Fate’s nasty trick where love was concerned.

Fall for someone, and you didn’t just fall for their heart and happiness but also their flaws and fury.

I arched my back, giving in to the feralness between us.

I didn’t need Euphoria to delete my decorum. I didn’t wait for a drug to wipe away shame at being spread and at his mercy. I stared at us in the mirror, and I liked what I saw.

I shivered at the picture of two creatures fucking each other. Not to procreate like nature intended. Not for love like romance dictated.

But for hate.

A hate born from the knowledge that we’d survived in a world on our own perfectly fine. We’d succeeded in chosen paths. We’d grown and evolved without missing the other.

But now...now that was impossible.

We would no longer be whole unless we were together. Our simplicity of being a perfunctory person was over now, now we knew what it felt like to belong.

Whatever Sully battled.

Whatever conversation would follow this could only hold one truth: two self-reliant people had gone and done the worst possible thing. We’d become dependent, obsessed, utterly and totally besotted with the one thing that would never let us be free again.

I’m his.

He’s mine.

That irrefutable fact made my core clench around his invasion, possessive over him, my own temper snarling up my legs and into my heart.

I would always fight for him and against him.

I would never be so weak to let him destroy our bond.

That was my vow.

Just like his glowed in his eyes as his cock continued to pound into me. He loved me in every nasty, nice, wicked, and wonderful way.

And he hated it.

He hated that I knew how much he loved me.

He hated that I loved him as much in return.

Holding his stare, I licked my lips and let go. I gave myself entirely to him. I moaned and spread my legs farther, begging the way he wanted. “Fuck me, Sully.” I tossed my head as much as I could in his grip, deliberately cascading my hair over my shoulder in wet coils.

His jaw clenched, fire burned in his eyes.

His pace turned from deep and penetrating to fierce and fast. “Stop it.”

“Stop?” I shook my head. “I can’t. I need you deeper. I want you to fuck me until you choose me. Choose me over revenge—”

“What the hell do you know of revenge?” His hand around my nape squeezed hard, his hips pulsing with vicious thrusts. “You know nothing about retribution—”

“Fuck me, Sully.” I didn’t want him chasing that path. I wanted him to be here. With me. Totally, entirely. Mine.

His creatures could have him once I was through. His loyalties and long lists of responsibilities could wait until we’d finished.

Shoving my hips back, making both of us groan with his depth, I begged, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”

And that was it for his self-control.

He switched from man to monster and fucked me.

Hard and fast.

Painful and punishing.

Over and over.

Thrusting and rutting, bruising me just as I asked.

The wildness of him was what pushed me over the edge.

The beauty of watching sweat mingle with his shower, his pain bleed into pleasure, his loathing fire into lust.

He was undone.

I came as his head fell back, revealing the expanse of his powerful throat, the sweeps of his collarbones, the ridges of his muscles. I came as his balls pressed against my clit and his cock throbbed inside me. I came as he jerked and jettisoned, spurting his own release, dousing me in cum, over and over, coating me with every spasm and twitch of his powerful body.

I came harder than Euphoria.

Harder than elixir.

I came for him.

Because I knew what it felt like to be on the brink of losing him.

And I would never ever let that happen.

Chapter Seven

ALL YOU HAVE TO say is that you faked it.

You don’t love her.

You don’t want her.

She means nothing.

Say that.

Only that.

And she’ll go.

I sighed heavily, my heart in fucking pieces on the floor.

We’d run out of time.

I’d already gambled her life by giving in to the desire between us. Our sex had been unhealthy. An act that had left us both scrambling in the dark for our stolen souls.

And now, I was supposed to find the strength to take away her choices all over again. I didn’t have time for a proper negotiation. I didn’t have time for a load of bullshit about tattered love and stubborn goodbyes.

Drake had given me three hours.

Those three hours were rapidly spilling through my fingers and I needed her gone.

I’d named this island Batari, thanks to the Indo word for goddess. Serigala hadn’t been protected by deities or demons...but this island was. I would fight till my dying breath to ensure Drake never stole another goddamn thing from me.

And I’d start by sending Jinx home because I couldn’t offer her what she deserved.

I eyed Eleanor as she dressed.

Leaning against the doorframe of her walk-in wardrobe, I remained naked from our war. I crossed my arms, cursing the well-spent cock between my legs.

I’d known if I’d touched her, I wouldn’t have the strength to go through with this.

But now...now we were no longer joined, no longer fighting, and our energy had depleted to a tense surrender...perhaps I could finish it.

Maybe I stood a chance at saving her.

Tell her.

Tell her you feel nothing. That it was all an illusion.

Tell her anything you fucking want apart from the goddamn miserable truth that you’re a sad, pathetic bastard who can barely breathe at the thought of saying goodbye.

Clearing my throat, I dug my fingers into my eyes, rubbing away the sudden sting, activating images of smoking pelts and the rancid stench of seared meat.

I doubted I would ever get such smells and memories out of my mind.

Use them.

Wield them.

If I continued drowning in death, perhaps then I would have the endurance to kick Eleanor from my shores before Drake arrived.

Dropping my hands, my gaze caught Eleanor’s.

She stood in a simple teal sundress that skated around her knees. Her hair hung in seaweed coils over her shoulders. Her lips were swollen from mine. Her nipples still pebbled beneath the dress.

But it was her eyes that gutted me.

Those incredible silver eyes that’d once haunted my dreams and now doomed my future.

She knew.

She always knew.

She knew the moment she met me that I was hers just as I knew she was mine.

No matter what lies I fed her. No matter what fiction I tried to sell as fact, she would argue and defeat each one.

We could battle for hours, days, years.

We could battle until we found ourselves at a fucking altar, promising to live and die together.

The flash of her in a white dress with bare feet and an orchid in her hair, walking in the shallows of my shores, coming to marry me on my beach.

Fuck, I could barely stand.

My stomach fisted into an agonising ball.

She couldn’t hate me for this.

After all, I had warned her.

I warned her so many fucking times that loving me was not a wise choice.

Her dress swayed around her knees as she moved toward me. My own knees threatened to send me crashing to the floor. The fact that she wore clothing and I wore nothing kept me extra exposed: a man with nothing else to play but still determined to somehow win.