Page 94 of Wicked Vile King
She stops breathing.
"But you told me I was interesting," she whispers.
Did she not listen to the rest of my words?
"You are interesting," I say. "I find possessing you to be a challenge, and I find that challenge to be interesting."
She sucks in a breath and looks like she's going to be sick. "That's not love, Saint."
"It is for me."
She turns away from me, disgusted, and the itchiness comes scurrying back over me once again.
"I can't do this," she says.
"It's too late, pet. You've already accepted."
"Then I take it back," she snaps.
"There are no takebacks, Willow," I say to her. "You are mine, and you always will be."
26
WILLOW
The moment I leave the building, I dart down an alleyway and zigzag across the sidewalks and roads, desperate to put as much distance between Saint and me as possible. I stop crying on the third or fourth turn. I don't think I have any tears left to give. I've used them all up on a king of Chryseum Academy.
I dart between the buildings, his words replaying in my head, landing like the lashes of a belt.
I love you too, I think, in my own way, pet.
I respect you.
I'm grateful for you.
I'm proud of you.
I want to believe him, but he admitted it himself. If he can't scare the world into submission, he says all the pretty things that will get him what he wants instead.
I don't know when exactly I fell for him. Certainly not the first time we met and definitely not the second time either, but maybe it began when he held me until I stopped crying and told me not to be afraid and then grew when he promised the dark wouldn't be so scary with his mouth on me. It cemented when I learned he was right.
Maybe that's the curse of being broken, not that you're fucked-up beyond repair, but that you fall for the first person who comes along and offers to fix you.
I find a guard as I hurry down the alley next to the general store, nearly colliding with her as she comes around the corner.
"Watch where you're going!" she snaps, nearly toppling over, before she glares at me, her expression immediately going slack.
I know I must look like a mess, a rumpled, almost murdered, teary-eyed,bleedingmess.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Could I go back to the school?" I say.
She frowns at me. "Come with me. The bus leaves in half an hour anyway."
She takes me to the bus where girls are already milling about. I hole up in a seat at the back.
"Oh my God, Willow!" Trixie says as she walks onto the bus and sees me in the back. Our bracelets ring simultaneously, a warning to return to the bus. "Are you okay?"
