67. The Stranger
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The Stranger
S ummer leaves the boy’s apartment to find me standing in her path. My avatar shakes with rage, and the wind whips around us.
“Back off!” she snarls in the face of my anger, unconcerned with my thunderous rage.
She dares to order me ? Me? As if I’m not already struggling not to snuff out the boy’s life?
I could touch him with my hand and nothing would remain but dust, not even enough to put into an urn to remember him by.
I solidify my avatar in front of her, and she slams into my chest as she tries to stalk past me, gasping at the force of the collision.
“You dare ?” I snarl into her face. “You enjoy pretending he’s more than a speck of dust in that wall you’re trying to build between us.
He won’t ever be what you truly wish he were.
” She tries to pull away but I grab her arms, yanking her back, hurling the words she is running from at her. “He won’t ever be me.”
Her eyes flash with defiance. “You sure you want to be this close? While I’m covered in his scent, his sweat? Maybe his cum is dripping out of me right now?—”
Summer’s words end in a yelp as I open a portal and hurl her through. I catch her on the other side and slam her back against the wall of my bedroom, rage making my vision cloudy. “Do take care what you’re provoking.”
Who you’re provoking.
She groans at hitting the wall, but her eyes still spark with challenge and anger, stoking my rage further and risking my already tenuous hold on my control.
“Let’s make one thing clear,” I purr dangerously. “They are all distractions for you. Because you hate how much they’re not me.”
“Do you want to hear about it?” she mocks. “How I slammed my lips to his the second he opened the door? About how incredible his hands felt on me? About how he slowly pulled his shirt off? About how big his cock?—”
My hand circles her throat and squeezes. “How you went there because I was unavailable to fuck you as you truly need?”
Slamming through the mental walls she’s spent the last weeks building, I send her impressions of all the ways I’d fuck her.
Images of collars and crops, of her begging for release, teasing, and pain mixed with pleasure.
Her pulse hammers wildly against my palm, her breath becoming more unsteady, even without me tightening my grip.
When I slowly withdraw from her mind, her eyes are black.
I know that if I slide my hand to cup her cunt right now, I’ll find her drenched, and we both know it.
“I will never want you,” she lies. It’s as easy as breathing to her at this point.
“Tell that to someone who can’t feel the way your pulse jumps and pounds when I have my hand around your throat,” I scoff, flexing my fingers.
“And how much faster it goes when I’m close to taking every breath from your lungs.
” Her lips part, and we both know it is an invitation.
“Or who sees the way your eyes darken when I do. The way your body responds. The way it craves this.”
“I—” Her breath hitches, and not from my hold.
“Don’t bother wasting your breath on another lie, or I’ll just take it from you.” I move closer, my lips hovering over hers. “Your lies are nothing next to your truth. The truth that your body screams and your eyes reveal.”
“What do you want from me?” she whispers, and it’s not jagged and sharp like her lies. No, this is a genuine question. A true entreaty. It doesn’t matter.
“I don’t want anything. I’ll take it. Soon.”
Her eyes flash with renewed anger, and I see her power rise in defense, no doubt hoping to enforce her will upon me.
You’ll have to train much harder to accomplish such a feat, little fae.
Outside of the moments when her power surprised me or took me off guard, she hasn’t successfully matched my ability.
“I want to go home. Now.”
Fine.
I open the portal at her back, letting her fall onto her bed when the support vanishes. She bounces slightly and looks up at me and the portal. I snap it shut before I destroy it with my simmering rage.