Cassian
The man who took that photo is already dead.
He just doesn’t know it yet.
I’ve unleashed every resource I own. My men are tearing through the city like wolves on fresh blood, cameras pulled, cars tracked, names pulled from shadows. Someone got close enough to photograph Anita in my house — my house. That’s not just trespass. That’s a declaration of war.
And war is what I was born for.
But the problem isn’t the stalker. Not right now.
It’s her.
Anita.
Every second I’m away from her, I feel it — the echo of her mouth against mine, the heat of her body pinned under my hands, the sound of her gasping my name even as she tried to fight me.
I wanted to break her that night. Crush her defiance until all that was left was surrender. But she kissed me back. She bit me, bled me, set me on fire in a way no one ever has.
And now, every time I see her, I want more.
I find her in the library, pretending to read. Her eyes snap up the moment I enter, wide, guilty, and something else — something that makes my blood pound low and hard.
“You’re not safe,” I tell her flatly.
Her throat works as she swallows. “Am I ever, with you?”
Her words are sharp, but her voice trembles, betraying her.
She wants me to hear the blade in her tone, not the fear beneath it.
I stalk closer, each step deliberate, calculated, like the predator she named me. She presses back into the shelves, clutching the book tighter, as if paper and ink could shield her from me.
“They got close enough to take your picture,” I say, my voice low, lethal. “In my house. That’s not carelessness, Anita. That’s an invitation to hunt. And I will hunt.”
Her lips part, the faintest breath escaping. “And what happens when the predator gets addicted to his prey?”
The corner of my mouth curves. Not a smile. Something darker. “Then the prey doesn’t get to run anymore.”
Her chest rises and falls faster. She doesn’t look away, even though every instinct must be screaming at her to. Brave little thing. Foolish little thing.
Her pulse beats in her throat, and I want to bite it, to claim it, to mark it as mine.
“Do you want to know what keeps me up at night, Anita?” I step into her space fully, one hand braced on the shelf above her head. She shivers, but doesn’t move away.
“It’s not the men coming for me. It’s not the empire I built. It’s the thought of someone touching you before I destroy them. It’s the thought of losing the fire in your eyes before I’ve burned myself in it completely.”
Her breath hitches. She whispers, “You sound obsessed.”
I lean down, my lips ghosting the shell of her ear.
“I am.”
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YOU ARE READING
CHAINS OF FIRE
RomanceAt twenty-three, Anita has nothing left but her brother - and desperation. Fleeing from a shattered past in rural Uganda, she finds herself in the foreign streets of Lusaka, doing what she can to survive. But when a cleaning job at a luxury hotel tu...
