The Alpha CEO'S Cursed Bride

The storm began the night she turned twenty-one.

Rain lashed against the glass like claws trying to tear through, each drop tapping out warnings only the cursed could understand. Thunder cracked the sky in jagged screams, drowning out the rustle of silk as Seraphina Vale crept down the stone corridor of the estate she'd never been allowed to leave.

A prisoner with privileges. That's what she was.

To the world, she was dead. But the blood in her veins pulsed with secrets, and on this night-under the first Blood Moon in thirty years-her curse stirred awake.

She paused at the base of the spiral staircase, candle in hand, its flame quivering under the draft. Her long raven hair tumbled down her bare shoulders, and her eyes-silver and unearthly-caught the lightning flash through the arched window. A mark, shaped like a crescent entwined with a serpent, shimmered faintly beneath her collarbone.

It hadn't glowed since the last time someone tried to kill her.

Which could only mean one thing.

He was near.

She didn't know who he was-not exactly. Only that he haunted her dreams, that his scent curled around her skin in phantom heat, and that her magic, forbidden and buried deep, clawed to the surface whenever he drew close.

Her fingers curled tighter around the candle. She descended into the hidden vault her ancestors once called a sanctuary-and what her guardians now called a cage. The stone doors had been sealed by spell and steel, but tonight they were cracked open, like someone had come and undone the wards she'd been taught never to touch.

Her pulse quickened.

Someone had breached the Vale estate.

And she knew, without seeing, that it could only be him-the man fate had written into her curse.

---

Thirty miles away, under the neon skyline of Astoria, in a high-rise that towered over the city like a god above insects, Killian Draven signed the last of the death warrants with the ease of breathing.

CEO of Draven Industries by title. Alpha of the Blackveil bloodline by birth. Cursed monster by destiny.

And tonight, he would finally claim the witch fate had sealed to him.

She didn't know it yet, but Seraphina Vale had always belonged to him.

And nothing-not the blood oath she'd been born under, not the guardians who kept her hidden, not even the magic that tried to kill him once-could stop him now.

Because Killian had seen the prophecy.

And it began with fire.

The vault greeted her like a beast exhaling in sleep-humid, pulsing, alive. Magic crawled over the stone in silent threads, old and bitter, coiling around her ankles as if remembering the bloodline she carried. The candlelight sputtered, uncertain in the presence of such ancient breath.

Seraphina stepped inside anyway.

The chamber was circular, domed, its ceiling lost in shadows and webbed with iron chains that held nothing-but once, long ago, had. The air reeked of salt and spell-fire, of memories scorched into walls by witches who never escaped.

She had never been here before.

Not truly.

Her guardians spoke of the vault in reverent curses. Of the well beneath the floor, sealed by seven locks. Of the altar carved from black bone, where the first Vale witch surrendered her heart for power and silence.

But the stories never mentioned the voice.

Not like this.

> Come closer, daughter of ruin...

It slithered into her mind like smoke, curling behind her ears and settling against her spine. It didn't speak in words. It spoke in knowing. As if it had always known she would come. That on the eve of her twenty-first birthday, when the Blood Moon bled red above the cursed estate, Seraphina Vale would walk into the vault her mother died sealing shut.

A whisper of movement brushed her left.

She turned-

Nothing. Only shadows.

But her mark pulsed-once, hard. And the air trembled as if another presence now stood within the room.

She swallowed. Her breath fogged in front of her.

> He is close.

The moon has seen you both.

She didn't know whether the voice belonged to the vault or the curse. She only knew her body no longer obeyed fear. Her magic was rising. So was something else.

Fate.

And somewhere beyond these stone walls, the man her blood recoiled from-the one the prophecy warned would either destroy her or bind her-was already moving toward her.

Above her, the chains swayed though there was no wind. The candle quivered in her grip, its flame pulled toward the sealed well at the center of the room-seven iron locks, untouched for decades, now wet with condensation and humming with a low, pulsing thrum.

She stepped closer.

Not because she wanted to.

Because the mark burned hotter with each breath she took.

The stone beneath her feet radiated heat and heartbeat. As if something slumbered beneath the floor and knew her name.

> Seraphina...

She staggered.

This time, the voice didn't come from within her.

It came from behind her.

But when she turned, the hallway was empty. Only the corridor that led back to her chambers, slick with moonlight and shadow, offered any answer.

