Empire of Hate (Empire, #3)

by Rina Kent

To the heartbreakingly obsessive souls

An unhealthy obsession is to have an extreme interest in something or someone. It’s to constantly think about them. It’s to do something repetitively, even against your will. It’s to have a compulsive preoccupation with them and being unable to chase them away, no matter how much you try.

But his eyes are what I noticed first. They’re blue and light, but not as muted as Mum’s. They’re glinting in the sun as if they’re reflecting its warmth. As if they’re mimicking the sky and trapping the stars.

His name is Daniel. It’s a normal name on everyone else but him.

I’ve been over the moon ever since I learned that he’d be coming over with his mum. I didn’t know why at first, until I learned what “unhealthy obsession” meant last night. I think I have one for him.

His teammates gang up on him and he grins. I stop breathing. Something happens when he grins or smiles or laughs. His cheeks crease and one set of dimples appear. If he were an angel, those would be his wings. If he were a prince, that would be his crown. Daniel is simply so…beautiful.

Loving something that hurts you is also an unhealthy obsession, I think.

“If you’re allergic to peaches, why would you eat them?” “B-because I like them.” “You’re weird, Nicole.” I’ve been called pretty and smart and a good girl, but never weird. I think I like that better. I like not being so perfect.

“When we grow up, will you marry me?” His eyes widen, but he looks away. My heart shrivels and breaks in my chest. Once again, it was all for nothing.

I push the door open and freeze. My heart drops to the base of my stomach and I cease breathing when my gaze meets those blue eyes that stole from the sun, sky, and the stars. It is him. The man who ruined my life as much as I ruined his. Daniel Sterling.

It doesn’t matter how many years pass or how old she gets, Nicole was and always will be beautiful. The provocative type.

Today, she’s wearing a dark green shirt that brings out the color of her eyes. They’re like a forest in the middle of winter. Mysterious. Manipulative. Deadly.

That’s what she’s always been like—a lethal poison waiting for the next victim to attack. A venom that’s designed to make people lose their minds.

Nicole isn’t the type who’d settle for being anyone’s side anything. She’s the main course. The highlight of a show. The film’s premiere.

He stands up and my heart squeezes when he stalks toward me. The moment I smell him, the pine and lime and bergamot, I become drunk. But not on his smell alone. It’s on his presence. His nearness. I quit my addiction to him a long time ago—I’m eleven years sober—so how come one hit is enough to make me backpedal into bad habits?

Yes, he’s a man now, but he’s still the boy who punched my heart and stomped all over it as if my feelings meant nothing. He’s still the boy who gave me malevolent butterflies and caused my heart to be dangerously wild by merely existing.

His eyes appear like a bottomless ocean in the middle of a night storm. Dark. Dangerous. Deadly.

“You have the beauty of a fucking angel, Peaches.” He rests his chin on my stomach, his eyes clashing with mine for a brief second. “Too bad you possess the personality of the bloody devil.”

I wish I hadn’t dug my nose into him as much as I did and learned shit I should’ve never been privy to. But I did. And now, I’m too hopeless. Too involved. Too…obsessed.

I sit there and wait. And wait. But Daniel never came back for me. And just like that, I’ve become invisible again.

“I hate you.” “Careful, Peaches. Hate is a mixture of love and jealousy on steroids.”

Daniel hovers over me, knees on either side of me, and glares down at me with the fury of a warrior. “You think I would mistake you for anyone when you’re driving me fucking nuts?”

He leans down and captures my lips in a slow kiss. The taste of peaches explodes on my tongue. My forbidden fruit and my forbidden person.

Daniel grabs me by my nape, his fingers sinking into my hair as he deepens the kiss. It’s madness and we’re the only people in it. The only two allowed entrance.

Daniel used to watch Nicole like a kicked puppy who was crushing on the prettiest Chihuahua.

I was never normal when it came to Daniel. I was either obsessed, completely unhinged, or desperate.

I shouldn’t know this much about him, but it’s a disease. I’ve come down with the Daniel flu, and apparently, it’s chronic.

The air is always sucked up from my surroundings whenever he’s in the room, the building, the school, city, country, world. Sometimes, just the thought of him existing somewhere on earth is enough to steal my damn oxygen.

I can’t live with Nicole in the same city and also hope to be able to breathe properly. That’s simply not going to happen.

The art of pain is an abstract form of vengeance.

He kisses me slowly as if, like me, he doesn’t believe this is happening. After years. Eleven, to be exact, but who’s counting, right?

He kisses me like he wants to ruin me and worship my body at the same time. He kisses me like I’m his arch-enemy and only friend.

He tastes of peaches and impossible addictions. Logically, he shouldn’t. Logically, he’s not supposed to be a replica of my lollipops and my coping mechanisms.

My pulse skyrockets as I let Daniel’s eyes trap mine. They’re full of stars, galaxies, and planets. They’re otherworldly, overwhelming even, but they’re also safe. The safest thing on earth.

By the time we’re done with golf, King and Aspen are seconds away from slitting each other’s throats or fucking on the grass. Not sure which one is more pressing.

My emotions have always been mild, controlled, absolutely regular. Except for when it comes to this woman. With her, they’re a tsunami of toxic shit and bring an immeasurable need to inflict pain.

“Should I go to my room now? Are you going to start kissing?” “Not in this lifetime,” Nicole hisses. “Never,” I say at the same time.

Nicole glares at me and I glare right back. Play all you want, Peaches. I’ve already won this game.

All Daniel needs is a push to realize that he’s meant to be with me. Not anyone else. Me.

I take my first real breath in hours the moment my eyes clash with Daniel’s. He’s my safety. The person who always made me feel calm and happy and…me.

Her hands are snuggled in her lap and she looks so vulnerable, like a child. And I can’t resist the urge to smell her hair and breathe her in. To hold on to the reality that she survived. That she found her way back to me.

I grunt as a response and this time, she does smile. And I find myself closing my mouth to not drool like a fucking dog.

Nicole is beautiful under normal circumstances, but when she smiles, her entire face brightens and the universe pauses. At least mine does.

I pause, watching the light in her eyes—it’s dim, but it’s there. And at this moment, I know it’ll never go away. That no matter what happens to this woman, she’s strong enough to dust off her shoulders, stand up and start all over again.

Her lips part and a light I’ve never seen rushes to her eyes. I wish I could take a picture of her right now and keep it with me forever. I wish I could trap her fascinating expression somewhere between my rib cage and bruised heart.

I’ll never get used to the sound of her laughter. It’s like a fucking siren in a mythical story that I’m willing to let harvest my soul.

Her blonde hair falls straight to her arse with the brightness of the sun. One that’s going to burn me alive but I’d still approach anyway. Touch it. Fucking breathe its fire.

Her head is tilted back as she watches the moon with her biteable lips slightly open. A sun that’s in love with the moon. Isn’t that thing doomed in some tragedy?

Nicole is the only woman I want to kiss until we’re both out of breath and sharing each other’s air.

“You’re the only woman I wanted with a desperation that bordered on both pleasure and pain. The only woman who drives me fucking insane but I still can’t look away from. My fixation with you made me hate all blondes because they reminded me of you. Brunettes aren’t my type, Peaches. You are. And you know what, your condition about exclusivity is bloody useless. Ever since you came back into my life, I haven’t been able to see another woman, let alone fuck her. It’s you. Only you.”