All Chapters of His Forbidden Scarlett : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Christian's POV I looked at her a moment too long before I turned my eyes away. Looking away alone was torture, but it was nothing compared to losing her warmth. She sat on the desk where I'd left her, hair falling loose over one bare shoulder, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, and even like that, broken open by everything I'd just done to her, she was the single most beautiful thing I had ever let myself want. Four years hadn't dulled it and more years never could. If anything, those years had only sharpened it into something closer to hunger than memory. She was mine, every soft, furious inch of her. I'd known that since she was too young for me to admit it, and I'd spent half my life since then either fighting it or drowning in it, and I still hadn't found a version of myself that could simply have her without also destroying something in the process. The fact that I could never completely have her was heartbreaking. I hated that, hated myself even more. I tore my eyes away

Chapter 23Scarlett's POV“Christian!” The pain came first, sharp and impossibly intense, blotting out every other sensation in my body. A sharp pain radiated from my neck through the rest of me. My eyes stung with tears as I screamed so loudly, my throat burned. All I could think of was Christian. Where was he? Hadn't he noticed I was gone yet? Would he find me?I heard a sound from the beast. A growl, low and close enough that I felt it in my chest before my mind registered it as noise at all, vibrating through my ribs, through the marrow of me. What was I thinking, leaving a mansion situated in the woods? Christian didn't know where I was. Nobody did. My whole body was trembling with fear, my heart pounding, my head throbbing, especially at my temples.I braced for the second bite, my eyelids clamping shut. My body wouldn't listen to whatever was left of my will to fight. My hands lay useless at my sides, fingers twitching weakly against the cold, wet forest floor. Was this how i

Chapter 25Christian's POV"And why aren't you stopping me?"I already knew the answer. I could feel it in the way her fingers curled into the waistband of my sweatpants instead of pushing me away, in the way her breath caught instead of breaking into another argument. But I needed more, needed some proof, however small, that she was still here, still breathing, still warm beneath my hands instead of cold on a forest floor with her blood soaking into the dirt.I hadn't stopped seeing it since I found her. The state of her being so helpless, so scared, shivering and trembling. I couldn't unsee the blood at her throat, dark and wet in the moonlight. I thought I would lose her again. I thought I had.Hell no. I'd go through hell before I lost her again."I hate you," she whispered, the words already losing their teeth the moment my mouth found her jaw. I had heard the words too often. They echoed in my head while I worked, distracted me during pack meetings, haunted my sleep and kept me

Chapter 27Scarlett's POVI woke to an empty bed and the lingering scent of sex mixed with Christian's intoxicating cologne.The sheets beside me still held a trace of warmth, though he was already gone, and for a moment I just lay there, staring at the space where he'd been, my fingers curling into the fabric like I could drag the warmth back into it if I tried hard enough. Last night came back to me immediately. Did last night really happen? I just couldn't understand. Why did he look at me the way he did? Like I was something he genuinely couldn't bear to lose? I remembered the way his hands had trembled before he finally let himself touch me at all. And when we had sex, I didn't feel like a whore. Then again, I never did, he always made sure I had an orgasm regardless of the horrible things he said to me. Last night felt like lovemaking.I didn't feel like the victim of the sick idea of revenge he usually made everything between us feel like. It had felt like a need — a real, ung

Chapter 29Christian's POV For a few seconds, I didn't move at all.I stood there, my mind blank and my whole body taut with something I hadn't felt in many years. Fear. I had never been scared of anything, thanks to Salvatore. My wolf reacted before the rest of me caught up to what I'd just heard. An immediate surge of something feral clawed up to my chest. "Burning hot." My voice sounded strange to my own ears. I was barely keeping this…fear contained. "How hot?""I don't know—she wouldn't let anyone get close enough to check properly, Alpha. She's screaming, she's—" The maid's voice cracked, tears rolling down her face, and she pressed a trembling hand to her mouth like she couldn't finish the sentence even if she tried. This was bad.Behind me, I heard Nino's chair scrape back hard enough to tip and Clementina's sharp intake of breath, both of them already moving. But I was faster than either of them. The corridor blurred. Doors, portraits, guards flattening themselves agains