Prologue

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🔥🔥Prologue 🔥🔥

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The first time he kissed her, it was with blood on his mouth, but it was not his but her blood.

Her back was pressed against the wall of the war tent, lips split from battle, body slick with the sweat of a dozen kills. She'd slaughtered his guards like wheat. Cut through them without mercy. And yet she hadn't killed him. Not yet.

He gripped her by the throat like he meant to crush it, but his thumb slid slow against her pulse instead. Savoring it and studying it. Like he wanted to know if monsters like her even had heartbeats. Like he wanted to memorize the rhythm before he stopped it himself.

"You're very beautiful," he said, voice dark and ruined. "So goddamn beautiful for a serpent who came here to kill me."

She smiled with all her teeth, blood staining the corners of her mouth. "You weren't supposed to see me coming."

"I didn't." His mouth hovered over hers, close enough that she could taste the rage on his breath. His other hand yanked the blade from where she'd buried it near his heart, and he pressed it against her throat instead. "But now that I have, now that I've seen your face, felt your skin and tasted your violence... I'll never forget you. Never stop hunting you. You understand me, serpent? You're mine now. Mine to kill. Mine to keep. Mine to destroy."

Her pulse jumped beneath his fingers and he smiled, savage and knowing.

"You're insane," she whispered, but her thigh curled around his waist, pulling him closer.

"And you're wet for it." Then he kissed her.

The kiss was brutal. It was like a punishment and a promise. All his rage and hatred poured into it, thick and choking, but there was something else underneath. Something possessive and starving. His fingers dug into her hips hard enough to bruise, to mark, to brand her as his even in violence. She kissed him back just as hard, bit his lip until she tasted his blood mixing with hers.

He kissed her like he wanted to crawl inside her skin and live there. Like he wanted to bury his rage so deep inside her that she'd never be free of him.

And gods help her, she wanted him to try.

"I could keep you," he growled against her mouth, his hand fisting in her hair, yanking her head back so he could see her face. "Chain you in my dungeons. Make you mine. Make you pay for every single one of my men you killed tonight. Would you like that, beautiful serpent? Would you let me?"

She should have killed him then. Should have driven another blade between his ribs.

Instead, she whispered, "You couldn't handle me even if you tried."

His laugh was dark and broken. "Try me."

But he didn't know.

He didn't know the poison that would kill him was already on her tongue, seeping into his bloodstream with every kiss.

He didn't know she had inked his death into her skin three days ago. That his face was now part of the people she tattooed in her flesh. He was the only one strong enough to stop her father, the only king who'd promised the other kingdoms he would end the tyrant's reign.

He didn't know the girl he was about to fuck against that war table was the same assassin who'd killed his sister. Who slit his general's throat and left her mark at the foot of the Thornborn Altar.

She moaned against his mouth, half lust, half something that felt too much like sorrow. Like regret.

And when his hand slid between her legs and found her Pu$$y, soaked and trembling, he looked up at her with something dangerous and possessive burning in his eyes.

"Say it," he demanded, his fingers teasing, cruel. "Say you're mine."

She bit back a moan. "Never."

"Liar." He pushed two fingers inside her wet Pu$$y and watched her fall apart with savage satisfaction. "Your body knows who it belongs to. Even if you won't admit it."

"You're nothing to me," she gasped, even as her hips rolled against his hand, chasing the pleasure he gave and took in equal measure.

"And yet you're here. In my tent. Soaked and desperate and letting me touch you like this." His thumb found the spot that made her shatter and he smiled, dark and possessive. "You'll ruin me, won't you, serpent?"

She whispered back, barely holding on, "I already have."

"Good," he growled, and kissed her like he was trying to devour her whole. "Then we'll ruin each other."

She kissed him again then. Slow this time. Deep with the poison that could kill him. She poured everything she couldn't say into it. Every apology. Every twisted feeling she shouldn't have. She made sure he swallowed it all.

"I wish..." she started, then stopped and closed her eyes. "I wish you weren't who you are."

"And I wish you weren't about to kill me," he whispered against her lips, and for a moment she wondered if he knew. If he'd known all along. "But we don't get wishes, do we, beautiful?"

"No. We don't."

Then he fell down, twitching and gasping at her feet, his hand still reached for her. Still tried to pull her down with him.

"I'll find you," he choked out, blood spilling from his lips. "Even in death. Even in hell. I'll find you and I'll make you mine. You'll never be free of me. I will fucking kill you."

She knelt beside him and touched his face one last time.

"I know," she whispered. Then she smiled down at his dying face and walked away.

But fate had other plans.

That same night, she was betrayed. Murdered by the ones she trusted most. Sacrificed beneath the same moon that watched her kill him. But she was reborn to one year in the past.

He was reborn. But this time he wasn't the deadly king who chose mercy and silence. This time he walked the path of the gods. He became their maker, their weapon, their wrath.

And only one thing lived in his mind now.

Hatred. Obsession. And revenge.

For his dangerous tattooed queen.

The one who killed him.

The one he would make his, no matter how many lifetimes it took.

This is a streamy Dark Fantasy Werewolf Romance book you don't want to miss for anything.

Believe me when I tell you, you don't want to miss this.