19. Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
‘Lias
Eye contact with Kate feels like I’m signing my death warrant. Maybe I am. Fortunately for me, she won’t be the one who finally turns me over to my maker and cashes in on the bounty. Like every other time we have gone toe to toe, things end in a stalemate. This day won’t be any different.
Five years I’ve spent five years with this woman—watching, learning, adapting to the unhinged things that come from the beings beneath her battle-born skin. From the first night she attacked me to today, I’ve absorbed all she’s thrown at me.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, prepares you for what the hell happens in situations like this.
Years in the military fly out of the window when you’re faced with the need to ensure someone else’s safety while also keeping yourself alive.
When she launches at me, I have to do both of those with no fucking time to think.
With the finesse of a dock worker, Sadie winds the plastic tubing around my neck as if she’s mooring me to a pier in the midst of a hurricane. Amidst the urge to vomit and the newfound panic of a rubber noose, I scramble for the line and pull at it.
She yanks, I choke and thrash. Wrenching me left and right, up to the edge that begins to drag my vision away from any sort of light.
A breath aches to be expelled and replaced with new oxygen.
My vision blurs at the edges, hands still struggling to get a good grip on the too-sleek line as it compresses from the way Sadie keeps pulling at it.
The fight has winded me; pair that with the asphyxiation, and I’m ready to throw in the towel.
Watching the wild creature struggle for control, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t break my heart to see her this way. Young and all twisted up on the inside, where no one can really reach in and break the knot she’s wound-up in. Damaged in a way that may never be repairable.
“I got you,” I murmur, even if her feral sounds drown out my whisper. “Please don’t hate me.”
Leaning up, I look over her disheveled bed and shout.
“HELP!!!!!!”
She has the same dead glare in her eye she had that night.
Nothing matters to her—only destruction.
I’ve come across a few men like Kate, determined to burn the world to ash, and like them she will fail.
Especially since she’s invading the only part of this existence that matters to me—a flagrant act of war.
Finally, our silent rivalry comes to a head when she snaps at me with Sadie’s pearly teeth.
Stepping into her, my hand slaps over her mouth as the other controls her scarred wrists.
The enamel of her teeth shreds the rougher pads of my fingers and palms. The pain smarts, making me want to jerk away from her when she slices through the calluses down to the raw meat underneath.
Lifting her and taking away her ability to run, I haul her across the soft carpet stretching through her bedroom.
Brutally, I slam her against the long waist-high dresser she has opposite of the bed, trinkets and unattached items rattle then topple onto their sides.
The impact is loud, shoving the sturdy wood off its front feet where it crushes dents into the wall behind.
Her body pins my hand, pinching a sliver of skin between the harsh jutting bones of her hips and the unforgiving surface.
Yanking back, she takes her window of opportunity—always fucking ready to get even.
One knee to the gut, surging under my ribs, knocks the air out of me.
My hand falls from her mouth, hitting the top of the dresser where I catch and brace myself over her.
My momentum keeps me going as I hook that arm and hand under her knee and throw her to the side where she tumbles off the dresser's ledge. Neither one of us is finished when we reach for the other, but she’s quick to retaliate with a kick.
I catch her ankle and drag her further into the middle of the bedroom.
Kate jerks, twisting onto her side where she digs for traction.
But I hate it for her; she’s coming with me and we’re having the rest of the conversation that’s been clawing at her throat for years.
Rearing back, she kicks again and I’d be a liar if I said the scrape of her boot up the front of my arm doesn’t hurt like hell. Pretty sure she pulled skin up with it. The hairs are toast, blood gathers below the torn flesh, but I’ll deal with it later—always fixing the things this devil fucks up.
Just through the door, leading into the open floor plan, she grabs the frame and holds on for dear life.
She’s strong—I can see the muscles in her arms flexing beneath the skin in sickening waves of power and refusal.
Won’t do her any good; I’ll get her out of this damn room if it’s the last thing I do.
Capturing her opposite leg, I lift until her hips leave the floor. Her spine and shoulder blades are the only things bracing her when I yank to the side, spin her, and break her death grip. All while she shouts and snarls like a fucking animal.
