Chapter 28 · The Beast's Vow

"Take your hand off my throat, Cain."

His fingers tightened before I finished.

My back slammed into the broken altar. Dust rained over my hair. Red cracks crawled across the floor, bright as fresh cuts, stopping inches from my boots.

Cain braced one arm beside my head. His face hovered close enough for his breath to warm my cheek. His eyes had gone nearly black.

"You asked me to help you kill them," he said. "Now you're giving me orders?"

"I'm trying to breathe. There's a difference."

"You don't need air to make threats."

I drove my knee up.

He caught my leg before it landed and pinned it against the stone with his thigh. Fast. Calm. Infuriating.

"Let go."

"Say it properly."

"Go to hell."

His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something sharper. Something that made my pulse jump for reasons I refused to examine.

"Better," he said. "Still not the word I want."

The altar groaned beneath us.

A line of crimson light split between our bodies and climbed the stone behind my head.