Requiem of the Soul (The Society Trilogy #1) - Natasha Knight Page 0,72
over and peer at the page. But it’s not words at all that I see. It’s a drawing that takes up the whole of the page. A skull.
I turn the page and find detailed black and white drawings on the next one. This one is a woman. She’s beautiful. Older with dark hair and sad eyes and a veil that hides part of her face. I study it, something about how she seems to be peering out at me so intriguing I can’t look away.
I’m so caught up in it that it’s not until I hear the key turn that I realize I’m caught. I stand, hitting my knee into the table and sending the candle to the floor. I gasp as I watch melted wax spill into the fibers of the carpet before whirling to look at who has caught me, knowing there’s only one person, and meeting my husband’s dark eyes as they land dangerously on mine.
26
Santiago
My eyes flick to the sketchbook splayed open on the table. The pages are opened to an image I sketched of my mother from the funeral. I hadn’t been able to attend because I was still in the hospital, but Mercedes ensured it was videotaped for me, and I watched it more than once. That haunting image of my mother so broken burned itself into my mind. It’s a memory that was never intended to be seen by anyone. Least of all a fucking Moreno.
Heat rises in my throat as I stalk toward my wife. She's already trembling, shrinking into herself as she tries to move back. But there's nowhere for her to go. Doesn't she realize it yet? She'll never escape me.
My icy fingers latch around her jaw and force her gaze up to mine. "What do you think you are doing?"
"I... I..." She stammers over the words, trying to shake her head. Wide, terrified eyes peer back at me, but it's the scent of my scotch on her breath that fuels my ire.
"Snooping through my things. Drinking my scotch. Are there any other sins you'll need to atone for this evening?"
"Santi, please."
"Don't call me that." My fingers bite into her skin, and she flinches at the menace in my tone.
I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, acting so familiar to me. Trying to make me forget who I am. Who she is. As if she has a right to touch my things or stare into my darkest memories. Does she take pleasure in perfuming the halls of the manor with her scent, an ever-present reminder that the enemy is living under my roof? Even now, in my clutches, she’s staring up at me with so much false innocence, it grates on my last nerve. As if she could ever make me forget why she’s here. As if just by fluttering her lashes and speaking so sweetly, she could make me forget the traitorous blood running through her veins. I will never forget.
"You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?" I growl.
She blinks up at me, confusion clear in her eyes. Maybe I'm a little drunk too. My visit with Judge ran longer than expected this evening, and the scotch flowed freely for the duration of it. Perhaps that's the reason the words come so uninhibited.
"I know what you are." I stare down into her strange eyes, forcing her to look at me as the monster I am. "A fucking temptress, trying to lure me in with that sweet voice and those innocent eyes. But you're a goddamned liar."
"No, I'm not." Her lip trembles.
"Shut your eyes," I command.
She doesn't obey. Her arms come up to grip mine, pleading with me as she clings to me. "Please don't be angry."
"Angry doesn't even begin to touch what I am right now." I whirl her around in my arms, and she struggles against me as I yank her head to the side, biting at her throat. "I'm your worst fucking nightmare, wife of mine. It's about time you realized it."
She sucks in a sharp breath as red blooms across her skin from the drag marks I left behind with my teeth. I'm fighting with her clothes, ripping off her sweater and trying to push her nightgown up over her hips, but the silk keeps sliding back down. In a fit of frustration, I haul her to the desk and fold her over it, opening the top drawer to retrieve the scissors.