And still-the air smelled like him.

Smoke. Leather. Ashes and something darker.

Something... bound.

Her body betrayed her first. Her pulse thrummed with awareness her mind had not yet caught. Her magic slithered under her skin, reaching for him before her feet ever could.

No one had ever spoken her name like that.

No one had ever dared.

---

Far across the estate, where wrought-iron gates bent inward like claws, Killian Draven stepped through the threshold like a storm disguised in flesh.

He did not knock.

Doors unlocked at his presence. Wards parted. The sky opened wider, rain falling harder, and the wolves that once guarded the Vale line whimpered low in the hills, backing into the dark.

He didn't speak as he entered.

He didn't have to.

The house remembered him.

Even if she didn't.

His footsteps echoed over marble like war drums-slow, deliberate, final. Paintings watched him. The ghosts in the rafters flinched. But the pull was stronger now, unmistakable.

She was awake.

And so was the curse.

He stopped in front of a glass pane-a mural of the moon painted in blood and silver, cracked from time and power. He touched the surface with his bare palm.

A spark flared where his skin met glass.

The image shimmered-and behind it, hidden by illusion and ancient design, was a stairwell spiraling downward into the dark.

He didn't hesitate.

Because she was there.

And when he looked into the firestorm of her soul, he intended to tear down every ward, every rule, every vow of protection they'd wrapped around her.

Seraphina Vale had belonged to the realm once.

Now she belonged to him.

Seraphina didn't remember moving, but her hand was now over the center of the seventh lock-the deepest, the blackest. Beneath her palm, the metal steamed against her skin, responding not to force but to recognition. Blood called to blood. The cursed to the cursed.

The flame in her candle extinguished without warning.

Darkness consumed the vault.

But she didn't scream.

Something more primal than fear surged in her chest. A knowing. A weight. The feeling of fate breathing down her neck, cold and certain.

A hiss split the silence.

Chains above groaned.

The lock clicked.

Once.

Twice.

A third time.

Her breath hitched as the mark below her collarbone seared like fire touched by wind. Her knees buckled, one hand bracing against the altar behind her. The stone was warm-too warm. Like flesh. Like a pulse.

> He is here.

No longer a whisper. A certainty.

And then, she felt it.

A shift in the air.

He didn't enter with footsteps. He didn't break the silence. He simply was, suddenly-there. Behind her. Inside the vault that no man had entered in decades. In the room no one alive had dared to step into.

She turned-slow, unwilling, but unable to resist.

And met his eyes.

Everything in her stopped.

Time. Breath. The spell that held the seventh lock. All of it fell still as her gaze met his across the dark.

He was not a man.

Not entirely.

He wore the shape of one-tall, broad-shouldered, clad in midnight black. Raindrops clung to his coat like jewels. His dark hair slicked back, though a single strand had broken loose over his brow. But it was his eyes that shattered her calm.

They were not mortal.

Not even close.

Storm-colored. Depthless. Ancient.

They held every war she had never seen.

Every death her ancestors had died.

He was power restrained by skin. Violence cloaked in beauty. And the curse that had haunted her for twenty-one years now stood breathing in front of her, exhaling like thunder made flesh.

> Killian Draven.

She didn't speak the name. It unfolded inside her like a wound reopening, like a truth she'd always known but never dared whisper.

The mark on her chest responded.

So did his.

Beneath his collar, a similar glow-crescent and serpent, identical, burning gold through the fabric-lit the vault in a heartbeat of silence.

They stared at each other, unblinking.

Bound.

Not by choice.

Not by love.

But by prophecy.

And by the kind of magic that burned kingdoms to ash.

Neither of them moved.

The silence stretched, taut as a blade suspended between skin and surrender. The vault, once a sanctuary for witches fleeing the realm's fury, now held two creatures older than its curses-her blood and his shadow.

Killian's gaze roamed over her like command. Not lust. Not tenderness.

Claim.

Seraphina's breath shallowed.

He didn't speak.

He didn't need to.

Because the air between them said what words could not-I found you.

The mark beneath her skin pulsed with every heartbeat of his. Magic, once buried deep, bloomed like fire behind her ribs. Her instincts screamed to retreat. Not from fear.

From recognition.

She had seen him before.

In dreams that felt like drowning. In visions blurred by moonlight and bone. His hands on her skin-blood on his mouth-desire warping into war.

