HAZEL
The casual certainty in his voice made something inside me crack. He'd thought this through. Planned it. Saw all the angles I'd missed while I was unconscious and bleeding on his floor.
"Please don't." My voice broke. "I will do anything. I will be your slave."
"You were supposed to die that day at the elder's circle." He stood, moving toward the bed. "For your crimes. But you were spared."
I watched him pick up a pillow. White and pristine against all the red surrounding us.
"I think it was fate," he continued. "For you to be my sacrificial lamb today."
He turned back toward me, and I saw my death in his eyes. Not rage. Not passion. Just inevitability wearing the face of a man I'd underestimated at every turn.
"I saw what you did and rage consumed me entirely." He spoke like he was rehearsing testimony. "I could not wait for a trial. I had to bring justice to my father."
"You have no heart."
