Chapter 16 Broken Beyond Recognition
Broken beyond recognition
KADE
I knew she’d look at me like this. I knew those emerald eyes I’m obsessed with would flood with hate and loathing, and I knew they’d make me feel wretched and unclean. I’d have done anything to spare myself this, but the blood weave twisted through me, and its pain was unbearable.
The bond between us demanded I tell Zara what she wanted to know, and even I couldn’t resist the force of its insistence. But now, as she stares at me like I’m the monster she always suspected I was, I’m sure that giving in to the blood weave was a mistake.
Her silence is worse than any insult she’s hurled at me. It cuts deeper, festering under my skin like poison. I hate her for making me feel this way, for peeling back the layers I’ve kept tightly wound and forcing me to look at what’s underneath.
But more than that, I hate myself.
The little witch has gotten under my skin and her claws won’t let me go. Their prick is sharper than any knife and I’m bleeding as surely as if she’d wounded me, and I find myself unusually unsure about who and what I am.
My magic flows through me, searing hot and relentless. Its chaos rips through my veins and it shapes me into something stronger than human. I relish its pain, delight in its strength, and revel in its thrall.
Just as I culled anyone who dared to defy me, laughing as their bodies fell, one after another.
They burned so beautifully.
Witches screamed their requiems as their magic betrayed them, turning inward to devour them alive.
It was glorious, poetic even. Some fought and a few begged, but most collapsed as their energy was stolen from them before they even realized what was happening.
I enjoyed the smell of their charred flesh and the scorched earth, thick and cloying, letting it cling to me like a second skin.
It was righteous. Necessary. The fire I brought cleansed the world and protected the order essential to maintaining the balance. It was pure and malevolent, violent and sacred, almost a duty more than a pleasure—and now she’s tainted the memory of everything I’ve done. Of everything I am.
The ghosts I’ve ignored for years return to haunt me, summoned by the tiny little witch walking beside me in silence. Zara refused to speak to me since I called her bullshit out and I can’t take the sound of her quiet condemnation any longer.
“Say something,” I snap.
My jaw ticks and I immediately regret my weakness. Showing her any sign of remorse will only encourage her. She’ll know how to hurt me and the girl won’t hesitate to use the leverage to get whatever the fuck it is she wants.
Zara doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just keeps looking at me like I’m not a man, but a nightmare she’s only just begun to comprehend.
Her heart is as blackened as mine.
Her cruelty is just as vicious, just as relentless. Just as insatiable.
“I know,” she whispers in a voice so quiet that I wonder if I heard it. “I know, Kade.”
There’s no forgiveness in her tone, no pity either.
It’s just a simple acknowledgment that I’m as evil as I claim to be and that she knows it because she recognizes herself in me.
We’re as immoral as each other and the irony of us isn’t lost on me, nor is the fact that we could have been made for each other if we weren’t so completely incompatible.
“You don’t know anything,” I growl, my words low and dangerous.
Zara’s lips twitch and they don’t form a smile, but it’s close enough that it makes my blood boil. She tilts her head and her silver hair floats over her shoulder while those damn emerald eyes glitters with an emotion far darker than disgust.
“Don’t I?” she asks. “I’ve taken more lives than I care to count and made choices that have left me drenched in blood. I know what it’s like to tell yourself it’s necessary to justify your carnage, because lying is easier than admitting to the truth.”
My chest tightens. “Which is?”
“That you wanted it,” she hisses, her voice cracking like a whip. “More than that, Kade. That you liked it.”
“And what about you, Zara?” I spit, stepping closer. Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn’t back away. “How much did you want it when you killed for your coven? When you tore apart anyone who stood in your way?”
Her silence speaks volumes, and the air between us grows heavier, crackling with the weight of more unspoken truths neither of us is willing to admit.
I watch her movements, looking for any sign she’s lying and even the subtle magic I’m using on her can’t find the slightest hint of deviousness in the witch.
“You’ve spilled as much blood as I have.” My voice turns into a rough growl. “Don’t you dare look at me like you’re fucking better than me.”
“I don’t.” Zara takes a step closer, and I want to silence her by claiming her mouth. “I’m worse, precious. I’d do it all again, Kade. Every. Last. Kill. Every. Single. One.”
