Realm of Wind and Vines (Flame and Thorns, #4)

by Marion Blackwood

“If you really wanted me dead, you would’ve killed me already,” I declare. “But you haven’t. Because deep down, you know that you don’t actually hate me.” Anger flits across his face, and he clenches his jaw. “Again with your desperate theories.” “It’s not a theory. It’s the truth. You love me. In order to save your life, I made you hate me by forcing a wildfire of hatred into your chest.”

He is mine. And by all the gods and demons in hell, I will make sure he fucking remembers it.

There was a tug on our mate bond. As if it tried to reattach itself. As if he tried to pull it back to himself.

“It’s like watching a shard of ice glinting in a harsh sun on a ruthlessly cold winter day. Lethal. Sharp. Unyielding.”

“Once I’ve figured out how to remove that flame of hatred from your chest, I’m going to make you spend an entire night repaying me with your tongue for this conversation alone.”

Now, I find that I have, at long last, officially run out of fucks to give about other people’s opinions.

Because regret, I’ve come to realize, is the most brutal emotion of them all.

All that is left is guilt and hate and rage and regret.

“Yes, you do, you thickheaded overgrown bat!”

“You want to destroy the world? I’ll help you burn it down. You want to kill everyone? I’ll help you slit their throats. There is nothing you can do that would make me stop loving you. I love you, little rebel. All of you.”

When he draws back and meets my gaze again, his eyes burn like golden flames. He flashes me a devilish smile. “You wanna be villains? Let’s go be fucking villains.”