.” He filled the silence. “But we made it, and when we’re not being chased or dealing with our families, things are good between us. Beautiful even. Are you really willing to throw that away? Throw me away?”

Her heart faltered in her chest. “I’d never do that. I wasn’t… I’d never! You mean everything to me.”

“So stay, Scarlett.” His grip tightened. “Stay and fight for us. Because you are everything to me too.”

“I’ve got so much darkness inside me, Damien. I’m nothing like I was.”

“So fucking what?” Hands still wrapped around her shoulders, he shifted her away from the wall, his movements stiff, his fury palpable, but so was his care, his touch careful.

He slid her shirt over her head, leaving her once more in nothing but her taming chain. “You are not going anywhere.”

“Damien!”

“Watch and learn.” Palm planted in the center of her chest, right over the taming chain and away from any bruises, he gently pinned her to the wall.

Eyes wide, she watched as his other hand stretched outward, the veins in his forearm bulging as his claw swiped down the wall.

She had no idea why. Even when that same, now declawed, finger smeared across the flesh of her belly, right between her hipbones, just below the links of the taming chain. His movements deliberate, his expression one of fierce concentration as he smeared the cave wall mud across her flesh.

She looked down.

M I N E

Etched in mud across her belly. Four letters. A single clear message.

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