“I’ve got you. Always. You know that right?”
She nodded. I threaded my fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck and brought her lips to mine. She moaned as I swiped my tongue against hers.
“There is nothing in all the worlds I wouldn’t do for you, little imposter. For this life, for all our future lives, I will protect you. Let me show you what I should have done all along.”
Breaking away, I captured her burgundy eyes with mine.
“Do your worst,” she whispered, a small smile tugging at her lips.
“There’s my girl,” I growled, crushing her against me again. Desire surged through me as she slid into my lap. I groaned as she ground against me. “Later. There’s something I need to do first.”
Wielding every ounce of my self restraint, I rose. “Come,” I said, grasping her hand. With the other, I grabbed my sword. Together, we exited the office. But I let her lead the way through the place she called home for eight years too long.
She paused at the precipice of the kitchen, her breath hitching. “Here’s where I was standing…”
She trailed off, a mix of anxiety and rage searing our bond. I wanted to coax more of her fire out. With me here now, she had nothing to fear. But there was always something about returning to the place of abuse that brought old pieces of ourselves to the surface.
“Tell me everything. Every last fucking detail. So that when we go outside, I extract every bit of vengeance you are owed.”
Assyria tilted her head to look up at me. I let her see how deadly serious I was.
Embers blazed to life in her eyes.
There. That was what I wanted to fucking see.
“He’d hurt Olrus,” she said through gritted teeth. “My only friend was crumpled and bloody at his feet.”
She strode forward, past a stove and toward a counter. “Here’s where I grabbed the meat mallet when he tried to pull me into him. When he hiked up my skirts to–” She cut herself off, and I curled my fingers into my fist at what she didn’t say but I deeply knew.
It was not my moment to express my rage. It was all hers.
So I waited as she continued describing the last moments of her abusive husband’s life.
“It was an accident. I reacted on instinct. I swung,” she demonstrated exactly how it had happened, “and he went down.”
Assyria stared at the knots in the wood planks like she could still see Vagach’s lifeless body.
“I was terrified. And so relieved. I could hardly think straight for the swell of emotion inside me.”
Finally, she met my gaze again. “I don’t regret a single thing, though. Everything put me on a path straight to you.”
My eyes burned. I blinked rapidly as she approached me, her words like a knife dug between my ribs. Never did I show emotion. Never did I feel before her.
But to hear her express that…
It did things to me.
“Fuck, I love you, Assyria,” I groaned, eating up the space between us and wrapping her in my arms.
She squeezed me back just as hard.
Finally, when I released her, she took me on a tour of the rest of the home. The bedroom where Vagach and Priestess Anara had forced her to lie still and accept his abuse. The halls where he’d beaten her to a pulp. The prayer room where she’d been locked countless times until he was satisfied she’d repented enough of her “sins” so she could bear him a child.
By the time we returned to the kitchen, I could scarcely contain my fury.
“I’m glad they renovated and changed so much,” Assyria murmured as she opened the door to the sprawling gardens. “Evidence of his existence needs to be erased.”
“Aye,” I agreed.
The plants blurred by me as we approached the rear of the property. A pile of dirt waited for us, signaling the freshly-exumed grave.
I appreciated the Vaxen had seen to it, because I wasn’t certain I possessed the patience to dig myself for how thoroughly I needed to punch something.
The smell of rotted flesh hit my nostrils, pungent and unmistakable. Decades of fighting tended to have that effect. And it had been so long since I’d been on a battlefield.
This would be better than any I’d experienced before.
Rounding the mound, I found a pile of bones and sagging flesh at the bottom of a grave. I’d seen the Kormánzó on numerous occasions, and even in death, he still bore that haughty sneer.
I released Assyria, dragging in a deep breath.
Dropped to a single knee.
Curled my fingers into a fist.
And smashed.
Black rolled out of me, the cloud flooding the hole and wrapping around the corpse. With a vicious yank, I tore his body upward, rising to meet it.
I towered over death.
The Reaper quaked for my fury.
Assyria stepped back, dark delight gleaming in her eyes. Lust flooded our bond. I drank it in like the finest scale.
Shadow swirling in a frenzy around us, I drew my sword. Vagach’s body lurched forward, commanded merely to fight until he could no longer.
I knew exactly how my magic worked. I knew exactly at which point a corpse could no longer continue.
And I intended to ensure this fight lasted for as long as possible.
Brainless, he lunged, and I sidestepped, slicing the tip of my blade along his exposed femur. The scrape was a lullaby against my ears.
Pivoting, I faced him again. Mouth agape, side of his skull crushed in, he shuffled forward again. In one powerful swipe, I removed his fleshy arm.
Satisfaction curled through me as it hit the ground with a thump. I used a tendril of my dark magic to fling it back into the grave.
Unfortunately, he didn’t flinch at the pain or even recognize that his limb was gone.
Again, he ran forward, propelled by my magic. Again, I sliced piece by piece of him away.
Until all that was left was a heap of him on the ground.
“Which bone do you want for your throne?” I growled, glancing at Assyria while he squirmed beneath my boot.
“A finger bone. For every time he struck me,” she purred.
I pulled a dagger from my thigh and handed it to her, hilt first. “Then take it.”
With a wicked grin, she knelt beside one of the discarded arms and sliced the appendage free.
Fuck, I loved her darkness.
She tucked the white bone into her pocket, then offered the knife to me. I shook my head.
“Together.”
“But I already got to kill him,” she laughed, and my blood headed at the vicious sound. “Besides, you’re supposed to show me just how much you love me.”
The callback to what I’d told her before I slaughtered Zaph renewed my vigor.
“That I can do.”
She backed away, heated gaze raking over me. After this was over, I was going to strip her bare in this garden and make her run, all so when I caught her I could fuck her senseless.
The corpse surged up like it had a chance of escaping me.
I flipped my sword around so the sharp tip rested a breath off the ground. The sharp edge glinted in the sunlight.
“This is for daring to ever lay a hand on my perfect mate,” I growled. And then I swung.
Bone crunched and disintegrated as I swung clean through his neck, severing it from his body.
And finally, fucking finally, that rage that had taken residence inside me from the moment I learned that he’d hurt Assyria eased.
And love flooded our bond, so raw, so pure, so endless, that it stole what remained of my breath.
Shadow knocked his remnants back into the grave. More shoved the dirt back over him. He didn’t deserve to see or hear how thoroughly I was going to pleasure the female he never cherished.
No one, fucking no one, could crave Assyria like I could.
I flashed my mate a feral grin as I tossed my sword away, not caring that it clattered against the ground. With a twist of my hands, I lashed her with black. Cuffs of magic brought her arms straight overhead. Her legs I planted to the ground.
