He didn’t answer me. Instead, he walked into the bathroom, and I watched his perfect ass moving with absolute precision as the muscles bunched with every step he took. He exited the bathroom and threw a cloth at me. I caught it and stared at him, watching as he grabbed sweatpants and shoved his legs through them angrily.
“Wash your cunt off, it’s bleeding all over my bed.”
I blinked slowly, noting the anger that now filled his tone. I frowned in confusion, shaking my head as my heart stuttered, and then beat faster. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You’re breathing, isn’t it enough, witch?”
“You’re un-fucking-believable.” I wrapped the sheet around me as unshed tears burned my eyes and threatened to choke my words off as my throat tightened with them.
“Am I? Good,” he snapped harshly. “Get the fuck out of my room, woman.”
“I didn’t ask for you, Knox. You had no fucking right to take someone else’s place if you didn’t want me, and yet I didn’t scream about it. You are the one who is in the wrong, not me. I came here to do a task, and it’s done, so what’s the fucking problem? What did I do to piss you off now?”
“You are. You are the fucking problem, Aria. Get the fuck out of my room—I’m done with you. I got what I wanted, now leave.”
He stared at me as tears glistened in my eyes, and pain shot through me. “You’re a bastard.”
“I can live with that.”
My mouth opened and closed as I shook my head, turning around before I decided to attack him. That was one fight I wouldn’t win. I was done with him, finished. You didn’t do that to a woman; you didn’t take something special and throw it back at her as if it was trash. I was going to find a spell and curse the asshole to be impotent for eternity.
I stepped to grab my panties, glaring at the shambles he’d made of them, and turned to stare at my bra. They were both ruined, just as I was from his cold, dismissive demeanor. I grabbed the dress and slipped it on before I left the room in bare feet, passing the sitting room to slam my hand against the elevator button.
Knox walked toward me with a bag in his hand, smirking as he took in the angry glare that filled my eyes.
“You forgot this,” he stated, tossing it at me.
“I don’t fucking need it, prick. There’s enough left to do the blessing.”
His gaze lowered to where the blood was dripping down my legs, mixed with his cum. I felt disgusting, used, and discarded like trash, which I was certain had been his point. He opened his mouth, but I beat him to it.
“You can stay the fuck away from me, Knox. Don’t speak to me, don’t look at me, and if you see me on fire, don’t bother getting water. Let me fucking burn, because I want nothing from you. I’d rather burn to ashes than see you ever again,” I whispered thickly. I touched the button, and he dropped his gaze to my bare feet, shaking his head.
“Aria,” he uttered.
“Fuck you, Knox, just fuck you!” Tears slipped down my cheeks, while anger ignited.
“You deserve better, but I’m a selfish prick, remember? Get smarter, little lamb. Get smarter faster, or you’ll get eaten.”
I smiled coldly through emotionless eyes. “As long as I’m being eaten by anyone but you, then I’m okay with that.” I turned away from him, pushing the button repeatedly to escape him. When I turned back, he slammed me against the wall and stared into my eyes as his head pressed against mine. His chest rose and fell with his labored breathing while his nostrils flared as if he was fighting something internally. His hand held my throat just hard enough to keep me there, and I swallowed harshly. “Do it, Knox. Do it or get the fuck off of me.”
He dropped his hold, stepping back before he turned, pushing in a code and stepping out of the elevator. “We’re done here. Your sisters are outside, and they have the items to bless the house. Get the fuck out and don’t ever come back. Understand me? You have ten minutes, and then I hunt you and any of your sisters that remain in my domain. Your time starts now. Tick tock, little girl.”
The elevator door closed, and when it reopened, I took off through the hallway, not bothering to stop and grab my things. I’d get new things. Fuck him.
At the entrance to the house, Brander turned, dropping his gaze to my blood-covered thighs as I moved past him, flipping him off without saying a word.
“Open the door,” I demanded of Greer, who turned, doing the same thing Brander had done. It was as if the assholes couldn’t give a woman any sense of dignity.
“I can’t,” he stated, and I hissed, moving him with magic as I opened the doors myself and marched out of the house.
“It’s not safe,” Greer called to my back. “Fine, end up dead, and I will animate your corpse to torture it!”
“Fine!” I screamed over my shoulder, watching the dark SUV as it pulled up to the curb outside the gates. My eyes followed it as it came to a full stop. The moment Sabine exited the SUV, she smiled.
Power ignited around us, and I turned, staring briefly at Knox for a moment before dismissing him outright, coldly. I moved toward Sabine, waiting for the rest of them to exit the car.
“Look who’s a woman now,” she giggled until she noticed the look on my face. “What’s wrong, Aria?”
“Who plucked it?” Kinvara asked as she landed on the curb. “Was it Knox? I had fifty dollars on him intervening to tap that cherry pie first.”
“You won, we need to go home, now,” I stated, not bothering with further details as I moved past them into the street.
“Aria, what is wrong?” Callista asked. “If it was painful, it’s normal. Did he hurt you?”
“Let’s just say it was educational, and I never want to do it again, ever,” I muttered, tossing the bag at her. Hearing a car speeding up the road, I turned, staring at it. “That’s Amara’s car.” I watched the car as it accelerated toward us. My eyes noted the driver was male, and I swallowed. “Fuck,” I hissed, turning to look at where my sisters stood huddled together and then back at the car that raced up the road.
Without thinking twice, I held my hand up, stopping the car as I rushed toward it, intending to throw it back away from my sisters, but the driver continued applying pressure on the gas.
My sisters cried my name as I approached it, slowly pushing more magic against it, staring at the driver who lifted his hand and clamped his thumb down on something. The car exploded, and pain shot through me. It was violent, brutal, and debilitating pain, and everything tried to shut down as it consumed my mind.
My body absorbed the blast, and I was thrown against the concrete to stare up at the stars. Echoes of the explosion continued inside my head as I frowned, realizing what I had done. I’d fucked up this time. There were moments in your life where you realized mid-step that you had fucked up. This was one of those moments. I was on fire.
I could hear the screams of my sisters. I could hear Knox, as well as his men, trying to calm them. I stared at the mangled car where the man should have been, but he wasn’t in it. The entire top of the vehicle had imploded, and he’d been ejected or consumed in the blast. My ears rang as I lay on the ground. I could see everything. I could feel the flames as they licked my flesh, but that wasn’t what hurt. My bones hurt, probably percussion from the blast.