Chapter 8 Balthazar #2
Her face was unreadable—smooth, detached, utterly unfazed by the corpse at our feet. Not a flicker of surprise, not a tremor of fear. As if what she’d just witnessed was nothing more than a change in the weather.
Her brazenness stunned me.
And yet, it thrilled me.
If I were another man, I might have been repulsed. But I wasn’t.
I was enchanted.
With quiet, fluid grace, she stepped forward and took my bloodstained hand in hers. Then, without hesitation, she leaned down and licked the remaining blood from my fingers. Her tongue was warm.
I stared, transfixed.
She lacked fear. She mocked fear. And that made her dangerously irresistible.
We locked eyes, neither speaking for what felt like an eternity—just the corpse between us and the thick, pulsing heat of something unspeakable in the air.
Then she finally broke the silence, her voice a sultry murmur.
“Tell me, my beloved,” she purred. “Why did you kill her?”
Her gaze burned into me, demanding truth. And I wished—truly wished I had an answer. I thought I’d done it to assert dominance. To make her fear me. Submit.
But now?
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I was suspended in a haze of rage, lust, confusion… and need.
She must have sensed it. Without waiting for my reply, she leaned in and pressed her mouth to my cheek, gently lapping at the stray drops of blood that clung to my skin. The gesture was so strange—so intimate—it disarmed me completely.
She, oddly, soothed the firestorm inside me. Her touch quieted the madness, even as it stoked my arousal.
“Did she hurt you?” she asked softly.
I shook my head, mechanically. I didn’t know if I were answering the question or reacting to her—this goddess, this creature who made chaos feel like comfort.
But the calm she gave me—it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t right.
This hadn’t gone the way I’d planned.
She was supposed to break.
Instead, she stood tall. Proud. Unshaken.
Still in control.
And I couldn’t have that.
The rage returned like a flame to dry tinder. In one swift motion, I grabbed her by the throat and shoved her back, bending her over the lifeless body at our feet.
The air between us vibrated with tension, strung taut by a fragile cord of fear.
I towered over Alina’s petite form, her long auburn curls cascading over her shoulders like wildfire.
Her eyes were wide, not with innocence but with something close to terror as my grip tightened around her delicate neck.
“What are you playing at?” I growled, my voice dark and curling like smoke around her ears. “You think you can tease me like this? You should fear me.”
I leaned in, pressing my face to hers. My lips grazed the edge of her cheek, hot breath mingling with hers.
“I killed a woman like a brute. I’m a monster. And yet… you’re licking blood from my fingers?”
The grip around her throat tightened. Her lips moved, but no sound came—just a rasping gasp. Her wide eyes bore into mine, glassy with adrenaline. I held her there, suspended on the edge between pain and pleasure, control and surrender.
And then I released her.
She stumbled back, coughing, dragging in a ragged breath. Her long skirt swept through the blood gathering at her feet as she stepped away from the corpse.
“You need to stop tormenting me,” I barked, though my voice cracked with something more than rage. “Your games will get you nowhere. Remember who’s in control here.”
I wiped my brow with my hand, the anger still simmering beneath the surface. “Alina, you’re driving me insane.”
But then she grinned.
That same wild, wicked smile that haunted my nights.
“You’re so powerful when you unleash your monstrous self, Balthazar,” she purred. “It takes my breath away.”
The air around us seemed to hum, as though the universe held its breath. She was magnetic, charged with something ancient and untamed. I expected her to shy away from the chaos, to shrink from the monster I’d become.
But she didn’t.
She looked at me like she craved the monster. Like she understood him.
I was hard now, my arousal undeniable, throbbing in time with the madness pounding through my veins. And she sensed it—of course she did. Her cheeks flushed, her body leaning into mine, warm and pliant. She melted against me, as if welcoming the darkness I tried so hard to control.
She had inherited power from her father. But mine? Mine was something darker. Worse.
And yet… she wanted it.
I couldn’t resist her anymore.
With a quick gesture, I tore a rift through the air—a swirling vortex of shadows that howled like the void. The fabric of reality bent to my will, cracking open in a spiral of black winds.
“Come,” I said.
Alina shrieked as the vortex snatched her, lifting her into its whirling arms. Her body spun weightless, suspended in an otherworldly embrace. I stepped in behind her, and in a blink, we were gone.
We emerged at my estate—vast, ancient, and alive with darkness.
The winds died as we stepped through the veil, the last threads of the vortex curling into nothingness. Alina staggered, quivering with adrenaline and awe, eyes wide as she took in our surroundings.
And then she crumpled into my arms, gasping, overwhelmed, her heart pounding like a war drum in her chest.
I held her close.
And at that moment, I knew she would never be the same again.