The Fated and the Damned (The Cursed Blood, #2)

by Chloe Hodge

From the moment I’d met that wild flame, I’d been burned, and I wanted to walk right back into her fire. I’d never wanted to cage her, but I should have tried harder to keep her safe, to keep her far from my mother’s reach. I may as well have sunk that blade into Kitarni’s chest myself. The thought made me sick to my stomach.

anyone. I wasn’t the hero of our story, clad in golden armour to rescue the fair lady. Kitarni was more than capable of rescuing herself. She could bring the world to its knees if she dared.

She would fight blood against blood. There was nothing Kitarni wouldn’t do to save our people. She was a warrior, and I, her dark knight, to command as only a queen could.

“Touch me like that again,” he said quietly, “and I’ll break each of your fingers.” He let her go, his lips curling with disgust. “Belittle my betrothed again, and I’ll rip out your throat.” Goddess save me. My heart thumped in my chest, my body flaring with heat at the icy rage flashing in the gold rings of his eyes. The dominance masked by the calm and collected way he held himself. It was terrifying. And it was everything I wanted.

better man might have known then to let her go, but I was not a good man. Neither a hero nor a saint, but a damned demon put on this earth to end anything that got in her way. I’d seen the hope in her eyes, and it had restored some of my own. András’s words echoed in my thick skull, and I knew now. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to get her back. I would raise the dead, walk through hell and back for that woman. If she was a monster, I was too. And so long as she was by my side, I was perfectly ok with that.

choking. I wanted more, the kind of filthy, unrestrained sex that would send Christian women to hell under the eyes of their god. But I was far from holy and I would burn in brutal rapture for this moment.

“I suppose there’s something exciting about being so reckless.” “Naughty little hellcat,” he

“I know it will take time to restore what we had, but I meant what I said, Freckles. From today until my last, I will earn back your trust. I will earn my place by your side and, together,

“Then let us promise that if we lose each other, we’ll never stop looking until we’re together again. One way or the other. In this life or the next.”

“Fine. I promise not to burn anyone unless provoked.” “My little hellcat can’t help her murderous tendencies,”

My dark knight. He was better than a hero in a storybook. Flawed and learning from mistakes, which only endeared him to me further. He’d gone to the Under World for me, for pity’s sake, even though I knew, deep inside, that he’d done it for himself too—an act of redemption for his past actions.

laughed, looping my arm around his. “Will you promise me something? Don’t ever change. You’re a little ball of sunshine in a fucked-up world … and we can all use a little more light.”