His voice slashed through the roaring in my head.
"What the fuck am I doing?” Alaric’s voice cracked like thunder through the suite, his hands suddenly gripping the woman’s shoulders and pushing her away. “Stop. I can’t—.”
My shoes fell from my hand with a thud that seemed to echo throughout the entire suite.
Not Danielle.
Coraline.
My father’s mistress—who’d slithered into my life with her saccharine smiles while spreading her legs for my father behind closed doors. The woman whose fingers had once braided my hair with gentle care now clawed at my husband’s thighs, her mouth—the same mouth that had whispered“I’ll always be here for you.”—stretched around his cock.
Every memory of her twisted, rotted, festered in my mind. The betrayal wasn’t just doubled—it was exponential, multiplying with each heartbeat.
My vision collapsed to a pinprick of nuclear- white rage. Santos’ shout became distant static. Alaric’ s expression contorted in slow-motion as he spotted me. Coraline’ s lipstick-smeared mouth was still formed in a perfect O when I materialized behind her, my body moving on pure instinct.
I lunged forward with a sound I didn't recognize. My fingers knotted into her hair, wrenching backward with such force that her scalp yielded—blood-slicked strands tearing free between my knuckles.
Her scream shattered the air as her body slammed against the floor, flailing legs reminding of an insect.
Alaric lunged toward us to stop me.
"Selene—"
My hand seized a nearby crystal tumbler from its shelf, knuckles bleaching bloodless around the heavy glass. I launched it at him with such violence my shoulder joint burned.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
The glass detonated against the cabinet beside his head, razor shards exploding outward like shrapnel, and liquor rained.
Coraline writhed beneath my fingers, her scream piercing the air. "Let me go!”
I didn’t want to let her go.
I wanted to wring her goddamn neck before I got to my husband. I dragged her further by the hair, her spine arching in an unnatural curve as her fingernails clawed desperately at my wrists. She was a lot heavier than she looked, but that didn’t stop me as I slammed her face into the corner edge of the breakfast bar.
Twice.
Her screams collapsed into broken whimpers as blood spattered across the floor.
“Selene!” Alaric said my name louder than he ever had in the entire time we’d been together.
"El, enough." Santos' grip cinched around me, his arms bulged with strain as he pulled me back, his eyes wide with disbelief. Coraline crumpled to the floor, her hands clutching her face, blood seeping between her fingers. Her once-perfect hair hung in tangles around her shoulders.
“Enough?” I spat, my voice cracking. “You don’t get to tell me that!”
I thrashed in his grip, as I fought for freedom. My chest heaved with each breath. When his arms wouldn’t yield, I kicked out with every ounce of my hatred, my heeljustconnecting with her temple with a jolt of satisfaction up my leg.
“Get her out of here,” Alaric ordered. He’d tucked himself away, zipped up his pants like this was just some minor inconvenience instead of the complete destruction of everything I’d built him up to be within my mind and heart.
The woman sprawled at my feet, whimpering, her face barely recognizable beneath the mask of blood and destruction. Yet it wasn’t enough. I wanted to crawl inside her skin and tear her apart from within.
“My God, El.” Santos wrapped both arms tighter around my waist, lifting me away. “It’s done. You can’t kill her yet.”
He spoke the last part only loud enough for me to hear.
Coraline rolled to her side, curling into herself like a wounded animal. A moan escaped her lips, muffled against the floor. “You crazy bitch!”
“El,” Santos repeated, his voice breaking as he moved me toward the exit feet away. “Breathe.”