Page 28 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

Chapter fifteen

Antonio

Idon'tslamthedoor,though every muscle in my body screams for violence. For release. The sound would be too final, too fucking weak, like I need the barrier between us to keep from crawling back to her.

The image of her on that bed burns into my retinas like acid. Legs parted, skin flushed, those scars I traced with my tongue glistening with sweat.Mine. Still mine, despite everything. The way she arched into my touch, like her body remembers what her mind wants to forget.

Christ. My cock's still hard enough to cut glass, already aching to be buried inside her again. To claim that tight, wet heat that was made for me. Only me.

Fuck.

I close the connecting door without looking back. If I catch one more glimpse of her—trembling, tear-stained, and still sofucking beautiful it hurts to look at her—I'll shatter whatever control I've managed to claw back.

This room, my fucking space, feels like a cage. Her honeysuckle scent is everywhere, seeping into my pores, into my fucking bloodstream like the most addictive drug. I should shower, scrub her from my skin, but the thought of washing away her taste makes something primal roar in protest.

Her broken voice follows me like a ghost. That sob when she said, "I was hoping for you." The way she pushed me away when I tried to hold her. Like venom in an open wound, that pathetic, dying hope that flared between us.

It reminds me of another time she cried. The day flames and steel carved their lessons into my flesh. The day her father made sure I'd never be the man she used to know.

"Fuck," I snarl, the word ripping from my throat like a bullet. My fist connects with the wall, pain lancing up my arm. Better. Pain makes sense. Pain I can control.

I pace the room like a beast in a cage, each step taking me farther from her door, then closer, then farther again. The weight crushing my chest makes breathing a conscious effort. My hands can't stay still, rubbing the back of my neck, clenching until knuckles turn white, reaching for something, anything to ground me.

She hopes. After everything, after three months locked in that stone prison, after I showed her exactly what kind of monster I've become, she still fuckinghopes.

Not at her. At her father. At the world.

No. Not at the world.

At myself.

A groan tears from my chest as I grab the letters from my nightstand. Her father's laughter echoes in my memory, cold and calculating as flames ate my flesh. I remember the burn of ropes around my wrists, the helplessness, the scent of my ownskin cooking. The pain that should have broken me but instead forged something harder, something deadlier.

I heard her scream my name that day. I thought, fucking fool that I was, that she might follow me into the darkness. That she might choose me over him. But she never came. Never answered a single message I sent after.

Her betrayal sliced deeper than her father's blade ever could.

"She means something to you," my mother had said once, that knowing smile on her face that saw right through my bullshit. And like the arrogant kid I was, I'd shrugged it off, made some joke about Isabella being just another pretty face.

When her father branded me, he thought he was teaching me my place. Breaking me down. What he didn't understand, still doesn't understand, is that he didn't tame me. He unleashed the Beast.

And the Beast doesn't lose.

I throw the letters back into the drawer like they burn my fingers. Part of me wanted her to press that shard deeper against my throat, to give me the proof I need that she's exactly what I've convinced myself she is. The enemy. The traitor. The girl who stood by while her father destroyed my life.

Or maybe I wanted her to beg me to stay. To give me an excuse to bury myself in her again, to lose myself in the sweet oblivion of her body until nothing else exists. Not revenge. Not hatred. Not the gaping fucking hole where my heart used to be.

The moonlight streams through windows that have witnessed centuries of violence, turning everything silver-blue. I still want her. Will probably always want her. That's the hell of it. My body doesn't seem to give a shit that she helped destroy everything I loved.

What if she's not the enemy?

The thought slithers through my defenses before I can stop it. What if I've been wrong? What if…

No. My mother died with Isabella's name on her lips. That has to mean something. Has to justify every moment I've spent planning this revenge.

This time, I do slam the door, hard enough to wake the dead, as I stalk from the room. The fortress corridors stretch before me like a throat waiting to be slit, every shadow another memory I can't outrun.

The gym's stench of stale sweat and violence welcomes me like an old friend. I wrench open the small window, letting salt air flood in, but it doesn't cool the inferno raging under my skin. Nothing will, except maybe her touch. Her taste. Her surrender.

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