Page 59 of Sweetheart: Part One

“Idecide what you need when I’m signed,” I said carefully. “We go from there.”

“I think Ineeda little Sweetheart revenge.”

“Not your decision,” I replied, fingers clutching the hem of my sleeves, trying so desperately to calm myself.

“I pay back ten fold what’s done to me. You humiliated me, Vex. If I sign you, this won’t be over for a while.”

I glared, knowing this was the closest I’d come to a signature yet. Alastor lurked on the other end of the bond, always.

Nothing is worse.

I looked away, stamping down my flaring temper.

“Okay.”

“Okaywhat?” he asked, reaching out and nudging my chin so I was forced to look back at him. I could see the dancing pleasure in his eyes as he watched me war with that.

“I’ll be…thiskind of Sweetheart for you,” I forced out at last.

“And you’ll tell the others that’s what you believe I need?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll hear that apology now.”

My pulse was roaring in my ears. I just had to get through this. Just had to say those two words and then it would be over.

“I’m…” I took a breath, chest catching with rage as he watched me struggle, a smirk upon his lips. He waited.

Just say it.

I could feel the last tug of Alastor’s command shoving me onward.

Just fucking say it, and everything will be over.Then you can stay here with Drake.

“I’m…sorry.”

Finally, Alastor’s command released me.

Rook grinned, then got to his feet, stepping away from me and waving his hand in dismissal. “I wasn’t all that impressed,” he said. “We go again tomorrow. Do better. Imightsign you then.”

The world around me melted away, red seeping into my vision.

I couldn’t tell whythat’swhat broke me, after months with Alastor.

I knew what I’d become. I knew I’d been crushed into something barely recognisable.

So why, after all this time, it was now that I saw her, I didn’t know. But in that moment, I saw the me that my mother would see.

A wreck.

Debased and desperate, clad in lace and grovelling for a man who was supposed to cherish me.

Rage shattered my control like a bullet through a glass wall.

I moved before he could even turn, red searing my vision. I grabbed that stupid fucking Radiant Aura trophy on his bedside table and I was out on his balcony before I heard his shout.

His aura split the air, just too late. I crashed into the edge of the balcony, flinging the trophy from it with a scream.

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