A flashfire of visions banged through my mind.
Pain. Blood. Shattered on the floor at his feet.
Begging.
Begging.
The knot in my throat throbbed, blocking off the truth that ached to become his.
I wanted to look away. To drop my gaze.
But I just sat there, shackled by this rage, by this lure, by the past that had caught up to Logan and me so quickly, neither of us knew how to stand in it.
The eye of the storm.
Right here.
Right now.
And there I sat, staring at the face of my glorious, dark defender.
My beautiful, sweet boy who’d loved me like loving someone was simple.
His chair suddenly scraped across the floor and, one second later, he had me torn from mine with my back pinned against the wall, so fast I could barely process the action.
Then everything stilled.
The only movement was my pulse that screamed through my veins and the savagery that radiated from his body.
Air wheezed from his lungs, and every muscle in his powerful body vibrated as he pressed closer.
He reached out to take me by the jaw so he could tip my face up to meet the vengeance in his. His hand was shaking. Shaking and shaking.
“Tell me, Aster.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter?” It was venom.
“I’m already leaving him.”
Logan had one hand pressed to the wall to hold himself up. With the other, he scratched his fingertips along the edge of my face, as if he had the urge to claw his way in. His head tipped to the side and the violent words cut into the dense air. “I told you last night. I will kill him, Little Star. I will.”
Agony lanced through my being and ripped me wide open.
“You don’t want that kind of war.”
“It might be the only thing we can find.”
“The only thing I want is my freedom.”
“Yet you gave yourself to me.”
He’d always been my heart’s direction. I wasn’t sure there was anywhere else I could have gone.
Still, I needed to play it off like the only reason I was here was because of the bet. Like this twisted fate hadn’t drawn us together.
Magnets.