Prophecy didn't lie.

> You will be bound to the wolf born of ruin, her aunt had once whispered, drunk on hemlock and omen. You will love him. Or you will die by him.

Her lips parted to speak-to demand, to deny, to defy fate itself-but he beat her to it.

His voice, when it came, was deep velvet shredded by gravel.

> "You opened the vault."

Not a question. A fact.

She lifted her chin. "I didn't invite you."

His eyes flickered to the seventh lock-still glowing faintly beneath his presence.

> "You didn't have to."

The chains above them groaned louder, reacting to proximity. Power thickened between them, heavy and ancient, the kind of magic older than names, older than kings. It curled down her spine like a predator watching its prey, except she wasn't sure who was the hunter anymore.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, voice steady though her pulse betrayed her.

Killian took one step forward.

The vault trembled.

"I want what's mine."

She didn't flinch, though her magic surged defensively-blue flickers dancing along her fingertips. "I am not a thing to be claimed."

His jaw clenched once. Not in anger.

In restraint.

"No," he said softly. "You're a weapon to be awakened."

Her heartbeat faltered.

He knew.

He knew what the others had buried, what the guardians had sworn to keep locked beneath charm and iron and bloodlines bred for secrecy.

> The prophecy wasn't just about their bond.

It was about what she could become.

And if the curse bound her to him...

Then unlocking her magic might also unmake her.

She took a step back, toward the altar, toward the locked well where Vale blood had once been sacrificed to keep her dormant.

Killian didn't follow.

But he watched her with a predator's patience.

"The realm will kill you for touching me," she whispered.

His smile was slow. Sharp. A blade glinting under moonlight.

"Let them try."

Outside, lightning licked the sky in streaks of white fire, illuminating the vault in sharp flashes. Every blink revealed a different truth-her silhouette tense, lips parted in defiance; his stance relaxed, but radiating something volatile, coiled beneath his skin.

Magic didn't lie.

It trembled around them now, sentient and sharp-edged, responding to the impossible bond they shared. The walls whispered in runes. The floor throbbed with old blood. The altar behind her pulsed once-then cracked.

A hairline fracture split the stone.

Seraphina's eyes widened.

The well was waking.

And if it opened fully-if the power sealed beneath ever tasted air again-nothing in the realm would hold.

Killian's gaze dropped to the fracture, then lifted slowly to her. "They lied to you," he said, voice low but certain. "They made you believe your power would destroy you."

"It will," she snapped. "It's why they bound it."

"No." A pause. "It's why they feared it."

She shook her head. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough."

His tone changed then-less blade, more binding. He stepped closer, crossing the threshold into the circle of salt the wardens had once drawn to keep spirits out. Or perhaps, to keep him out.

The salt didn't resist.

It sizzled under his boot.

The air changed.

He was within reach now-close enough for her to see the faint, silver scar cutting through his brow, the way his lips parted slightly when he looked at her, as though he could taste something ancient between them. Her scent. Her magic. Her fate.

"You've dreamed of me," he said.

Her heart stuttered.

She hated that it was true.

He saw it in her eyes.

"I've seen you too," Killian murmured, voice like crushed velvet. "Your fire. Your death. Your resurrection."

"Stop." Her voice trembled.

But his next words carved through her like prophecy reborn.

> "I've seen you burn the world for me."

The silence after was unbearable.

Because deep down, under the warnings and wards and years of lies, something in her wanted that to be true.

Not for fate.

Not for magic.

But for him.

She turned sharply, breaking their stare, pushing down the riot in her chest. "If you know what I am, then you know I'm cursed. That any bond with me will only end one way."

Killian didn't flinch. "Death?"

She nodded once.

His reply was a whisper against the vault's heartbeat. "Then I'll die with you."

She faced him again, slow and measured.

There was a softness to her movements that belied the sheer force humming beneath her skin. A witch bred in chains, taught obedience masked as survival, but forged from a lineage that once ruled through fear and fire.

She didn't need chains to feel trapped.

She only needed him.

"You think that's romantic?" she asked. "A mutual grave?"

"No." Killian's gaze dropped to her throat, lingered where her pulse betrayed her calm. "I think it's inevitable."

She moved past him before the air between them crushed her. The vault had shifted since he entered-nothing obvious, nothing she could point to-but she felt it in the weight of the stone, the way her magic no longer obeyed her silence. It stirred in her veins like it remembered him.

