Page 142 of Cruelly Bitten
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
IZZY
What kindof fucked-up punishment is this?
Cam sent me off to be raped just to save me?
Why? Why is he doing this to me?
So much darkness. So much pain. So muchanger. A burning fire churned deep inside me, the tendrils resembling molten whips and sharp claws that scraped along my nerves.
I curled into a ball, my fingers in my wet hair, my mouth parted on a scream. Ithurt. Everythingached.
Fuck!I just wanted it to end. Whatever game this was. Whatever experience I was meant to live. I just…I’m done.
Cam was dead. I accepted that. He was never coming back.
So why keep me around? Why torture me this way?
“Izzy.”
I growled, the nickname spoken in that familiar voice resembled salt on an open wound. He’d left me to die the way I would have all those years ago. Only worse because he’d abandoned me to a horde of hungry vampires.
“Fitting,” he’d called it. Or had that been Michael? I couldn’t remember.
And it didn’t matter.
This was hell. A reality where Cam existed. Only, he wasn’tmy?—
“Ismerelda.” Rough hands grabbed the sides of my face, pulling my focus up to a face I used to love. Ocean-blue eyes I longed to get lost within. Chiseled cheekbones. Dark hair. Such a perfect fucking face.
All that strength and beauty.
That vampiric touch that made him slightly other. Stunning, even. Too damn alluring.
Cam had never been human. He’d been born a vampire. And it showed in the flawless symmetry of his eyes. His straight nose. Soft skin.
So dreamy.
And yet he was my walking nightmare.
A cruel version of my mate.
A monster?—
“Izzy,” he breathed, his palms cradling my jaw, the nickname sounding so foreign and wrong from that familiar mouth. “I’m not punishing you. And even if I were, I wouldneverdo something like this.”
I snorted.Liar. He’d given me to Michael, told him what to do, had claimed it?—
A visual of a conference room slammed into my thoughts, making me gasp as a memory I didn’t possess unfolded in my mind.
Cam drumming his long fingers against a large wood table.
Boredom slowly shifting into concern.
A strange feeling in my—Cam’s—chest.
The walls coming down between our minds. Cam’s increasing worry. Devastation.Fury.
