Page 32 of V for Vengeance

Unlike in the past, I was confident this time would be different. My darling wouldn’t betray me like others had. I’d seen what lengths she’d go to for the people she cared about, so I’d make it my goal to become one of them. I’d become someone she held dear.

This time, it would be different.

Centuries ago, I made a grave mistake. I fell in love, like a fucking twit. For a witch, no less. It should’ve alarmed me how fast I fell, but instead I drooled and wagged my tail like a good bloody dog for her.

Harmony used a powerful amulet and spell to subjugate me as one of hertreats.Later, I learned it was her ability to bewitch her victims and conquests.Whether spell or pheromones, I couldn’t say, but I was prepared for the possibility of both. That disgusting slag was the entire reason I went to such great lengthsto make sure no one ever seduced me with pheromones or magic again.

She never thought I’d escape with my magic depleted to a third of what it once was. She never believed I’d find my freedom. But she wasn’t as clever as she thought.

No one ever was.

The amulet containing my power was left in the protection of Fredrick and his Blood Mages, and until I was out from under her and Eros’s nose, I wasn’t able to recover it. With my power diminished, I wouldn’t stand a chance. It was a perfect coincidence that she was the next target for these Hunters.

Harmony was a powerful witch, but I knew all her tricks. I wouldn’t make the same mistakes I made when I first met her. This time, I’d subdue her magic and render her defenseless. This time, I’d make her pay for every year she stole from me.

It wasn’t necessarily a surprise that Fredrick and his Blood Mages were on Lux’s payroll, but it was ironic that V and her obnoxious Hunter crew were after them. Or perhaps it was fate. Whatever the case, I couldn’t risk losing my only chance to finally have my power back, so I blackmailed V into helping me.

Unlike all the times before, it felt wrong to force her hand. It wasn’t like me to regret something I did to survive, but the horrid venom the bird spat and the deadly ice she glared cut so deep I spent several days with weight in my stomach, desperate to make her smile again. Desperate to prove I wasn’t the villain in her story. But how could I prove it when everything I did was evidence to the contrary?

So, I vowed to kill the witch for her. I’d serve that old minger on a silver platter to the devastating beauty who taught me how to hope again. I’d show V, and her alone, how powerful an ally I was.

I’d be her Boogeyman bodyguard.

I’d waited all this time to make sure Harmony got what she deserved. I just never thought it’d be with the first person in a long time I’d chosen to protect of my own volition.

Regardless, I’d show them all that Cassius was a name everyone should fear. Until then, I’d keep my hand close to my chest. Mustn’t let those prats lording over her know just how little control they had over me now that I’d unlocked my magic. They could thank my sweet darling. Because of her, I was a new man.

“You can’t trust him, V. He’ll do something again.”

The little Hunter rolled her eyes the minute Phillip complained about the two of us going anywhere alone where he wasn’t permitted to join, and my hand was on my hip before I realized it.

Who does this prat think he is? Her keeper?

“I think you forget who I am and what I can do, Phil. Besides, Cash has been here this entire time when he could’ve left. You might not like it, but he’s one of us.”

My lips lifted, smug. I didn’t like the way Phillip talked to my darling like she was some bird he kept in a gilded cage, but she never let him get away with it.

The brute’s eyes jerked over to me, ignited by rage but unable to express it. Go figure. Even he couldn’t help but turn into a pussy-footing git around her. Normally, I’d be held captive by one of his horrible contraptions—forced into submission by whatever evilness he contrived with a sadistic and obnoxiously clever mind—but around V, he hesitated. Around V, he was a well-trained and submissive dog.

“Don’t go too far, and ring me if you have any trouble.” His eyes stayed on me while he dished out instructions to her. “Any trouble.”

Without waiting for a response, the savage leaned in and dragged her against him like she was about to walk straight into the wolf’s den. Well, the Boogeyman’s in this case. His arrogant ice-blue gaze tracked back over to me before he looked down at her, smiling.

Gross.

Did he not see what an utter twit he became around her? Did he have no pride at all? Not that I had much room to talk, but I’d never pretended otherwise. I never acted like the biggest brute in the room. And loathe as I was to admit it, he was a dangerous assassin who’d put the fear of death into every creature he crossed. But around her, he was a shameless and besotted nincompoop. Dare I mention that it was quite literally sickening how often he put his hands on V like she was his possession.

Barbarians, every single one of them.

Phillip kissed her so long and so explicitly I found my eyes straying, unable to stomach the sight. Even the she-demon let loose a sigh of resignation, clearly agitated by yet another display of unnecessary affection. I rarely agreed with Her Evilness, but in this case, my sentiments exactly.

My skin crawled whenever one of these brutes publicly claimed V’s lips like she was theirs and no one else’s. I noticed it was happening more and more lately. Their obvious obsession with her was like a vice grip on my throat every bloody time. I found myself wishing it was my lips dragging soft gasps from her throat; that it was my mouth she craved. That it was me who she wanted when she could have quite literally anyone else.

I’d kissed her once. I shouldn’t have. It didn’t coax the reaction I wanted, but it was as if I was possessed. I thought about that brief, stolen kiss every time I caught sight of her, and I worriedone day I’d steal another. One day, the previous me who took what he wanted might resurface and steal what wasn’t freely given. And then I’d lose her.

Bloody hell…

I retrieved my mobile out of my pocket and pretended to be bored. Hip out, I flipped my always-perfect hair back and ignored a racing pulse that gave all my secrets away. My heart hit with a little more insistence inside my chest, unfortunately aware of their heated kiss and banter-heavy exchange when all I wanted to do was leave and pretend she wasn’t attached to men who didn’t deserve her.

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