THEY SAID REVENGE, like power and greed, is insatiable. It craves, it poisons, and it infests you like an addiction, and you'll never be free. For years I've plotted and planned, schemed and manipulated to make sure I protected my own. I played my part, cloaked my true intentions with deception. My hands were soaked in blood, and my humanity drowned within the tears of the dead, all because I was a man fueled with hatred to punish every person who did them wrong. Now that I had come so far, there was no way in hell I would allow anything or anyone to jeopardize what I've managed to accomplish.

Not even her.

If there was one thing I've learned, it was to keep my enemies close...which was why I currently shared a bed with the one woman who had the potential to ruin everything. Her green eyes looked up at me pleadingly, but I knew her well enough to know it wasn't a plea for mercy. It was a plea for ecstasy.

And I made her like this.

Ayla Van Horen is addicted, captivated, and completely corrupted.

I studied her beautiful face, all the few tiny little freckles that decorated the sides of her nose, and the dark lashes that framed her big, beautiful green eyes. It was filled with warmth that lures me in. Warmth designed to make me let my guard down.

And I hated it.

She was stirring some very fucking strange shit in me—shit I wasn't prepared to deal with. After the life I've led from my teens into adulthood I've learned not to trust that shit. Once emotion gets involved you're bound to make mistakes, costly ones. But there was something about the girl that touched something inside me. Something I'd thought long dead. I had to remind myself countless times that I still had to take down a lot of people on my list, my impending revenge hovering over our lives like a black cloud of suffocating smoke.

But her whole demeanor has thrown me for a loop. Spending time inside her had become my favorite hobby. I had finally found my weakness, and sure enough, it was between her legs. So I have come to a decision then. She's mine and no one is going to take her from me. No matter how many times my little butterfly tries to escape, I will always give chase and bring her back to where she belongs, in my arms. She belonged to me. Her body, her mind and her fucking soul all belonged to me. I deserved that much after what her family did to mine.

I leaned down, barely touching the tips of her nipples with my lips. "You are only mine. Tell me you'll never forget that."

Her chest rose as she inhaled deep. "I'll never forget."

My little butterfly always tastes so sweet when she is like this. When she is pliable and sated and filled with my come. Her tits red and swollen from my scruff and my tongue. I could clearly see where I'd marked her a few days ago, there were black and blue hickeys all over her from her neck to the crease between her breasts and her thighs. There were fresh ones forming from tonight's little venture. Her breath hitched as I traced my fingertips down the inside of her leg. I grabbed her thigh and forced her legs wider, glancing down at the smooth, glistening heaven I'd lost myself in too many times. Her pale skin was like a blank, clean, white sheet for me to draw on.

And I draw.

A lot.

On her lips, on her jaw, her neck and breasts. I jotted my hunger for her in vivid colors as I sucked on her pink nipples, grazing my teeth over them, until her moans became growls. I licked her up and down and made her cry my name.

Again.

And again.

And again.

In the past three months that I've been with her, it wasn't long before I realized that inside Ayla, lay a wild butterfly waiting to be untethered. And a while ago, her little episode of throwing fists and temper proves me just that. Like a butterfly inside its cage with its wings fluttering wildly around her. Because she was born to be free. She wasn't built to function under the realm of the likes of his father. Or me. And she thought I'd be her savior. But she'll soon realize I'm far worse than that. Soon she'll know the depths of my hatred and there's nothing I want more than to inflict pain in their lives.

For tonight only, I will hold her. Comfort her. And in the morning, she can learn all over again why is it unwise to trust me. I can tell that she wants to know why I still touch her when I'm supposed to be in love with her sister. But it would be better that she did not know. It would be better if she did not ask these things of me. Because the only way this game can end is for me to destroy her family the same way that they destroyed mine.