I’ve underestimated her again. Her cruelty, her darkness, her depravity, doesn’t just mirror mine. It threatens to drown it.
And Gods help me, I’m not sure I mind.
She’s everything I hate. Everything I’ve been raised to hunt down and exterminate.
She’s the epitome of everything I’ve fought against, the embodiment of chaos wrapped in a deceptively beautiful package.
She’s a monster who needs to be eradicated, and I loathe her.
I despise her. I want her, and I can’t rip myself away.
Her fury doesn’t simmer, it blazes. It’s a wildfire, relentless and all-consuming, and it burns through my carefully constructed walls with ease. She’s not just my opposite; she’s my equal. My rival. My ruin.
I hate her for it.
And I’m falling for her.
I dream of wrapping my hand around her throat and throttling her, drawing out her last moments into a painfully agonizing experience.
I want her tears and her anguish, those bleak last moments when she realizes that no one’s coming to save her and there is no escape.
I want to steal her life as she’s stolen mine, and I want Zara to suffer as I’m suffering now that she has her fucking claws in me.
“I should end you,” I lie, my tone harsh and biting.
“What’s stopping you, Kade?”
Her lips twitch, and I’m dangerously close to kissing them. She dares to arch her eyebrow and I step into her space, smirking as she draws breath.
“You think you’re untouchable? You think the blood weave will save you?” I scoff, and she doesn’t flinch. “You bleed, same as every other mortal. The same as all the witches you’ve murdered.”
Zara digs her fingernail into the center of my chest, and I want to bleed for her.
This woman has me in her thrall and I know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
I’d murder thousands, destroy vast armies, and level even the most holy temple in her name, and my heart wrenches as my head realizes it isn’t the blood weave making me feel this way.
“This thing between us,” she sighs, her nail sinking into me. “It’s more than just the ebon chain. It doesn’t even feel like it’s about survival anymore. It’s even worse.”
My dick turns rock hard as the witch I despise stands on the verge of admitting she cares about me.
Gods, the thought of her wanting me has my pulse hammering in a way I can’t control.
I hate myself almost as much as I hate her as my thoughts run wild and I fantasize about how I want to fuck her.
How I’m going to fuck her and ruin her for every other man who even thinks about trying it on with her, because there sure as fuck won’t be any others after me.
“Careful, kitten,” I hiss in a voice as dangerous as it is low. “Your pussy’s already taken my cock once today. I doubt it’ll survive a second pounding.”
“Your cock’s hardly terrifying.”
“You quivered like a fucking schoolgirl. On it. Around it. At the fucking sight of it alone. On your knees and when I spread your legs and stretched that tight little cunt of yours.”
Zara dares to smirk as she shakes her head and all the darkness inside me hopes her mouth runs off with itself and seals her fate.
She is pushing her fucking luck and I’ll be teaching her a lesson that she’ll never forget if she carries on like this.
Those perfect lips twitch and my dick throbs with every movement, already straining against my zip.
“I’ve had better.”
The flush over her chest is sublime and in a moment or two, it’s going to burn a damn sight hotter. Her eyes look even greener as her cheeks glow red and those lips I’m going to claim and make bleed for me.
I move so fucking fast it even shocks me and Zara’s neck is trapped inside a headlock as I pull her hair back. Its silver shimmers and my fingers adore its silky softness, not that it’ll make me any kinder now she’s riled my temper.
“Darling,” I hiss and it sounds like a threat.
“That pretty little mouth of yours has gotten you into a world of trouble. You’ve got two choices, kitten, and neither’s pleasant.
” My dick jerks and it’ll be waiting until I’m done with her before it gets to sink into her.
“You can take your punishment like a good little girl, or you can keep pushing it and I’ll fucking break you. ”
Her legs clamp together and her weight shifts. I can smell her arousal and Zara’s getting off on threat alone. Zara is a slut for pain and her predilection for degradation is a bonus that makes her a much more interesting fucktoy.
“Choose, Zara.”
I tighten my elbow around her neck and pull her with me, finding the nearest place to sit.
Zara writhes and kicks, but she’s not nearly big enough to overpower me and I’m intrigued that she isn’t reaching for her magic.
Yet. I bet she thinks she can turn this into a pleasurable experience, and she’s about to discover how fucking wrong she is.