Page 37 of Sweet Violence
"Who else have you been with?" I asked, an eerie calm barely hiding the thunder of rage beating in my chest.
"How is thatyourfucking business?" he demanded, using up the last of his air.
I wrapped my other hand around his throat, pressing until he grunted. Claws scratched my hip when he tried to push me away, partially shifting in his panic.
"No one," he choked out in a breathless rasp.
"Bullshit," X snapped, his anger joining mine, filling the kitchen as surely as the scent of pancakes and sex did. "What about last night? When you said you were going to get your dick wet with one of the guard sluts?" He quickly added, "Just so I'm clear, I'm repeating your words. I don't think anyone should be called a slut."
"Unless they like it," I piped up, relaxing the pressure on Taj's throat so he could suck in big, gulping breaths.
"Butyou, Taj Amora," X went on in a hiss, rage flashing in his blue eyes as he stalked across the cold tiles, "are a fucking whore. How could you sleep with someone else when you have a mate?"
Taj snorted, his beautiful face twisted in a sneer. "Who says I have a mate? Just because you losers have bonded her doesn't mean I will."
Little fucking liar. I smirked. He ignored me.
"You heinous bastard," X roared, launching himself at Taj, not caring that I was between them.
"X," I said calmly.
He skidded to a stop, his chest rising and falling fast.
"Don't fall for his antagonistic shit. He's trying to wind you up. Maybe he wants to get his nose broken, I don't know. But don't give him the satisfaction."
Taj muttered something under his breath about satisfaction, and I smirked.
"Yeah, you're right," I said, smirking at the furious asshole letting me hold his throat. "Itwasreally satisfying when you crawled into my bed last night and practicallybeggedto make love to me."
"There was no begging," he snarled, teeth bared and hate in his eyes.
"You might not have said the words, but they were written all over you," I replied, taunting him by tightening my grip on his throat and leaning down for a kiss. "Stupid bastard," I whispered against his lips.
His brown eyes flattened, but he pressed his mouth into mine, stealing another kiss. "I hate you."
"Aww, that makes me so happy." I pretended to sob. "I hate you, too."
He rolled his eyes, but he couldn't quite flatten the tiny smile from his mouth. Yeah, we were too damn alike. Both assholes, both terrified of commitment but desperate for it.
"Release me, or I'll cut you in two," he seethed, pressing his claws into my skin—not cutting, but warning. Right over my scar. Where my dad gutted me.
It wasreallyfucking inconvenient that memories slammed into me hard. I flinched, letting go of Taj's throat, and stumbled back a step on numb feet.3
The modern kitchen twisted into a shit-smelling, tetanus-infested barn, with an ominous magical circle glowing behind me and Dad's smirking, sadistic goon leaning against a stall door to my left.
"Aveline," the dick said in a rough murmur, but his voice didn't sound like Jacko's.
My body was strangely big, every movement awkward, and my hands were bright ruby and tipped with black claws. He forced a demon form out of me and not cared about my screams.
Or maybe he liked them.
"Look at me, pretty killer," Dad demanded, but it sounded more like a plea. Hands framed my face, red-hot on my clammy skin, and I waited for my neck to snap, but—no, that wasn't how it ended.
He'd buried a knife in my stomach, and dragged it from edge to edge. I could feel the tearing, the hot blood bubbling up, spilling down my front. I pressed my hand to the wound, but there was already another hand there, holding me together.
I startled, slamming out of the memory with a hiss.
"Aveline?" Taj asked urgently, his hands cradling my face with a strange, welcome gentleness. "Lina, say something. You went so cold."
