Chapter 57 Leaving everything around
I shoved my key in the door, but the lock wouldn’t turn over. I knocked on the door. “Maleene!”
The melody stopped for a brief second before picking back up where she left off. Typical Maleene temper tantrum. I pounded again, hard enough to make the wood rattle. “You have until the count of three to let me in.”
“You can go fuck yourself,” she sang without missing a beat. Such a beautiful voice could be so annoying.
“One.”
“Ask Balthazar where he put your things, at least what survived. That’s where you live now.” She hmphed on the other side.
“Two.”
Crazy bitch.
“Three.” I kicked down the door with one powerful kick.
She shrieked with the sea goddess’s voice. Ocio was deadly beautiful, and so were her mermaids. I dodged out of the way so her voice waves wouldn’t hit me directly. “You don’t live here. You have some audacity to walk into my house.”
I grabbed her face and kissed her. The wild snarling instincts that had been in chaos since I’d gone to jail settled, knowing she was back at my side. She didn’t try to escape, but I kept my hold bruising so she didn’t get any damn ideas. I used my hold on her face to slam her into the wall behind her. Her breasts bounced with the movement, drawing my attention. She still wore that stupid fucking dress.
A modest thing peppered with an innocent rose pattern that Maleene would never put on her body. She pretended she was someone else. That she wasn’t a skin-tight, black leather girl with a penchant for pain.
I slid my free hand into the neckline and ripped it right down the middle. That way, she’d never have the audacity to appear meek in an attempt to be more desirable again.
She finally remembered she was supposed to resist me, and she bit my lip hard enough I tasted blood. I ran my tongue over the wound and chuckled. Like a little blood ever stopped me.
“I said go.”
I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of her thick desire. She smelled like a wild storm that I could never resist diving into. “Is that why you're so wet? Because I should go?”
Her eyes narrowed on me. “I’m insane with the hysterics. I’m wet all the fucking time.”
Tiny fists flew at me, but I didn’t back away. Every fist was filled with the gusto of a pissed-off beast, but she didn’t have any real power to put behind it.
She punctuated every word she said with another useless hit. “My incompetent pussy of a mate didn’t want to take care of me anymore.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, wench.” I slammed her into the wall again.
“I should fuck the first person I see out of spite.”
“Do that and I’ll shred them to pieces on the spot. I know how much you hate cleaning blood out of the carpet.” A growl vibrated deep in my chest, warning her not to push any harder.
She bared her teeth at me as shimmering scales danced along her shoulder. “Shed one drop of blood in my house, and I’ll—”
“I spoke my peace on the matter. I don’t give a fuck what you’ll do,” I yelled over her meaningless threat.
Her hair lifting into the air was the only sign that she was about to attack. Before I even saw them come out, her claws were already viciously swiping at my chest. She was so glorious like this, snarling and angry.
She couldn’t hurt me. She was my mate. It wasn’t possible.
Until a burning sensation made me glance down. Scratches decorated my chest. Some places were even missing chunks of skin and muscle. Blood was splattered over both of us.
I didn’t feel much. I didn’t have many pain receptors in my chest. Maleene always went after my face for a reason. But I had to admit, she had me looking gnarly. “What the fuck?”
Maleene stopped and stared at my chest with wide-eyed shock. She’d just been lashing out. She wasn’t trying to hurt me. It was one of the things I loved about her. Her feelings were so intense, and that applied to both sides of the coin.
“You aren’t my mate anymore.” Her voice cracked with thinly veiled pain. Her lips quivered for one painful second, and the sight tore at my pride as a beast. Anger replaced her sadness faster than a bolt of lightning. “Get out! You have no place here anymore.”
“Don’t be stupid, Mal. You’re my mate.”“No, I’m not. I’m just stuck with the leftover side effects from your dumb mark.” She gestured to what was once a symbol of my claim over her.
The sight of it disgusted me. It didn’t weave my scent through hers like it was supposed to. Even looking at it, no one would be able to tell who she belonged to. No beast would respect that broken thing.
“My claim on your soul is dumb?” Because that’s what that mark was. That was me intertwining with the core of who she was, staking a no- trespassing sign deep beneath her skin and bones.
Even if no one could tell who put the sign there anymore.
“What claim?” she screamed. “There’s no claim! You blew it! The same way you blow everything.”
“If I have no claim, why are you suffering from the hysterics?” It didn’t add up. The hysterics were a very specific ailment to females in a mating pair or group who needed to copulate with their mate or mates. Evolution did a fabulous job of making sure our females needed us as much as we needed them.
I ran my thumb over my lip. We should have realized it before. Her teeth shouldn’t have cut my skin. They never did before.