The Annihilator (Dark Verse, #5)

by RuNyx

Feeling claimed, feeling chosen, Lyla held the man she realized ticked almost every box of love for her.

They were perfect, she and him— her soul full of emotion and light and his of void and dark. And somehow, even with his void and his dark, she didn’t lose her innate ability to emote, to shine, to warm.

Nobody had ever trusted him, never with anything precious, and the feeling had become heady. Trust was power, the power to make or break someone. And in that moment, having never tasted that kind of emotional power before, he had been stunned.

Dainn had been tracking Hector since the day he’d taken Lyla, terrorizing him until the other man peed his pants and ran away to hide like the spineless coward that he was. He had resurfaced, and this time, the Shadow Man would pay him a visit.

“Just like your hair tie,” he’d murmured with his lips against her neck. “When you feel that insecurity, touch this, remind yourself who claimed you, remind yourself of the last six years and how I never let you go once, and ask yourself if you ever think I’d let you go now. The world could tilt on its axis, flamma, and I’d still be the most certain thing in your life.” A soft kiss. “You’re the oxygen that feeds my flames—without you, my existence is questionable.”

“That is the deed to this house. It’s in your name—Lyla Blackthorne—and it’s all yours.” Stunned, she looked down at the paper again, and sure enough the words ‘property’ and ‘belong’ and her name, her new name, were there. While she processed it, the enormity of it, he continued. “I had this house built for you. You'll always have a place to go that is only yours.”

He picked up a second document, his hypnotic dual light and dark eyes steady on hers. “This—” he handed her the second document “—is a marriage license, officially declaring you Mrs. Blackthorne. So you own everything I own, and you can go anywhere in the world and have a name.”

After long, long minutes of kissing, she pulled back, her lips swollen, her eyes shining. “I think I’m in love with you.”

“You love me,” he stated, as he had begun stating every day since she’d told him. “I love you,” she confirmed, brushing her nose against his. He kissed her again and pulled back, shutting the door at her side.

I didn’t know it could be different, that I could feel different, until you. You showed me sex was deeper. It’s a way to connect to someone you care about. You breathed life back into me, and at this point, I—” she rotated her hips, their lips inches apart, seeing the effect her words had on him “—trust you to do whatever you want with me, knowing I will always be safe in the end.”

“Fuck, Lyla,” he groaned, thrusting so hard inside her that she almost blacked out. “Nothing gets me like your trust. Nothing.” “I trust you,” she breathed and felt his response in a full-body shudder, one that seeped into her as he proceeded to undo her.

She curled back into him unconsciously, her lips moving in a mumble he couldn’t hear, and he felt something tighten in his chest. Holding her, sleeping next to her, being with her, it had changed him, opened him up to possibilities and ideas, and the range of emotions he still didn’t feel to the fullest extent but one he knew about.

A man with nothing to lose was the most dangerous creature on this earth. And as long as she breathed, he had something to lose, something to long, something to live for.

“What was her name?” She felt his shrug. “I don’t know. They called her 5057. I’m guessing wherever she’d been before didn’t give the girls names like they did us.”

He rolled her under his body, his mouth inches from hers. “If you had been there, I would have fucked you. Then, I would have stalked you, and I would have made you mine. There is no reality where you and I exist that we don’t end up exactly where we are now. None.”

His expression soured. "You think he loves you?" he spat out. "He's using you because of who you are, because of where you come from. Has he told you about it?" She stayed still, her breaths locked in her chest. The bald man laughed. "Has he told you about your brother? The man who's been looking for you for almost twenty years?"

"Do… do I have a brother?" she asked, unable to help herself. She felt a moment's pause. "Yes."

She had an older brother.

As the flames began to spread, and screams rent the air, Lyla stood with her devil and watched one of her demons and one of her hells be destroyed.

Arms came around her, a warm body at her back, legs on each side of her, his masculine scent in her nose. "Xander is with your brother."

"He's a smart kid," he told her, and she soaked his words, letting them water the waiting, parched parts of herself. "I hired an old woman to take care of him for the first few years while I tracked your history and where you'd come from."

She swallowed. "What's… my br… my brother like?" There was a long pause. "He leads the mafia operations in Shadow Port. He's determined, lethal, and he's not stopped looking for you since you were taken from him twenty-two years ago."

"What's his name?" her voice croaked. "Tristan Caine," the man behind her spoke, his voice neutral. "And… what's my name?" A hand turned her face to the side, her eyes locking with his in the moonlight. "Luna."

"And what about after? When you took me home? You still couldn't have said anything?" He sighed, the only outward reaction to whatever was happening inside him. "You would have left me."

The fire, once terrifying, was now her lover, and it was this fire that had purified her, reset her, rekindled her.

"I don't think my brother will want me after he gets to know me. There's… no way."

"I don't want to go back into Xander's life and destroy him."

She burrowed into the solid body at her back, breathing though her mouth to control the flood of emotions inside her. He didn't know what he had given her, didn't know what he had done for her, for six years, day after day, night after night. For a man who said he didn't feel, he had raised a boy and sent him to his family, looked over him from afar while keeping her safe throughout. He had stayed with her when she'd been broken and given her all the tools she needed to gather the pieces. He had glued the pieces together and kissed her scars, making her belong in a way her heart had hungered for so deeply.

For a man who said he didn't feel, he sure loved her a fucking lot.

For two more days, he would have his flamma just to himself, before her past came knocking, her brother finally finding her. He hated Tristan Caine just for that. But he would tolerate him, let him have his space in her life, if only for her. Because it would make her whole, make her heal, knowing that love too.

"Dainn?" Fuck, her voice still made his body vibrate with sensations. "I love you."

He didn't know if what happened inside him where she was concerned was love. It felt wrong to say that. Love was light, love was beautiful, love was pure. What he felt was dark, obsessive, deviant, and utterly possessive. He would kill for her, as he always had, and he would die for her, if need be. He would slay her demons and give her the sword to slay them if she wanted. He would hold her close and protect her from anything wanting to tarnish her being.