My lungs burned. My cock throbbed. Even my goddamn wrists and ankles hurt.
As wakefulness scattered the remaining fugue of fatigue, I struggled to sit up.
My muscles laughed in my fucking face, weak and wrung out.
Groaning, I swallowed down the soreness in my throat and assessed why the fuck I was so battered.
Elixir.
Jinx.
Copious amounts of copulation.
Inhaling hard, I struggled upright, groaning at the fresh misery of movement.
I froze.
My bed held company.
Her.
Goddammit.
Her.
The silver-eyed, coffee-haired priestess from my dreams.
I vaguely remembered grabbing her in my sleep. Of keeping her with me instead of allowing her to vanish. But…she wasn’t real.
This girl wasn’t her.
This girl was an imposter.
A liar.
Someone who could never be trusted because she’d forced me to do so many things against my will. Things like touch her, want her, fall for her.
She lay on her side, curled tight into a little ball as if trying to avoid my very presence. Her eyes remained closed, her body lax with unconsciousness. What the fuck was she still doing here?
She needed to leave.
Immediately.
All the emotions from yesterday—the blistering connection that’d grown unavoidable thanks to sex—hummed louder and louder the longer I stared.
Groaning under my breath, I scooted to the edge of the bed and swung my legs to the floor. The room swam, and black spots took their goddamn time playing with my vision. Gritting my teeth, I pushed upward and fought the urge to trip to the side with vertigo.
I needed hydration.
I needed sustenance.
I needed to get the hell away from her before she—
“Sully…”
I spun around, cursing as I stumbled forward and grabbed the mosquito net for support. It ripped a little, creaking from its hook on the ceiling.
Eleanor sat up in bed, her eyes sniper-sharp while mine still struggled to focus.
My heart was no longer operational. Somewhere along the line of yesterday’s chaos, it had torn itself into pieces and scattered like strips of bloody paper. But those tiny pieces still did their best to beat erratically, wanting to claim her, all while wanting to kill her for what she’d made me become.
She sat up on her knees, the sheet falling away from her nakedness. “Are you okay? How are your lungs? Do you remember yesterday? You almost drowned and—”
“Do I remember?” I held up a hand, shutting her up. “Yes, I fucking remember. I remember everything.”
How amazing you felt.
How well we fit together.
How it felt like home when I was inside you.
“Then…are you okay? Can you breathe alright?”
My eyes locked onto her body.
Onto the handprints, the fingerprints, the cuts, the bruises, the bite marks.
Fuck.
Fuck!
Rage blended with disgust, and I laid every fiery ferocity at her feet. “You dare ask how I am?” I stalked around the bed until I reached her side, towering over her. “You dare sit there and be concerned when you’re the one in fucking ruin? Look at what you made me do to you. I warned you. I told you to fucking run, Eleanor.”
She glanced down at her chest, at the mottling of her skin, at the crimes I’d smeared her with. And all she did—this infuriating, dangerous goddess who had never learned her place—all she did was shrug. “I’m not nearly as sore as I usually am after Euphoria. I’ve had worse.”
She jumped as a feral snarl crawled up my throat.
“You’ve had worse.” Bending over her, I planted both fists onto the bed. I used the stability of the mattress to keep me standing but also as a reminder that violence on top of violence did not equal peace. “You’ve had worse. Please, remind me when such disaster occurred before I paid money for your life.”
The tinder spark of temper filled her gaze, switching grey for glowing ember. “You want to go there? Fine.” Inhaling hard, she muttered, “I’ve had worse, Sully Sinclair, when I was beaten and stolen from a backpackers’ kitchen. I’ve had worse when I was knocked out and transported to some hovel where other women huddled in the dark. I’ve had worse when men stripped me, touched me, tattooed me, and then sent me to you.”
“You’re forgetting all of that was because of me.”
Her teeth bared. “I agree you bought me, but you weren’t responsible for me being chosen. They picked me because I was naïve and stupid. They saw an opportunity and—”
“Fuck!” I reared back, digging my hands into my hair. Seemed honesty burned a hole in my tongue because I snarled, “It wasn’t opportunistic. It was predetermined.”
Her temper flickered a little. “What…what do you mean?”
“I mean I asked for them to find you. I gave them your description months ago. I’ve bought other girls since then. I forgot that I’d asked. I forced myself to forget that I sent traffickers an intimate description of someone who isn’t real. But then they found you. You. Were. Real. You were real enough for them to deliver you to me, and I fucking bought you, even knowing it was the biggest mistake of my fucking life.”