Like it wanted him.

"How did you find me?" she asked over her shoulder.

"You called me."

"I did no such thing."

"You bled last night."

She froze.

He took a step closer, not touching, but the pull between them tightened like invisible thread wound around their bones. "It was enough," he said. "Blood answers blood."

The truth landed heavily in her chest. She had cut herself by accident-barely more than a scratch-but in this cursed lineage, even pain could be an invocation.

"You were watching," she said.

"Always."

His honesty was a blade.

She turned slowly. "Why now?"

Killian studied her like she was an equation no one else had solved. "Because you're ready."

Her laugh was bitter. "Ready for what? To be used? Sacrificed? Claimed like property under a contract neither of us chose?"

He moved then.

Not rushed. Not threatening.

But he closed the space between them with the confidence of a predator who knew the moment she stopped running, she'd come straight to him.

"You think I want a puppet?" he asked. "I could have broken into this place years ago. I didn't. I waited."

"For what?"

His hand hovered near hers.

"Consent."

The word twisted something inside her she didn't want to name.

He wasn't asking for love.

He wasn't asking for trust.

He was asking for a decision.

And for someone like her-hidden, hunted, and told who to be every moment of her life-the offer was more terrifying than any curse.

"I haven't said yes," she whispered.

"You haven't said no either."

He waited.

Not with patience.

With certainty.

Like he knew every answer she hadn't spoken yet. Every refusal lodged between her ribs. Every memory of his touch that had never happened-except in the spaces between dreams.

She hated how steady he was. How still. How the world seemed to tilt in quiet obedience when he entered a room. Not with power. Not with title. But with inevitability.

"Say what you came to say," she murmured.

He studied her face for a moment too long.

"I didn't come to say anything," he replied. "I came to offer you your truth."

She narrowed her eyes. "And what do you think that is?"

Killian's voice was low. "That you were never meant to be contained. That the ones who claimed to protect you were only protecting the world from you."

Silence.

Her breath hitched-just enough.

He saw it.

"They kept you small, Seraphina," he continued. "Because even they knew if you ever remembered who you were... you'd burn every lie they ever built around your name."

She took a step back-not from him, but from what was forming in her chest. A shape, jagged and luminous. Recognition.

They had told her she was cursed.

They had told her she was dangerous.

But they had never told her she was designed.

"You think you know me," she said, voice raw now.

Killian's gaze never faltered. "I feel you."

Another beat. He added, "Even when you try to bury it. Even when you silence the pull."

"You talk like I belong to you."

"No." A pause. "I talk like you belong to yourself. But the bond between us? It's not something I invented. It's older than my name. Older than my curse."

Her throat tightened.

She hated the way part of her wanted to believe him. Not for safety. Not for freedom.

But for vengeance.

Because if he was right-if she was made for more-then she hadn't been surviving all this time.

She'd been waiting.

And her waiting was over.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered.

Killian stepped close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath between words.

"But I am."

The silence between them wasn't empty.

It throbbed with unspoken history, with all the lives that had come before theirs and ended too early. With the kind of hunger that didn't come from desire but from recognition.

Old. Absolute. Unforgiving.

Seraphina's fingers flexed at her sides. Not in fear. In resistance. In need. She'd been taught control. Taught stillness. But her body no longer listened to rules that no longer applied.

Her voice was quieter now. "What happens if I say yes?"

"To me?" he asked, tilting his head.

"No," she said, eyes on his mouth. "To the curse."

Killian's jaw shifted, and for the first time, she saw something ripple beneath the control. Not hesitation.

Memory.

"There's no version where this ends clean," he said. "Not for you. Not for me."

She didn't flinch.

"What I carry," he continued, "wasn't meant to survive the bond. It kills. Slowly. Cruelly. But it doesn't get to choose this time. Because I've buried enough people fate tried to rip from me."

Her lips parted, but he wasn't finished.

"I will not survive you, Seraphina. I've made peace with that."

His hands remained at his sides. Open. Empty.

"But you will survive me."

It hit her like heat under skin-coiling where logic failed. She had been told her magic was poison, that her body would unravel if it ever bonded with a cursed Alpha. But what if it wasn't her destruction they feared?

What if it was her survival?

Her voice was almost inaudible. "You don't know what I am."

"I know exactly what you are."

"Then say it."

