He leaned down, touching his nose against mine, glaring into my eyes as the chainmail touched my flesh through the nightie, creating a chill that settled into my bones as he held me there.
“Don’t make me fight you,” he whispered before tilting his head to brush his nose against my cheek.
I stepped back, gazing at him. “I will not willing wage a war with you while my sisters are on the other side of that war. I won’t do it. I get that this place needs a reboot, I do. I get that we dropped the fucking ball, and I even agree with you. I understand why you are doing this, Knox. The laws state that if a queen or king oversteps and commits treason, then they are to be held responsible for their actions. You want to remove them, okay, fine. But that isn’t what you want. You want to slaughter the original bloodlines and end their reign in the Nine Realms. You want to put new people on our thrones, and the only way to do that is to kill us all. You intend to commit genocide on the witches, for the deeds of a few? No, absolutely not. That is like finding one bad apple and tossing away the entire batch because of it.”
“One bad apple?” Snorting coldly, he shook his head, glaring at me as the room exploded with raw, undiluted power leaking from his pores. “There are entire fucking castles filled with covens that are using people as shields on their walls. They’re also sending unsuspecting people into crowded towns, spelled to drop potions that erupt, killing everyone inside the barrier erected by the witches the moment their victim is deep enough into the town. Another coven is filled with debauchery, only anyone who joins in the revelry is spelled and not there willingly.
“When the witches created life with anyone other than human, and if a male child were to be born, they fed that child to the father as punishment for giving them a son. The witches are destroying the Nine Realms, and they’re doing it because they can. Freya and her sisters were the molds from which the witches of the Nine Realms followed, but somewhere, they got off-course and adopted their own fucked-up rules. No one has intervened in over five hundred years, allowing them to go unchecked.” He watched my chest rise and fall with anger, with fury at his words. “That’s it; get mad. Your house betrayed you, not me, little girl. Not until they forced me to choose between saving your life and removing that beautiful fucking head of yours.”
“If that is true, then it is our bloodline’s job to clean our house. When your house is messy, you don’t ask another to come clean it for you. You handle it yourself. I will clean my house, but I won’t do it on your terms.”
“My army is fifty thousand strong and growing daily. I am the head of the fucking rebellion, Aria. If you’re unwilling to help me, I will chain you to my bed and protect you from those who crave your pretty head be removed. I will keep you, as I have claimed you in a way that can never be undone. You are mine forever. There is no way out of this situation for us now. Not for you, not for me, not for anyone.”
“You won’t keep me, Knox. I am Aria fucking Hecate. I am a survivor. War is in my veins, and I assure you, if you do this, I will escape you. I will fight against you. I will always fight for my family. It’s in my blood and burned into my bones to protect them. You’re fighting for the memory of your ghosts, but I’m fighting for the lives of mine who are still here.”
“There is no escaping me, Aria. And I, too, was created for war, and I have declared war on you personally. That rattle you hear? That’s my beast calling to yours, and she answers him. The purring? That’s rare, very rare for them to purr to one another in this day and age. I may hate you, and you may hate me, but the things inside of us? They enjoy one another immensely. Not to mention, I branded that sweet flesh of yours, and I left my mark on you. My scent clings to your flesh, warning other males that you are mine, and mine alone. There’s nowhere that you can hide from me that I won’t find you. You can’t run from me, because I know the taste of you, the scent of your flesh, and every secret inside your beautiful soul. If you get free, never stop running because I will be in every shadow and dark corner, waiting to get you back, and I will because I never fucking lose.”
“I’m okay with running; you no longer scare me.”
He smiled, moving his fingers as chains slipped around my ankles, while the others dropped from my hands. I stared at the blood-covered bandage and back up at him. He had used magic. Swallowing hard, I studied the way he watched me, knowing that he’d wanted me to see he could use it as well. Our studies had informed us that only witch’s wielded magic, but he wasn’t a witch. He was something else, and he’d just used it too.
“Do you plan to keep me in your bedroom for the entire time you have me here?” I asked, watching as he reached into the fire and pulled out a piece of red-hot metal.
Knox walked over to me, staring through emotionless eyes while he stopped in front of me. He grabbed my arm and pushed the branding rune against my skin, causing the flesh to sizzle as I screamed out in pain, fighting against him. He held my arm firmly, watching me as the metal painfully burned a design into my red, raw flesh. Knox placed the branding rune back into the fire and grabbed a pitcher of water, pouring it over my arm as tears ran down my cheeks.
“That will prevent you from casting, and where else would you be held? You’re mine, remember? I prefer you inside my bedroom, in my bed, where I know you are safely hidden from the world. No one can trace you here, or use a spell to detect your location. If you leave this room, I will know it. You’re in my realm now, little girl.” His hands came up to touch my cheeks. “I am the wolf that hunts the lambs, and you are fucking delicious,” he whispered raspingly.
“I’m not a lamb that you can hunt. I’m the woman who rattles your beast. I intend to shake your entire fucking realm, Knox.”
“You think you can rattle me, little girl?”
I smiled past the tears that flowed from my eyes, watching him as I closed the distance between us and rattled from deep in my chest as his beast answered the call loudly. I leaned up on my toes, brushing my lips against his as the purr sounded from deep within me, and he answered it with his own as he lowered his mouth.
“Let’s go to war, asshole. I’m about to rock your fucking foundation and rewrite history. War is brutal, but so is love. Let’s rattle the realms, monster, and see which one of us ends up burning in the ashes of the fire we set, and which of us will rise as a legend these realms will never fucking forget.” I nipped his lip moaning against it, stepping back slowly with the challenge burning in my stare.
“Love isn’t brutal, and it’s nothing like fucking war.”
“You’re wrong; it is the exact same thing as war. And don’t assume I speak about loving you, Knox, far from love as a comparison to war, as both are brutal and bring you to your knees. If you’ve never gone barebones or felt your soul being rattled right down to the very thing that makes it burn, you did it wrong. Love should rattle your soul, but so should war. There’s a very thin line between love and hate, but also between war and peace.”
“Elaborate, woman,” he stated, watching me through narrowed slits as he folded his arms across his chest, glaring at me.
“If love isn’t brutal, then you’re doing it wrong. It is barebones banging together beneath the full moon, stronger and more forceful than any storm could ever hope to achieve. The sound of flesh hitting flesh, and the feeling it leaves when the body cools and the sweat dries but the soul continues to slowly burn, lit from the connection it shared with another. It is the brutality of ripping apart a soul, learning what is within it, and accepting it at face value without wanting to change a single thing. Love is a fucking battlefield, and you fight because you want it with every fiber of your being. It’s the exact same as war, which I assure you, Knox, you’ll learn to love war with me. On the other hand, you may decide you hate it, but either way, you will know the difference between the two.”