Chapter 73

Damon

This is not how I wanted her to find out.

Fuck.

I stood there, frozen, watching the sheet slide off her trembling shoulder as she gripped the banister like it was the only thing keeping her alive. Her eyes were wide. Wet. Wounded. And they were staring at me like I’d just ripped her soul out and smiled while doing it.

Because I did.

Not with a blade. Not with claws.

With silence.

With a lie I told so long ago it felt like a different lifetime.

“She’s dead.” That’s what I told her. That’s what I looked her in the eyes and said, knowing damn well it wasn’t true. Knowing I had no fucking right. But I told her anyway. Because it was easier than telling her the real truth. Because if I had told her the truth, I would have lost her before I even had the chance to make her mine.

And now?

Now I was watching her bleed from the inside out, wrapped in nothing but a crumpled sheet and my cum still leaking down her thighs.<