Breathing Fire

The bathroom door slammed open behind me, and I jumped. I calmly began putting the photos back into the drawer, but of course, the damage was done. Goosebumps rose along my skin as I felt his eyes boring into me from behind.

I sat perfectly still as he appeared in front of me, wearing just a towel slung around his naked hips. The wet towel clung. I couldn’t even pretend this didn’t affect me. A nearly naked Dom would only stop affecting me when I was dead.

He didn’t even address my lack of regard for his privacy as I’d thought he would. “How was he?” he asked, his voice low and intense.

I closed my eyes. “Dom, don’t.”

His hand gripped hard over one of my braided buns, pulling my head back roughly. “Tell me,” he ordered.

Finally, I shrugged one shoulder. It was awkward with the way he was holding me, but I think he got the point. “He did the trick,” I said cryptically. He shoved me away in disgust, and started pacing. “How often do you look at these pictures?” I finally asked him. What have I done? I thought to myself.

He stopped, staring at me. “Often enough. I assume you know what happened to him, what I did to him.” His restless pacing began again. “What did you feel when you found out I killed him? That I tore him limb from limb?”

I sighed unhappily, interrupting him. “You should just burn these, Dom. It’s not healthy to be so obsessed with something that happened so long ago.”

He stopped, leaning in close. “I’m not obsessed with those pictures, Jillian. I’m obsessed with you. I’ve been obsessed with you since I was fourteen. What’s not healthy is being obsessed with someone that I despise. I used to think that I could never hate you, that no matter what you did, my feelings couldn’t change.”

“I was wrong. God, was I wrong. You proved me wrong. And it wasn’t just that man, Jillian. You broke your blood oath to me without blinking. You gave up on us without blinking. You were never the person I thought you were. You were an adolescent fantasy that I just couldn’t shake.”

I was still trying to let his stinging words sink in when he continued. “When I met you, you told me I was too young to fall in love. I knew you were wrong at the time. And what I felt didn’t fade with time or distance. But you made me wish it would.” His voice was a low growl in my ear. “Now answer the question. What did you feel when you heard I had killed him?”

I did the idiot thing and told him the truth. I figured it wouldn’t go over well. I was right. “Relief. I heard you were going to fight him in the arena and I was relieved when it was over and you weren’t hurt.”

He smiled at me, and it was an ugly, mean smile-a bitter, heart-wrenching smile. It hurt me as much as it was meant to. “Not hurt? That’s how you see it?”

We had a long and sordid past that spanned more than half of a normal human’s life span. He had loved me since he was barely more than a child. His feelings had embarrassed me at first, since I was far from a child myself, but my reluctance had never thwarted his devotion. Eventually, when he was grown, he had managed to seduce me, and my heart had never been safe from him after that. But I had hurt him, time and again. I broke promises, and I ran. It was a cycle that I doubted I could ever break.

I couldn’t look him in the eye for a minute. When I finally met his angry eyes again, mine were pleading. “I warned you, again and again, that he was going to try to kill you. Everyone could see it but you. And he flat out told me what he planned-”

His bark of a laugh was painful to my ears. “I suppose I should have guessed it then, when you kept running into him and getting all worked up about his plans. Fool that I was, I trusted you.”

“You didn’t trust me enough to listen to me about him. And he never would have quit making attempts on your life. Sneaky, underhanded attempts. So to answer your question, I felt only relief when you killed him. Relief that he wasn’t a threat to you anymore.”

His eyes went a little crazy after I finished talking, and I knew that wasn’t good. “Are you somehow trying to imply that you f**ked him for my sake? That you knew I’d challenge him and eliminate the threat to my own life? Please tell me you aren’t trying to make me believe that you f**ked him to save my life!” His voice was close to a roar at the end.

“I didn’t say that.” I stayed silent after that, seeing clearly that my every word was antagonizing him even more.

He paced angrily for several long moments before looking at me again. His eyes were tormented. “You wouldn’t believe what I turned into when you left. I had so little control over my rage that I did things that would have made you hate me. Perhaps I did them so that you would.”

“I killed Declan’s guard without a qualm, just slaughtered them like sheep. I didn’t know why they served him. They may have been loyal to him, or just doing their duty. But I unleashed my rage on them without hesitation, and it was a bloodbath. I had enough control not to involve any of my own people, to do it myself, but that was where my control ended. Or perhaps I wanted the carnage all to myself. I honestly can’t recall. It still sits in my memories like a dark red haze.”

“There were ten men guarding him. He thought to hide from me. He seemed to think that if I couldn’t speak to him, I couldn’t challenge him. I warned his guard once to leave or die, but they were dutiful. Misguided, but dutiful. It wasn’t even a challenge to decapitate them, one by one. And then there was Declan. I was an inch away from killing him on sight, but I drew it out in the arena. I wanted an audience to see his humiliation. I wanted you to hear about it, about the brutality of it. I wanted you to hear about how I toyed with him. I drew it out, to make him scared, to make him suffer, and cry, and beg. And he did. I wanted you to know that I tore him into tiny pieces and bathed in his blood. I wanted you to know that I drank his blood, and ate his heart, and took his power as my own with no remorse. Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t find you early on.” He came to stand above me on the bed, that mis-matched gaze boring down at me. His wolf’s eye was wild with the beast. It’s cobalt twin wasn’t far behind.