He didn't blink.

"You're not the cursed one," Killian said. "You're the weapon they cursed the world to hide."

Her breath stalled.

He stepped closer, the distance between them burned away by something older than their names. When his hand reached for hers, she didn't pull away.

She didn't move at all.

Not when his fingers touched hers.

Not when her mark flared against her skin like a brand newly pressed.

Not even when her magic, ancient and awakening, surged into his palm like it had always been waiting for that single point of contact.

She should've been afraid.

But what she felt instead-

Was power.

"You shouldn't have touched me," she said.

"I didn't ask permission."

"You didn't need to." Her voice dropped. "That's the problem."

"You think this is control?" His tone sharpened, low and electric. "You think I'm here because I can be?"

She didn't respond.

"Every second I'm near you, it burns," he continued. "But I don't stop. I don't leave. I stay-because walking away from you feels worse than the curse that's been killing me since I was seventeen."

Seraphina swallowed hard. "You make everything sound like ruin."

"That's because it is."

A beat of silence.

Then he added, quieter, darker, "You were always going to ruin me, witch."

Something inside her fractured-and not from pain.

"Say it again."

He didn't hesitate.

"You were always going to ruin me."

She inhaled sharply, like she could taste it-the raw honesty, the fatal heat.

Her lips parted. "Then why are you still standing?"

His laugh was soft. Dangerous. "Because you haven't finished me yet."

Her pulse stuttered.

"This bond-" she began.

"Isn't a bond," he interrupted. "It's a sentence. You're the last part of it."

Her breath caught. "You talk like you want it."

"I do want it."

"That doesn't make sense."

He leaned in, not touching her, but close enough that the air between them cracked open like a confession.

"Nothing about you ever made sense. Not the way you feel familiar in every fucking dream. Not the way my body recognizes yours before my mind can catch up. Not the way your magic didn't kill me when I should've died."

A pause.

"Nothing makes sense, Seraphina. But I want you anyway."

A sound escaped her throat-somewhere between disbelief and ache.

"Do you even know what happens if we complete the bond?" she asked.

"I die," he said, flat.

Her stomach twisted.

"You lose control," she said.

"I already have."

Her mouth trembled. "I destroy what I touch."

He stepped in that final inch between them.

"Then touch me."

She stared at him.

No escape. No pretense. No breath.

Only the weight of a thousand unsaid truths pressing against her ribs.

"You don't fear me?" she asked, softer now.

"I crave you," he said. "Every breath you take, I want to own it."

She closed her eyes. That should've terrified her. Should've driven her back into the shadows where she'd been safe, hidden, cold.

But safety never made her feel.

And right now, she felt everything.

"You don't know what craving me means," she whispered.

"I do."

"It means surrendering to something that doesn't end in love."

"Who said anything about love?" he said. His voice dropped to a husk. "I want something more dangerous."

She opened her eyes.

"What could be more dangerous?"

He didn't flinch. "Devotion."

The word landed like a brand, burning through every fragile line she'd drawn around herself. It wasn't sweet. It wasn't soft.

It was truth.

Ruthless. Eternal.

"I was taught to kill men like you," she said.

"And I was raised to destroy women like you," he replied. "But here we are."

She hated the way her heart answered his voice before her mind could fight it.

"I've imagined you," she said.

His jaw tightened. "Tell me."

"In the dark. In my dreams. You come to me when I'm weakest. Not like a savior. Like a storm."

He stepped even closer. She didn't stop him.

"Tell me what I do," he murmured.

She swallowed.

"You make me want to burn."

He breathed her in like he'd been waiting for those words all his life.

"And what do you do to me?" he asked.

"I don't know yet."

He leaned in, his mouth just a breath from hers. "Then let me teach you."

Their lips didn't meet.

But the tension-gods, the tension-was a promise begging to be broken.

She almost gave in.

Almost.

"I'm still dangerous," she said.

"Then don't you dare play gentle with me."

"You want to know what I feel?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

"Tell me."

She looked at him-really looked-and something inside her cracked wide open. She wasn't supposed to want this. Him. The heat. The need. But it surged through her like it had always lived under her skin, waiting for permission to rise.

"I feel like if I touch you again, I won't stop," she said.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't pretend you want to."

Her breath hitched. "This isn't real."

"Does it feel fake?"

