novelxo Toxic Love: Chapter 14
Some of the women present blush and giggle amongst themselves when I grab my new bride and yank her off the garden stage toward the house. Alistair and Gabriel Black shoot me venomous stares.
Carmy gives me a thumbs up, and Vito…of course…grins and makes a crude gesture with two pointed fingers of one hand, and looped fingers of his other.
But I’m not dragging Tempest away to consummate a goddamn thing. In fact, if she doesn’t have some very illuminating things to say right now, I might fucking bury her.
She was in a daze as I yanked her through the gardens, away from the wedding. But the second we tumble in through one of the side garden doors to my house, she comes alive again.
Alive, animated, and very angry.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!”
It’s not just anger in her voice, or malice in her eyes, though. There’s pain there, and horror. Fear, and disbelief.
Christ, it’s like she’s just walked in on her actual husband balls-deep in her sister or something.
I drag her into the study, slamming and locking the door shut behind us before I let her go. Tempest flings herself from me like she might catch on fire, backing away with hatred and horror in her eyes.
“Stay the fuck away from me!!”
“What the fuck!!” I roar back. I yank the blade out of my jacket pocket where I’ve hidden it, caching sight of a splash of red slowly staining my dress shirt. Wow, she did actually cut me a little.
At least she didn’t jam this fucking thing through my heart, like she was trying to do.
I glare at the blade, just now realizing I’m looking at the twelfth-century Viking blade given to me by the Prince of Denmark.
What? He’s a voracious member of Venom.
“Well?!” I bark, wincing as I open my jacket and shirt to glance briefly at my cut. It’s superficial, but it still hurts like a motherfucker. I angrily move toward her. Tempest flinches, but then she’s the one lurching at me with fists flying.
“Enough!” I hiss, catching her wrists and yanking her tight to my chest. Her knee jabs up as if to catch me in the balls. But I knock it aside easily with my own thigh. In one move, I’m throwing her over my shoulder, dodging her hammering fists and feet, and tossing her down on the couch.
“STOP IT,” I roar, momentarily making her go still. “What the actual fuck was all of that about?!”
“You son of a bitch!”
I wince again as I glance down at my side. Then I raise the blade and shake it. “Next time you try and fucking stab me,” I snarl, “use something from this goddamn century!” I whirl toward my desk to put the dagger back in its case when suddenly I freeze.
My gaze lands on the little wooden box, closed and lying on my desk.
My trophies.
And right on top of it lies his fucking ring: the one with blue and red eyes.
I hear Tempest bolt toward me. I turn, catch her mid-swing, and yank her hard against my chest. My hands pin hers tight behind her back, rendering her helpless in my grasp as I glare down into her furious face.
“I’m only going to ask you this once,” I hiss coldly, my pulse thudding.
I think I know. This is about the rings. She saw them, she knows what they are. And then she tried to fucking kill me.
I am suddenly not at all worried that Tempest is a plant from Charles to try and steal something from me. I’m worried that she’s with them.
The ones who took Claudia from me.
The ones I hunt.
“Once, Tempest, and only once,” I rasp. “What do these rings mean to you.”
Fire smolders behind her eyes as she remains tight-lipped.
“I would start answering if I were you,” I hiss through clenched teeth.
“Or what?!” she chokes. “You’ll kill me too?! Like you killed Nina?!”
What?
“I have no fucking idea who the hell that—”
“You bastard!”
She almost gets her hands free, but I tighten my grip and whirl, pinning her back against a bookcase.
“The owners of those rings,” I snarl, leering close to her. “Specifically, the owner of the one you left on top—blue and red eyes.”
I lower my face even closer to hers.
“Who. Is. He. To. You.”
Tears bead in her eyes. “Fuck you—”
“Because I killed the man who wore that fucking ring.”
Tempest freezes. I smile coldly.
“Does that pain you to hear?” I leer closer. “Trust me, he didn’t die well, either. It was slow, and painful, and—”
“Is that the God’s honest truth?”
Her voice is papery and thin, her pulse thudding in the soft hollow of her neck.
“Yes,” I growl. “It is.”
“Then good.”
When a dam bursts, it’s not all of a sudden. At least, the build-up isn’t. First there are small tremors. Then there are warnings, like the foundations cracking, or the mechanics stopping. And then, right before it gives way, it’s as if the Earth itself knows it’s about to unleash hell upon its surface. The birds and animals leave. The air goes still.
Then—only then—does the wall holding back the water give way, with an explosion of violence and urgency.
That’s what this is—this thing between Tempest and I.
There were tremors weeks ago. The foundations cracked two nights ago. And there hasn’t been a bird in the sky ever since.
And in this exact moment, locked eye-to-eye with each other, our blood roaring hot, our breaths coming hard, and our bodies slammed together with the scent of my blood and her fury swirling in the air, it’s like the final calm before it all gives way.
My eyes drop to her lips, and for the first time, I realize she’s bleeding a little, from where I bit her at the altar.
It’s that little drop of blood on the lips of the woman I married about three and a half minutes ago that’s the final straw.
The last stroke.
The release.
When I grab her face and slam my mouth to hers, tasting her moans, her blood, and her pain, it’s like the whole fucking dam gives way.
And God help whoever’s downstream.