Struggling to find something else to keep me from heaving her around like a damn ragdoll, she latches onto a side table with some random fake-ass plant and hurls it at me.
The vase shatters into pieces when it crashes on the hard floor, skittering in a hundred directions that will have our feet scared of finding a shard in the middle of the night.
Far enough from furniture, I let her go with an unapologetic thud and take a few steps back.
This bitch is itching for it—a showdown where we rip into one another to claim Sadie for ourselves.
I’m a man of my word. I swore I’d do whatever it took to keep her safe, even if it means hurting her to get to Kate.
On her feet in two seconds flat, she doesn’t hesitate to catapult at me—stepping on the broken pieces of ceramic in the process.
Stabbing her shoulder into my gut, her hands drop to the back of my knees. The same strength that kept her from moving past the door a few moments ago is now aimed at the sensitive ditches of my legs. Once her nails dig in, she yanks then shoves forward, tackling me to the floor.
Something breaks when I land, either my bones or the marble, but there’s no time to assess.
Swinging my legs, I sweep her feet out from under her and sit up fast enough my blood pressure jumps and bursts across my vision.
Bitch tries to scamper away, but I’m not done.
Snatching her shirt, it rips at the seam when I pull her down to me.
Before she lands, she swings and misses.
After getting hit in the maw twice, I’ve finally learned to stop sticking around just to see where it lands.
The second she rears back, a trend I’ve noticed, I know she’s coming for her money shot.
Of her few rounds of training—learning to fight invisible forces—she never once figured out how to conserve energy and fight smart.
This is what she knows—swing, hit, recoil, repeat—and it will be her downfall.
Huffing, she’s winded, but it’s not enough. I want her weakened with arms too tired to keep their momentum and legs heavy where she won’t mule kick me again.
Conditioned for holding out while my opponent uses the limited energy they have, I take several more strikes to the back of my forearms, as they cover my face and head.
Half rolling to the right, then the left, I displace her weight and the force behind her swings.
It doesn’t stop the strikes from hurting, especially when it feels like she’s purposefully aiming for the bones, but protects me from her angry fists.
“That’s all you got?” I snap, goading her.
The wild thing hisses at me, long gone are the words she aimed for the tender meat under my skin—guess we’re back to primitive forms of communication.
Bucking up to her, she falls forward, slamming her chest into my nose, instantly blurring my vision with nerve-angry tears.
Before the sting can dissipate, my arms bind around her waist and chuck her again.
I roll with her until I’m on top and she scurries to find a new hold.
Instead of fists, I meet swinging claws as her face contorts with unbridled hatred—how dare I.
Distracted by her flailing, I miss it when she snaps a hand downward and grabs a fistful of my junk, crushing it like she’s trying to pop off the tip.
“Fuck!”
Slap.
S—shit.
Stunned, red blooms across her face. My own wild and startled eyes stare down at her with regret.
She’s not Sadie, she’s not Sadie, she’s not Sadie.
Shit…FUCK.
Her hand dropped immediately; then, in the midst of my panic, she bucks like I had done to her. To the left she twists, her hands press to the top of my knee then she jerks her lower body along the floor and escapes from where my legs have bracketed her hips.
I let her go—there’s no need to chase after her when she’ll rear back around like the fucking snake she is.
Still on my knees, I watch her stand and shut my eyes when her hand cracks across my face in retaliation. It bites, heat blisters soon after I jerk to the right. In the corners of my mouth, blood begins to pool, my lip having split wide from the slap.
Kate gives me no time to recover before her punch-reddened fists tangle in my hair. Sharp stings pry at the unsuspecting roots from the way she rips my head back. The leverage forcing me to face the anger in her eyes.
She’s in there, deep inside Kate’s blackened irises. Shame and confusion buried beneath the shock and red splotchy skin of her cheek.
Terrified to reach, speak, or beg for forgiveness that may fall upon deaf ears, I stay kneeling at her feet. Prepared to grovel, kiss her delicate toes like the fool I am, worship the ground she walks on—whatever it takes to pay for my sins.