He stepped closer. The air between them disappeared. She could smell him now-cedar and smoke and something wilder, something that didn't belong in any world she'd been raised to survive.

"I was made to destroy you," she said again, like repetition could save her.

He didn't move. "Then do it."

She blinked. "What?"

"If your magic is meant to kill me, then do it now. No barriers. No spells. No regrets."

"You're insane."

"No," he said. "I'm yours."

It was her undoing.

The words, the way he said them, like a blade sliding between armor and bone-soft, merciless, final.

Her voice cracked. "You don't get to say things like that."

"Why not?"

"Because I'll believe you."

His hand lifted. Not touching. Not yet.

But close.

"Then believe me," he said.

She trembled.

He leaned in, lips at her ear. "Believe that I've dreamed of your voice since I could bleed. That I've woken up choking on the taste of your name. That I would rip open the world to have you for one goddamn night."

She made a sound-a broken, breathless thing that barely escaped her throat.

"I can't be yours," she whispered.

"You already are."

The mark on her collarbone flared again. A deep burn, not of pain, but of recognition. Her magic pulsed with it. A rhythm not her own. A hunger not entirely hers.

And still, she didn't pull away.

"You should hate me," she said.

"I do."

"Then why-"

"Because hating you feels exactly like loving you. And I can't tell the difference anymore."

She didn't kiss him.

He didn't kiss her.

But the space between them shattered.

And suddenly, his mouth was inches from hers. Not demanding. Not taking. Waiting.

For permission.

For surrender.

"I'll destroy everything," she warned.

"I'll help you."

Her mouth brushed his.

Once.

And that was all it took.

The curse didn't break.

It woke.

The air in the vault shifted.

Thicker. Warmer. Charged like a curse breathed into silk.

She backed away-not in fear, but because the closeness hurt. Every cell in her body screamed to touch him. Every bone in her soul begged her not to.

"You don't know what I've done," she said, her voice fragile and sharp.

"Try me."

"I've lied. I've let people die to keep my secret. I've made people forget I even existed."

"Good."

She froze. "What?"

He stepped forward again, voice low, even. "I don't want a savior. I don't want someone clean. I want the woman who's been breaking the rules since the womb."

"I'm not her anymore."

"Yes," he said, "you are. You're just buried under chains someone else forged."

Her chest rose and fell. "And you think you can break them?"

"No." He looked at her like she was the only fire in a frozen world. "I think you already have."

Silence.

Long. Deep. Electric.

Then her lips parted. "You don't get to come into my prison and pretend it's my palace."

"I'm not pretending."

"This place is my cage."

"Then why haven't you run?"

The question sliced through her.

Because she couldn't.

Because he was here.

And if she turned away now, if she fled the way she'd been taught to, she'd never stop running.

"Because you," she said, swallowing, "feel like the end of everything."

He didn't smile.

He just answered, "Then let's end it together."

She shook her head, but her voice betrayed her. "You make me weak."

"I want to."

Her breath caught. "Why?"

"Because the world's been telling you to be strong just to survive. I want to be the one place you don't have to be."

It was too much.

Too honest. Too exposed.

Her voice broke. "You'll break me."

He looked down at her-eyes darker now, deeper, hungrier. "Not before you break me first."

A slow beat passed.

Then she whispered, "What do you want from me, Killian?"

He didn't hesitate. "Everything."

Her hands trembled. She didn't let them fall.

"You're cursed."

"So are you."

"If we complete the bond-"

"We die."

A pause.

Then, softly: "Or we live like gods."

The air was so still it hurt. Her heart pounded in her throat, her wrists, her ribs.

"You're not afraid of me?" she asked again, not trusting herself.

"I'm afraid of you," he said. "And I want you anyway."

Her legs weakened beneath her. She sank slowly onto the edge of the carved stone altar in the vault, pulse hammering.

He didn't move.

She lifted her gaze to him.

"If I ask you to leave, will you?"

His throat worked. "Yes."

"Will you hate me?"

"I already do."

"Why?"

"Because I can't stop needing you."

A sharp inhale cut through her. She bit her bottom lip, stared at the blood on her palm from where her nails had dug too deep.

"Tell me something true," she said.

He knelt in front of her, reached for her hand-and paused, just an inch from it.

"I'm not the monster they warned you about."

"And if I told you I was?"

His lips curved, but it wasn't a smile. "Then I'd ask you to ruin me faster."