I wrenched my chin away and took another step back, only to hit the wall. Ronan crowded me. He braced both hands against the wall on either side of my head, leaning close to fill me with his intoxicatingly disgusting scent—
“Stop being a prick,” I snapped. “Like it or not, you can’t control me. I went out for answers since you clearly won’t give me any. If you don’t like it, you only have yourself to blame.”
Black fire flashed in his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me, Piper, how is it my fault that every time you use your magic, your body can’t handle the power, so it crashes and goes into stasis? Tell me how it’s my fault that you haven’t stabilized, and every waking minute you’re a ticking time bomb waiting to blow? Tell me how—”
“Bree,” I said. “You have Bree. You won’t give her back. You won’t tell me what’s wrong with her. For my sister, I’ll do anything. That’s why you took her, you arrogant sack of shit.” I pushed forward, away from the wall, and the distance between our bodies was only a breath away.
“Did it ever occur to you, I did that for you?” he breathed, anger lacing his voice like the sweetest of poisons.
I blinked. “That’s—”
“Think about it, Piper. You were hauling her around the city like a sack of potatoes. I didn’t have to break into the cabin. I walked right in. There were no defenses. Nothing to stop me. Anyone could have taken her.”
His scent was too much. His words too much.
“But it wasn’t anyone,” I said, holding onto my reasoning. “It was you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Me. The one person in this city that would not hurt you.”
“Taking her hurt me,” I argued. “And besides that, she wasn’t yours to take. She’s mine.”
He grinned, and I wanted to punch him in the face.
“She is yours, but you are mine. I’m simply keeping her safe. Consider that you haven’t been able to find her, not even searching with magic. I know you’ve tried.” I pressed my lips together, but my silence confirmed it. He was right. We had tried, multiple times. I had Nathalie scry, and when that didn’t yield anything, we went to Barry. No matter how many times, though, we couldn't find her. “If you can’t find her, no one else can. Which means no one can use her against you.”
“Except you.”
He smiled cruelly. “Except me.” That he didn’t even try to deny that point . . .
I shook my head. Arguing with him was doing my head in.
“You don’t even see what’s wrong with this, do you?”
Ronan tilted his head. “Wrong? Right? They are all relative. I chased you. I hunted you. That didn’t work. Now I don’t have to chase. You come willingly.”
“Because you stole her.”
He shrugged. “I used what was available to me. I told you, Piper, I have every intention of claiming you. For now, that means I need her. One day I won’t.”
I snorted derisively. “I wouldn’t sound so sure if I were you.”
He smirked, completely unfazed. “I have no doubts. You’ll find that I’m a patient man. I’ve waited thousands of years for you. I can wait a little longer.”
I stood, frozen to the spot.
Thousands?
I couldn’t truly comprehend that time, or that he’d actually waited that long for an atma. It was sad, in a way. All that time waiting, and he was rewarded with me.
I guess I wasn’t the only one fate liked to fuck over on occasion.
I fell back against the wall, letting my head tilt up as I started to laugh. It wasn’t a pretty sound or amusing in the slightest. It was desperate and edged with emotions I didn’t want to feel, and it was as cruel as his smile.
Ronan frowned. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because,” I said, wiping the dampness from my eyes, “you waited thousands of years for me. A human who hates magic. I suppose it makes sense why you’re not so picky now. After that long, willing or not, it doesn’t particularly matter to you—”
Lips crashed into mine. Hard. Demanding. He moved with a sensual grace and savage need that decimated my carefully crafted walls. His tongue parted the seam of my mouth, kissing me even when I wouldn't kiss back.
My hands shook, and I clenched them into fists to keep from grabbing him.
I wasn’t sure if I would pull him closer or push him away.
That scared me.
His tongue didn’t brush against mine. It wasn’t soft or gentle or hesitant in any way. It took mine. Demanded mine. He claimed my mouth the same way he wanted to claim my body and soul and mind.
I held tight to my sanity. My beliefs. My self-control.
It took everything I had not to kiss him back.
And then the fucker bit me.
“Don’t insult yourself or make this out to be something it isn’t. You’re my atma, and you’re not a fucking disappointment.”
Blood coated my lips, and he licked it greedily. My breath hitched. My heartbeat sped up. A groan escaped from somewhere deep inside me, and I crumbled.
He pressed me into the wall, and I arched away. Our mouths met in a clash of passion, desire, and in my case—hate.
I could regret my actions later. Hell, I was certain I regretted it now—but it didn’t stop me.
I might lie in bed with self-loathing for company, but in that moment, I was fire—and I was unleashing on him.
He gripped my hips, pulling them into him. I twined my arms around his shoulders and grabbed at his hair. My nails raked his scalp as I pulled it taut, uncaring for the pain I delivered on him.
For what he was taking from me, he could handle a little pain.
Ronan broke away first, but he didn’t release me.
He lifted me off the ground, hands wrapped around my thighs as he pressed himself in between them. I hooked my legs around his waist, crossing my ankles behind his back. He pressed his thickness into me, lighting my nerve endings aflame.
I gasped.
His lips trailed down my neck, suckling and biting along the way.
I pulled on his hair, but Ronan didn’t move an inch. He groaned into my shoulder, pressing another hot kiss to my neck and then biting hard.
I knew without a doubt he’d drawn blood.
His tongue lapped at it, sucking the wound as he rubbed against me. His cock brushing against my sweatpants sent delicious friction over my clit. And without any warning whatsoever, I detonated.
It was quick and hard and blinding. I threw my head back, slamming it into the wall. A crack echoed through the alley, or perhaps that was just in my mind because stars blinded me.
Fire swept through my veins as my entire body seized with desire and then released. The warmth between my legs pulsed, and I pressed into him, driven by that itch I had to scratch.
I shuddered and shook like it was my first time.
It wasn’t, but given the way Ronan froze, he might have thought it was.
As the aftershocks stopped and my orgasm faded into languidness, my own unsettling reality closed in on me.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
I kicked my legs and pulled his hair. “Goddamnit, Ronan. I said—”
One of his hands released my thigh to come under my ass and grab a handful. The other came up to wrap around my neck. He didn’t squeeze, but he held tight. Possessive. Owning. I stared at him, letting him see my hate.