“‘Ignorant’ is taking it a bit far. We know she’s dangerous, so we stay away. It’s not like we can keep her from doing any of the things she does.”
“Because you’re ignorant.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I don’t like it.”
“You don’t? Well then, I’m so glad to know that.” She slid a book from a shelf and clutched it to her chest. “Since you’re ignorant about the castle, and since she’s made you all her little bitches?—”
Baz growled and prowled toward her. Pulling on the rope, she ducked out of his reach.
“I’m going to go ahead and say my farewells.”
The nape of his neck prickled. Urgently, he glanced around the room. He noticed nothing but the usual, unmoving surfaces, draped in layer after layer of shadows and dust.
She smiled so coldly that it chilled his pumping blood. “Thanks for the feeding-and-fucking frenzy you forced on me.”
“What? No, it wasn’t?—”
“Oh yes, it was. You locked me up and caged me, took away my choices. Everything that happened since is on you.”
He threw up his hands, tugging on the rope. “You tried to murder me!”
“And I failed.” Her eyes pulsed with what he only now was identifying for the hatred it so obviously was. She really did hate him, just as she’d claimed to over and over again. How stupid of him not to believe her. Just because he couldn’t bring himself to hate her didn’t mean she was equally idiotic.
“You kept me in the freezing cold?—”
“All the castle’s like that. Even with a raging fire, she’s so cold I can never get warm.”
“That’s your fucking cold icicle of a heart, Alobaz.”
He stilled.
“You slicing me practically in half? Fair, totally fair, I’ll give you that. Retribution, as even as it gets. But dampening my power? Putting a collar on me like I’m your fucking slave? No, just no. You’re not supposed to do that, not to anyone for any reason. It’s just wrong.”
Fuck, she really did hate him.
“You made me want you.”
Baz couldn’t even manage a joke about his something-something sex-appeal.
“Till I couldn’t help but want to fuck you.”
His dick twitched, dammit. If it wouldn’t have drawn attention to his reaction, he’d have punched himself in his own crotch.
“You made me fuck you and drink from you, even after I told you I never wanted to feed from anyone’s Majora, and especially not from yours. You made me do all the things I never would want to do with”—she breathed in deeply before sneering—“with my brother’s killer.”
Baz didn’t bother refuting her assumption yet again. What would be the point?
“So now I’m going to take my leave.”
“How?” The question sounded foreign, like it came from someone else. But in this room that felt like it was rapidly closing in on him, it was still just the two of them—and her hatred and shadows, so much hate, so many shadows.
She waved the book she held. “The book’s title is Every One of the Abysmal Fortress’ Secrets and How to Escape It. You should’ve been paying better attention.”
Yes, he should have. When he was around her, it seemed all he saw was her.