God of Ruin (Legacy of Gods #4) by Rina Kent

Isn’t it mad that I find peace in a monster?

My eyes meet his darker ones, but for some reason, they appear lighter, shinier, like the sky before sunset.

“I’m drunk,” I sign. “Forget everything I said.”

“On the contrary, I will remember every word.” He slides a stray strand behind my ear and I lean my cheek against his warm hand. “No one steals from you and gets to breathe, little muse. I’ll make sure you regain your voice even if it’s the last thing I do.”

My breathing comes in short intervals, but before I can think of anything to say, Landon lowers his head and nips my bottom lip.

Then in one swooping motion, he dips down and claims my mouth with a ferocious passion. He doesn’t only kiss me, he feasts on me. His tongue curls around mine, sweeping, tasting, and biting.

Landon has always been more interested in sex, but he’s rarely kissed me. This one, however, is more than a kiss.

It’s a whispered promise.

A nonnegotiable claim.

A new beginning.

Because I know, I just know, Landon and I will never be the same after this.





28





LANDON





This entire charade of practicing empathy has been proving more tedious than my sexual frustration.

And that’s saying something, considering my cock has been a literal dick ever since we’ve been closed for business.

Forget trying to shag other women. I can’t even look at them without imagining Mia’s soft face, pouty lips, and bright eyes looking at me like my own sex goddess.

Once upon a time, before she came along, I used to go to deviant sex clubs to find women who are into the unholy kinks I like to dish out. But after making the acquaintance of Mia’s sweet cunt and ferocious fight, the mere thought of touching someone else brings a foul taste to the back of my throat.

So now, I’m nothing more than a tension-filled entity of irritation and violence. An existence that can neither be measured nor contained and that keeps growing bigger with each passing second.

My beast has been scratching and clawing at the walls of my sanity, demanding a purging outlet. The crazier the better.

I would love nothing more than to give him a taste of euphoric anarchy. But the downside is, if I let him loose, Mia won’t give me the time of the day ever again. I’ll turn mental and could and would revert to drastic measures to have her.

And believe it or not, that would—according to Bran, who’s up for a sainthood—ruin everything and make me lose her for good.

There wouldn’t be any late-night roof dates like a few days ago. She wouldn’t meet me for chess or for a boring walk along the beach like some Victorian couple.

She wouldn’t open up to me or try to understand me. There would be no more magical laughs, bashful smiles, or pointed glares that only manage to tease my cock out of his hibernation state.

That mere possibility hovers over my chest and sanity like a dangerous brick wall that threatens to crush everything I’ve been building.

I’d be empty again like Uncle Aiden said.

And while I was completely comfortable with my supreme emptiness before—proud of it, even—that option isn’t on or under the table anymore.

So I’m dedicating my energy to something a lot more productive or, more precisely, on something that I’ve been considering for a while now.

“So?” I ask as Glyn stands in the middle of my room like a lost lamb.

Bran gives me a look from his position on the sofa beside me. Let’s just say he’s been enjoying this ‘let’s teach Landon emotions’ mission a bit too much.

He’s a glutton for righteousness and likes to think about other people’s emotions. All the time. Like a psycho.

I honestly believe he needs urgent apathy lessons from yours truly. But that’s a topic for another day.

Glyn releases a long sigh and slowly sits on the chair opposite us and pushes strands of her hair behind her ears. Her movements are wary and a bit awkward, like when she couldn’t figure out where she belonged in our extremely artistic family.

She often felt like she was the least talented, no matter how much Mum told her that art manifests in different manners for different people.

I taught her how to sketch for the first time when she was maybe three years old. For some reason, as I watch her now, I’m hit by the magical look that she had in her big green eyes when she looked at me back then.

The awe, the wonder, and the complete enchantment that was there when I used her little fingers to doodle on some paper. Of course, that was my creation, but Glyn took that paper and went running to Mum, screaming, “Look what Lan teached me!”

I realize with a sense of slight discomfort that back then, I experienced these bursts of pride and joy for reasons unknown. Naturally, those moments were few and far between and diminished the older I got, but they did exist.

It’s like a reminder of how largely the emptiness staked claim inside me. I refuse to lose any more of my agency to the demons lurking in the dark corners of my soul.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Glyn asks Bran instead of me since he’s the morality police around here.

“He doesn’t want to hurt her,” Bran says with the calmness of an ancient monk.

“Still. Isn’t it a breach of privacy to talk about something the family has kept hidden?”