Page 58 of House of Crimson Kisses
My throat constricts. I can’t. That’s the problem. I can’t give them back to her because I promised I wouldn’t.
Shewas the one who made me swear I’d never return them. But I’m beginning to wonder whether I can keep the oath if it means losing her, especially now we’re bonded.
If I give them back, if I tell her everything else that happened the night Amelia was turned, she’ll hate me more and then I really will lose her for good. She’ll blame me for everything that’s happened.
I can’t do it.
I can’t give them back knowing that withholding them is the only way I might get to keep her. I’m on a knife’s edge. Either way, I may lose her, but at least this way there’s a chance. If I return them, I know she will leave.
I won’t take that risk. She will have to continue hating me, and I will continue praying that she’ll come around.
“Consider it a make-up gift. I thought you’d like to torture him. Perhaps I should have gone one step further…”
I lean down, grab his arm, and wrench it until the slick squelching of flesh rings through the air and his arm detaches from his torso.
Red and I are immediately sprayed with arterial blood. Our clothes, bodies and faces are smothered in the liquid.
I lay the arm flat across both my hands and present it to her like a dog with a bone.
“Mother of Blood,” Red says, exasperated.
“What? Those hands hurt you. Bruised you and marked your skin. And I swore I would hunt him down and tear him limb from limb. Or something similar. I’m following up on my promise.”
“Following up with one promise does not make up for the breaking of another,” she says, taking the arm out of my hands, swinging it back and slapping the vampire in the face with it.
Fuck, that was hot.
I stand a little straighter, adjust my crotch.
“But it certainly makes me feel better.” She proceeds to beat him half to death again with his own hand. “And this is for my fucking ribs, and this is for my jaw and my eye. And this, you piece of shit, is because I feel like it.” She wallops him over and over and over.
And all the while, my cheeks grow hotter and hotter, my knickers slicker and slicker.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on.
She’s feral.
She swings his arm and slams it into his face repeatedly until she drops it on the floor, the hand half hanging off, and proceeds to jump onto his lap, punching his face, splattering blood, bone and muscle on the walls, floor and both of us.
His torso has stopped spraying so much arterial blood. He’s done for. The desiccation will start any moment if he doesn’t get any blood, and I’m not about to give him any.
“Enough,” I say. “He’s had enough.”
She can’t hear me. She’s lost herself in her rage, funnelling it all into him.
“Red,” I bark. “He’s not me. You can’t attack him and make the pain of me keeping your memories go away.”
She screams in frustration and lands a punch to his jaw that has his head rocking back. Then she’s up and staring at me, her shoulders heaving. That’s when I notice the tears streaking her cheeks.
I glance back at the vampire, now one armed, his face a bloodied mess. The state of him makes the curling need to punish him for hurting Red subside. He looks pathetic, all broken and bleeding in the chair. I need to put him out of his misery.
I punch my hand into his chest and grip his heart. His head comes up, his remaining hand grabbing my wrist, his eyes wide.
“You shouldn’t have touched her,” I say, and then I yank his heart from his chest. It’s already desiccating by the time it’s in my hand and presented to Red.
She looks down at it, her nose wrinkled. “Thanks?” she says, but her words are snuffly. She wipes her bloodied hand across her face, smearing the tears with blood.
She wobbles on her feet.
