Chapter 190

The Prey

Love was never supposed to feel like this.

It wasn’t supposed to be raw, jagged, a blade slicing through the parts of me I thought were untouchable. It wasn’t supposed to claw its way inside my ribs, leaving gaping wounds in its wake.

But it did.

And I let it.

I had let Judas in—unknowingly, recklessly, irreversibly.

It wasn’t just attraction. It wasn’t just the way his lips felt against mine, the way his hands claimed me, rough and relentless. No, this was something else. Something dark and all-consuming. Something I couldn’t escape, even if I tried.

Because the truth was—I loved him.

Not in the soft, tender way love was meant to be. Not in a way that was pure, untouched by ruin. My love for him was twisted, aching. It was the kind of love that made you bleed, the kind that whispered destruction into your soul and dared you to crave it.

And I did.

God help me, I did.

My breath came unsteady