Page 66 of Sold to the Nalgar
She felt it in her bones.
Her mouth went dry.
He was mad.
That was it.
He was utterly, irrevocably insane.
She jerked her hand away, the blood now smeared across her palm. “You’re bleeding. You should be—fuck—you should be dying.”
But he just chuckled again, the sound cold and infuriatingly amused. “I wanted to see,” he said, “if you would do it. And if you would regret it.”
“You’re mad,” she whispered.
Zarokh’s expression didn’t change. Slowly, he reached down and gripped the knife’s hilt. Without ceremony, without flinching, he yanked it free from his own chest. The sound was sickening. Wet.
Cecilia recoiled, heart hammering. Her stomach lurched.
His blood flowed faster now, soaking the front of his black robes.
“You’re going to have to try harder than that,” he said, voice low and calm. “If you want to kill me. I’m exceptionally hard to kill.”
She stared at him, breathing raggedly, everything inside her twisting.
Relief and horror.
She hadn’t wanted him dead. Had she?
But what did that mean?
His warmth surrounded her again, his body somehow still towering, powerful, radiating an awful kind of comfort that shouldn’t exist.
And still… he was close. Too close.
His scent—metallic, dark, and somehow intoxicating—coiled through her senses.
He leaned in slightly, his mouth near her ear. She could feel the heat of him, smell the blood.
When he spoke, his voice was thick. Hungry.
“Sweet little human,” he murmured, “did you know that I crave you even now? That I will not punish you for retaliating against me?”
She stiffened.
“Why?” she asked again, desperate, shaking.
His answer was immediate.
“Because it was deserved.”
He stepped back half a pace, enough for her to look up at him. His fangs glinted behind parted lips.
“That doesn’t mean I’ll apologize,” he added, voice colder now. “You are mine. And perhaps now you’ll understand something important.”
“What?” she spat.
“That you do not want to escape me,” he said softly, almost kindly. “Not here. Not now. And even if you did—youcan’t.”
