Page 107 of Fragile Facade
I swing a bit, trying to get a better view. My body groans, and the blood that has rushed to my head makes me exhausted and dizzy. Death is still here, waiting for my brain to give up on me, my heart to stop ticking, and my body to die because it’s stopped getting blood where it needs. At some point, my legs slipped over the windowsill and the only thing keeping me dangling is the rope he tied.
“Sweetheart!” Killian shouts, and when I look, I pull my body in as close as I can get it, crumpling in on myself because knives are flying my way. He throws three of them, the first two thudding into the windowsill and the third making the rope around my feet fray. “Tuck and roll, Soren!” He throws the fourth, and the sound of the rope shredding only gives me a two-second head start to get my body into position to make a two-story drop.
It snaps, and I fall. My heart thunders and my useless limbs don’t tuck like they’re supposed to. That roller coaster sensation disorients me, but when I slam into some hedges, the pain disorients me more. Branches scratch at me everywhere, and I’m grateful for the numbness because I don’t feel it all right away. I tuck, trying to roll out of the bush, but I don’t tuck enough. I land on the hard-packed grass, my shoulder popping right out of joint from the impact.
“Fuck,” I groan, holding it with my numb hand and rolling onto my side. “Fucking fuck, Killian!” I curl into the fetal position, cradling my shoulder so it doesn’t break entirely.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” His voice is impatient but amused when he takes my good arm and pulls me to my feet. I sway, off my axis and riddled with pain. His gaze finds the new words on my jawline before he holds eye contact with me. “Answer still yes?” he asks.
“You’re—” I cry out in agony when he grabs my scapula and my arm, snapping my shoulder joint back into place. “Fuuuck!” My eyes water and my stomach heaves, nauseous as the onslaught of torture peaks. “What the fuck, Kill?”
Killian lifts my chin, forcing me to block out the other people here. “You’re mine, Sauder. You said it.”
Okay? Where’s he going with this? The crazed look he’s throwing me isn’t putting me at ease.
“The fucking curse can’t have you. I don’t share.”
That’s when I look beyond him, seeing that the mob he’s led here is a group of fifteen Sauders. My back straightens and the pain fades, the numbness in my limbs only a mild irritation now. There they all are, the inferior family members I don’t want to be like. My cousins, at least ten of them, and three uncles. Two widowed aunts. They’re here, angry, glaring at me like I’m at fault for whatever Killian did.
“The fuck are you talking about?” I look at Killian.
“Pick one.”
“What?”
“Fucking pick one, Soren. I’m killing one of them right now to end this curse.”
The group erupts, pulling weapons, shouting their anger, and pleading for their chance to outlive the curse. I’m… goddammit, am I swooning?
Is he really so possessive that now that I’ve confessed I love the bastard, he won’t even let me half-ass belong to a curse? Fuck, why is that so hot? How is my cock hard through all this pain and numbness?
“Pick one,” he snaps at me.
But I can’t form a name right now because I’m staring at his lips, feeling his brand on my jaw, noticing my bitemark tattooed on his. My dislocated shoulder is nothing compared to how much it hurts to love him. On instinct and nothing more, I step forward, grip his rolling throat, and kiss the fucker like I’m falling for him even more for doing this.
Is it even true love if he doesn’t kill your cousin to keep you from a curse?
I wrap my fingers around his neck, digging them into his nape because I can’t get enough of him. He hisses when I press on the words I carved there, but he grunts against my lips and kisses me back.
“Stop fucking stalling and pick one or I will.”
I wanna fuck so bad right now. I’ve been turned on before, especially by him, but this is something else. This is a need so strong I don’t think I’ll survive without it. It’s a pull from deep in my core, emanating an energy so fiery the world will burn if I don’t get what I want. I’ve never flirted with Killian, but my tingling hand reaches down, rubbing his cock and feeling it so much more than I did that night in my grave.
He groans, biting my lip while a riot breaks out behind him, reaffirming his Vile given name. I’m fervent, unable to stop, needing to fucking feel him against my skin. I reach up, trying to shove my hand down his pants, but he grabs my wrist to stop me.
“Fucking hell, sweetheart. I will fuck you in front of them and then kill all your cousins if you don’t stop.”
The messed-up part is, I’m happy. Not because he wants to end my family curse, but because he wants to own me so completely that even it can’t hold a part of me. He’s snatched up all my pieces and hoarded them for himself, and with them in his hands, I’m falling apart yet so put together. I don’t care about the curse. I care that he’s possessive of me.
Because I’m fucking worth it and someone is finally appreciating me how I should be appreciated.
“The one in green. He’s a dipshit who blamed Remi for our dad’s?—”
He moves fast and with authority. A dagger flies into my cousin Tim’s shoulder, and another knife is held out in front of Killian to warn everyone away when he grabs the one in green. My extended family shouts, but no one tries to stop my man. I grin at that, and then I grin wider when Killian drags him over to me, a knife pressed to his throat.
My cock throbs with need, adrenaline pounds in my chest, and his eyes roil with more storm clouds than I’ve ever seen him possess. I don’t even watch the knife drag across Tim’s throat. I watch Killian Hallows kill my cousin as an act of possessive love. I bite my lip into my mouth as blood soaks into Tim’s shirt and the rest of the family goes silent. Tim is choking and gurgling the last seconds of his life away, and I pant ragged, desperate breaths as he slices from one ear to the other, Tim’s throat smiling as he dies.
I can’t smile. I’m too busy trying not to come in my fucking pants.
