Page 21 of Heartless Enemy
By the time she had hung up that awful white leather jacket of hers too, I had finally snapped out of my stupor.
“You killed him?” I asked. “Just now?”
She nodded casually as she turned back to face me. “Yes.”
“How do you feel?”
My heart was pounding when I asked that question.
This was Eve’s first.
The first person she had killed not for survival or out of any kind of life-threatening necessity, but simply because she wanted to.
She had spent the past sixteen years hating dark mages and condemning us for all the blood we spilled. And now here she was, killing people by choice too. It went against everything she used to believe in.
While I knew that there was darkness in Eve, that there was a part of her that had always been drawn to ruthless power, I couldn’t help but worry that she wouldn’t be able to fully enter this world. That the past sixteen years had done such a number on her that she would never be able to completely justify the things we did in our quest for power and revenge. That the guilt of killing someone who wasn’t a direct threat to her life would consume her. That she would drown underneath the weight of her actions.
Because make no mistake, we were the villains here.Iwas a villain here. I had killed and manipulated and blackmailed and threatened my way into an empire of blood. I had decided long ago that I would never be at someone else’s mercy ever again, so I had done whatever it took to make it so. And there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep my power. No lines I wouldn’t cross.
But up until a few days ago, Eve had been on the opposite side of that. She had been on the side of good. The side of the heroes. And not everyone was able to handle the descent into darkness.
Which was why my heart was currently pounding in my chest.
There were only two ways it could go from here. Either I would rule the dark mage world with Eve by my side. Or this was the first of a slow but unstoppable series of guilt-ridden days full of regret that would turn Eve away from this path and make me lose her forever.
My soul was shredding itself to pieces just thinking about that.
If I lost Eve now, after she had rekindled that dangerous hope in my chest again, I didn’t think I would be able to survive it.
So I waited with nerves raw and heart aching for her to answer my question. How did it feel to kill someone just because you wanted to?
Eve’s brown eyes sparkled like gold as she flashed me a wide grin. “I feel like I could breathe fire.”
Relief crashed over me.
No guilt.
No regret.
Which meant that I would not be losing her again.
A matching smile spread across my own lips as I shot her a knowing look. “Incredible, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She started towards me, her eyes glittering. “I never knew just how fucking intoxicating it is to hold someone’s life in the palm of my hand like that.”
Blood rushed to my cock. At her words. At the way she spoke and moved. And because of how fucking hot she looked right now.
“Have I ever told you just how hot you look with blood splattered across your face?” I said, my voice coming out low and rough.
“No. But you should have.” Her grin shifted into a sly smile as she came to a halt right in front of me. “But don’t worry. I’ll let you make it up to me.”
Placing her hands on my chest, she shoved me into her bedroom. I let her. Walking backwards, I allowed her to back me into the room. Lust burned inside me at the way she dragged her gaze up and down my body.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, you’re going to end up fucked against that wall in the next ten seconds,” I warned.
With that sly smile still on her lips, she raked a highly deliberate glance over my body while biting her lip.
“Oh, you’ve done it now, spitfire.”