Chapter 175

EVE.

"Eve..."

My name in his mouth turned my blood to ice.

Kyrie stood in my doorway looking nothing like the monster I'd come to fear and everything like the man I had once fallen for — soft eyes, gentle voice, hands loose at his sides like he had come in peace. And that was exactly what terrified me most.

He had not slept. That was the first thing I noticed. The shadows beneath his eyes had gone from bruised to hollow, and his skin had a grey cast under them.

I watched his pupils blow wide and swallow the warm hazel I used to love, and there was a fine tremor running through the hand he had braced against my doorframe that he did not seem aware of at all.

He was still beautiful. That was the part that seemed the most cruel. He was still the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

My body still somehow recognized him, while the mark on my neck flared hot and vicious at the sight of him. But underneath all that heat, my entire existence remembered Africa, and my knees nearly gave out.

"Please," I whispered. "Please, just go."

My voice was shaking so badly.

He lifted his eyes and met my gaze, and the emptiness I saw in there was one of a man who had not only toed past the line of reasoning, he had run past it so far that there was no going back.

"I just want to talk." He stepped inside and shut the door behind him with a quiet click. "Five minutes. That's all I'm asking for, baby."

'Baby...'

I almost scoffed, if not for the terror eating me alive.

My stomach turned. I took a step back.

"You look better," he said, his gaze sweeping over me with a hunger he didn't even try to hide. "I've been worried sick since he took you away from me. Do you know that? I haven't slept. I came all the way back here. I haven't eaten. All I could think about was you, lying somewhere in pain because of—" he bit the inside of his cheek, "—because of what happened."

"What happened?" My voice shook with disbelief. "You mean what you did, Kyrie."

"I know." He raised both hands and took another step forward, but I took another step back.

Dread coiled tight in my chest when I realized how little room I had left behind me.

"I know, okay? I'm not here to deny anything. I'm here to apologize. And I'll spend the rest of my life fixing it... Everything in that diary, Africa, everything I've done — I own all of it. I was wrong. I was sick with wanting you, and I let it turn me into something ugly. But Eve, baby, listen to me—"

"Don't call me that! Don't you dare!" I said, looking around and hoping help would arrive soon.

The slightest move in the wrong direction could make this monster do something stupid.

Oh, God.

Please. Help me.

Saint...

"—everything I did, every single thing, I did because I love you. I'm madly in love with you." His words were speeding up, tumbling over each other the way they always did when the control started slipping. "Nobody on this earth will ever love you the way I do. Nobody searched for you the way I searched. Nobody would burn what I've burned for you. That has to count for something. That has to mean something. Right?"

My back hit the wall.

The impact knocked a small, frightened sound out of me, and I hated myself for it, because I watched his eyes darken with satisfaction at having me cornered. He couldn't even hide it.

Then he kept coming, closing the distance one unhurried step at a time until the room shrank down to just him.

"You're afraid of me." His voice cracked in the middle of it. "Don't be afraid of me."

"Then stop walking toward me."

He stopped.

For one moment he actually stopped, five feet away, and I saw genuine anguish break across his face. It was real and unperformed, like he was watching something he loves recoil from him.

"I love you," he said. "Eve. Do you understand that nobody on this earth will ever love you like I do? Nobody looked for you the way I looked. Nobody would burn what I've burned. That counts. That has to count for something."

"Kyrie, stop. Please stop. I'm begging you. You've done enough. God, please." I pleaded.

"We can fix this." He stopped a breath away from me. This close, I could see the exhaustion cracked through his beautiful face, the red rimming his eyes, the desperation sweating through the calm he was trying so hard to perform. "The law is on my side, Eve. Baby. Do you understand what that means? The elders have already ruled. Saint Rollins has to reject you. It's finished. It was finished the moment I marked you."

His hand came up, and I flinched, but he only touched a strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear with a tenderness that made my skin crawl. "Fighting it is only hurting you. The bond is tearing you apart because you keep reaching for him. That's what's killing you. Every time you reach for him, the bond tears, and it's hurting you, and I can't— Eve, I can't watch you die because you're too stubborn to choose the man who's already yours. Choose me — fully and completely — and the pain stops. Your body settles. You live, baby."

