Hearing him speak the same words as the voice inside my head makes me scream again. Adrenaline surges through me and I shove hard at his shoulders, causing him to stagger back a couple of steps.
“I don’t want to eat!” I snarl.
I don’t want blood.
I never want to see another drop of blood again.
“Goddammit,” Asher growls and grabs my hands, his fingers squeezing around my wrists.
Slamming my hands above my head, he stretches me out against the wall and stares into my eyes.
I glare back, his face and everything around him awash in red.
“If you don’t eat soon, I won’t be able to stop you from going into a full-blown frenzy,” Asher says slowly, trying to talk some sense into me.
Bucking my hips, I try to rip my hands from his grasp. “I don’t care!”
Whatever a frenzy is means nothing to me.
The only thing I care about is escaping him. I need to get out of this house. I need… fresh air or something.
I need to clear my head.
I need the fucking voice in my head to shut up.
Even now, with Asher pushing me against the wall, she whispers. Tempting me to let go. Tempting me to give her control.
We’ll make the Order pay, she promises. Every priest, every nun, every parishioner will pay for what they’ve done with their flesh.
“You will,” Asher warns and crushes me against the wall. “You’ll care when you wake up on top of a pile of bodies.”
We’ll flood the churches with their blood.
I shake my head some more, wishing the red would go away. And the hunger… God, I wish the hunger would fuck off.
“Men, women, children, babies… You’ll eat whatever you can get your hands on,” Asher goes on.
“I won’t,” I deny.
I’m not going to eat. I’m not going to be a monster. I can’t do this. I can’t be this anymore.
Not after what I did to Isaac.
“You will, and you won’t stop once you’re full. You’ll keep going. You’ll keep killing and eating until you’re exhausted,” Asher says with certainty.
Dipping his head closer, his eyes bore into my eyes. “Or someone stops you.”
“Then stop me,” I hiss in challenge, meeting his hard stare. The red keeping me from getting lost in his green.
I have no idea what I’m daring him to do. I just want all of this to stop… the hunger, the voice, the agony. I just want to feel… human again. I’m done with this vampire shit.
Asher stares at me, weighing something in his head. “I will, have no doubt of that.”
His hesitation, his lack of action, only further infuriates me. Filling me with the need to push him. To punish him.
After all, isn’t this all his fault? I wouldn’t be crazed with hunger if it wasn’t for him.
“You’re all talk!” I sneer and let my contempt for him flow freely through our bond.
As if you could truly stop me, I mock. As if you could bring yourself to hurt me. You’re completely powerless when it comes to me.
Straightening my index finger, I twirl it around, drawing his gaze upwards. I have you wrapped around my finger.
A low growl builds in Asher’s throat and his eyes are blazing with heat when they meet mine again.
I let the fire in his eyes feed mine, stoking my anger higher.
Then his next words almost steal all the wind from my sails. “More than you’ll ever know.”
A pang of hurt, of regret, manages to slip through the wall of my fury.
Before I can completely come to terms with the conflicting emotion, Asher is pushing his wrist against my mouth. “Drink, Chloe, before you say something you’ll truly regret.”
Like a defiant toddler, I turn my face away and say, “No!”
Has he not listened this entire time?
Does he not get it?
I can’t. I won’t.
I don’t want to be a monster anymore.
Clenching his jaw, he grits out, “You must.”
I shake my head back and forth, refusing.
He pushes his wrist against my mouth so hard my lips cut against my fangs. “Don’t make me force you!”
With a simple command, he could force me to drink from him against my will. But he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to resort to forcing me with everything.
He wants me to be willing.
Otherwise, I’ll grow to resent him. Resent the power and control he has over me.
One day, I may even hate him.
It’s a fear he keeps buried deep but it’s leaking out of him now as he struggles with his own emotions.
The strongest part of him wants to conquer me, to use his strength to put me in my place, but the other parts of him are worried that it could harm our future together.
Only his fear of my hatred keeps him from giving into his darker urges.
If I wasn’t nearly crazed, the taste of my own blood making my hunger grow stronger, I’d probably be touched. Maybe even moved.