Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,15
he was putting me through, thriving off the sense of control I’d so eagerly handed over to him.
Enjoy it while you can, asshole, I thought dryly, because it would be the last time he’d ever get the satisfaction.
As if sensing my vengeance, his smile dropped away from his face, leaving in its place a cold, callous sneer. And then his teeth were inside me again, ripping and tearing at my neck with intent to punish, to solidify the fact that the man I loved was dead and gone.
My vision went black and suddenly, I was falling, spinning, tumbling through the open air and freefalling into that place and time where nothing else existed. No pain. No regrets. No thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow. Not a single breath moving in or out of me and yet somehow, I was still alive.
It was as close to death as the Amulet would ever allow me to go, and I was consumed by it even as he withdrew his fangs and his hold on me and let me drop to the floor in a hopeless heap of skin and bones.
He kneeled beside me and gripped my jaw, his fingers pressing hard as he turned my face to his. “Open your eyes,” he commanded, and I did, my heart barely ticking as I stared into those boundless coal black eyes of his.
Somewhere in the peripheral of my awareness, I could hear Trace ramming against the door, trying to bust it down, but I knew it was too late.
“You have forty-eight hours to lose Romeo and come to the Manor at dusk.” His voice was just above a whisper yet packed with enough power to move a mountain. Because it was an order—a death warrant by way of compulsion and I knew there was nothing I could do to resist it. “Oh, and angel lips? Make sure it stays between the two of us.”
A small part of me was aware that I was still alive and that he was leaving me, making his getaway through the window—the same way he’d come in. And that part of me already missed him. Missed his touch and his smell, missed the man he used to be. But the other part of me, the sane part of me, vowed to steal back every ounce of power he had over me and use it to break his heart wide open again.
And then the door busted open and Trace was beside me. His tormented eyes flying with hurt and agony, his eyebrows pinched with worry, and I knew it was all because of me, because of what I had let Dominic do to me, and I wholly and viscerally hated myself for it. I was complicit in this. In all of it.
Would I ever be able to stop doing this to him? To stop hurting him like this?
Probably not…I was ruined now. Spoiled goods. And sooner or later, he was going to see that for himself.
The thought briefly fluttered through my subconscious, too fleeting to hold on to, too distant to touch, and then everything went black…
Just the way I liked it.
7. RETROGRADE
I woke up sometime later in Trace’s bedroom with a throbbing pain at the back of my head and an ache in my heart that I couldn’t quite place. For the briefest of moments, I’d forgotten what had happened or how I ended up here, and then I spotted Trace siting in his armchair, the heart-shattering worry still etched across his face like a story, and I remembered.
I remembered what had happened with Dominic and I remembered the state I was in when Trace had found me.
Shame and regret poured into me, drowning me under their impossible weight. My throat constricted as I added yet another slice of guilt to my already overflowing plate.
“You’re awake,” he said.
I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or angry. His voice was giving nothing away and that only made the ache in my heart grow stronger. How much had he seen? Had he put the whole thing together already? Of course, he did. Even a fool could see what I had done.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out as tears burned the corners of my eyes, warning me of their impending fall. Tears that I didn’t even have the strength to stop anymore.
“For what?” he asked, still sitting on the chair, his expression guarded and unreadable.
“You know for what.” Reflexively, I reached up to touch my neck as the memory of Dominic returned to me, but