Chapter 15 *Edited*

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My lips crashed violently into his

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My lips crashed violently into his.

In the split second it took to lift my head, I felt something dangerous cut through me. It was like a switch had been flipped between my brain and the animal in my blood. Fighting in the den had been about survival — about staying alive — and though it had been difficult, I was still hardwired to fight that way. It was more than instinct — it was all I knew. The knowledge that defeat would mean certain death had been drilled into me from the second Sebastien threw the first punch and told me not to take it like a victim.

But right then, 'certain death' was almost preferable to... this.

Because if I conceded defeat on this filthy floor, I'd have to live with it.

A burst of desperation shot through me and I kissed him with the intent of catching him off guard — to gain some sort of impossible leverage. Pain lanced through my jaw with the force of the impact but I pushed through it, my head spinning with anger and adrenaline and the words, I can't let him win.

Michael froze above me, amber eyes widening in shock.

I shoved at his chest and his shoulders, trying to use his surprise against him. Pain vibrated through my damaged arms — but even shocked, he was solid and unmoveable, his body as stubborn as his brain. A feverish spiral of desperation welled in my blood and with a mewl of frustration, I just... let go. I drove my fingers roughly through his hair, making myself dizzy with the effort it took to keep my head up, and dug my nails into his scalp, scoring his skin. Clawing at his skull. Abusing whatever part of him I came into contact with.

My gums started to tingle viciously and my thoughts were suddenly consumed with making him hurt, with drawing blood, with causing even a tiny fragment of the pain I'd felt tonight over and over. With forcing him to feel the hate spilling out of my pores.

With destroying him, utterly, the way I'd been destroyed tonight.

I hate you I hate you I hate you —

A fresh swell of rage tore through me and I bit down hard on his lip. He flinched and hissed, and I sunk deep with my teeth, tearing into his chin. Forcing him to hold still as hot blood spilled into my mouth, metallic and bitter. The smell of it was like gasoline thrown over an already-raging bonfire. Fire surged in my veins, my vision flashing red as I tasted him on my tongue. It almost felt liked we'd traded places: the instinct to dominate, the hunger to drive him to his knees, to make him surrender — was all mine.

But then he fucked everything up by kissing me back.

I felt it the second he came alive: he growled low in his throat, the sound sending a shock of something through my body, before he grabbed my hair, my scalp stinging with the force, and pulled my head back down to the floor.

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