I wish he'd stop calling me that. I just wish...

"You did this to me."

He flinched like I had struck him.

"I know." His voice dropped, went warm and coaxing, the voice that used to make me feel safe. "I know. And I'll spend the rest of my life fixing it. Look at me. Look at me, baby, please — I'll give you everything. A home away from all of this. Anywhere in the world, you pick it. You'll never want for a single thing as long as you live." his forehead almost touched mine, his breath ghosting over my lips. "And our pups. Eve. You're going to be such a beautiful mother; I've seen it in my head a hundred times, you round and happy and safe, and I'd worship you, I swear to God I'd worship the ground you walked on. Just choose me. Just say yes, and it all stops. Say yes."

Tears slid hot down my face.

He was shaking.

And it terrified me to death.

"Leave," I breathed. "Please, Kyrie. Just leave."

Hurt flickered through his expression, but he quickly strangled it. "Eve—"

"I will never choose you." The words tore out of me. "Do you hear me? Never. You killed Jessa. You killed Cole. You killed my father. You forced your mark on me while I screamed for help. You are a monster, Kyrie, and I will never — never — choose a monster!"

The silence that followed was the most frightening sound I had ever heard.

He went completely still.

I watched the softness drain out of him in stages. I watched the performance collapse and something rawer and more dangerous surface beneath it.

He slowly cracked his neck to one side, and fresh terror flooded through me at the gesture, because I knew what it meant.

"A monster." He laughed, and it sounded low and jagged, with no humor in it anywhere. "Right. A monster. And what is he, Eve? What is Saint Rollins?" He slammed his palm against the wall beside my head, and I cried out. "He blackmailed you! He broke you for sport! He passed you around a sex club as bait — and you'll choose him? You'll let him touch you? Over me?" His breathing had gone ragged, his words firing faster and faster. "I killed for you. Everything I destroyed, I destroyed for you, to keep you, to protect you, and he gets your forgiveness while I get the monster title?"

"Kyrie—"

"No. No, you don't get to look at me like that." His hand caught my jaw, forcing my face up to his, and panic exploded through my chest. "You loved me. Barely two weeks ago you wore my ring, and you loved me. That doesn't just die. I know it's still in there. I just need to remind you. I just need—"

His eyes were wild, glassy, tears standing in them, and his whole body was trembling against mine.

"Let go of me—" I struggled against his grip.

"—one chance, baby, just let me remind you—"

His mouth came down toward mine.

I turned my face and shoved at his chest with everything my weakened body had, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough.

His grip only tightened as he tried to catch my jaw again. I screamed, but he caught my jaw and caught my lips with his.

The more he kissed me, the more his mark on my neck burned like a furnace.

The bond reached for Saint. The other half. It felt so wrong.

He didn't care. He kissed me like his whole existence depended on it.

His other hand grabbed both my wrists and pinned them to my back while his tongue assaulted my mouth.

"If you ever think I'll let you go, you got it all fucking wrong, baby." He said into my mouth. "I'm obsessed. Do you even know what that means?"

He let out a menacing laugh as he took my lips again.

"Fuck, I could die without you." He deepened the kiss; each stroke of his tongue felt like I was a drug he'd been starving for.

I was growing weaker and weaker. And just when I thought my body would give out, the door exploded inward.

It didn't open. It 'burst,' torn half off its hinges, and Saint came through it with death written across every line of his face.

Kyrie was ripped away from me so fast the air went cold where his body had been.

I slid down the wall, my legs finally giving out, and through the blur of my tears I saw Saint standing between us with Kyrie's collar twisted in his fist — and I saw his eyes.

They were red.

Blood red, curse red, and locked on Kyrie's face with an intent so absolute that my heart stopped.

Kyrie smirked through the blood already at his lip, reckless to the very end.

"Perfect timing as always, Saint Rollins," he rasped. "Always arriving right at the end of everything."