𝐌𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 La𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭

I used to think love was gentle.

My mother warned me a hundred times.

"Silas Vane is a wolf with ambition in his teeth, Maureen. He will smile while he eats your heart."

I laughed. Fought her. Screamed that she didn't understand love, that she was cruel for trying to tear me from the only boy who ever made me feel safe.

The last time we argued, she was eight months heavy with my little brother, hand pressed to her belly, tears in her eyes.

"One day," she whispered, "you will remember this moment and hate yourself for not listening."

I stormed out.

Three weeks later she was dead.

Silas's hands around my throat. His mother's cold laugh. Celeste's golden hair tangled in his fist while they planned to sell my family's land the same night they sold my corpse.

I never got to tell her she was right.

I never got to say sorry.

Now I'm curled on a velvet chaise in a stranger's mansion, wearing nothing but a man's coat and a collar that burns every time I breathe too deep, and all I can hear is her voice.

You should have listened, little star.

The masked lord-Lord Cassian, he told the auctioneer-snaps his fingers at the maids.

"Clean her. Feed her. Dress her in something pretty and breakable." His smile is all teeth. "She'll be my Hunt toy this year."

The maids bow so low their foreheads touch the marble.

I want to scream. I want to claw his eyes out. But my body is shaking too hard, and the collar is laced with wolfsbane; every time I try to summon my wolf, agony shoots down my spine.

Two women drag me through perfumed corridors into a bathing chamber of black marble and gold veins. They strip the coat away like it never belonged to me. Cold air hits every bruise, every lash mark, every inch of skin that still remembers the whip.

Hot water pours over me. Rough sponges scrub until I bleed again. They don't speak. They don't have to. Their eyes say it all: another toy, another year, another corpse for the snow.

They towel me dry, oil my skin until it gleams, then dress me in a slip of white silk that ends mid-thigh and clings to every curve. No underwear. No shoes. Just the collar and a thin silver chain clipped to it like a leash.

When they're finished, I look like a virgin sacrifice.

I feel like one.

Lord Cassian is waiting in the doorway, mask gone now. He's handsome in the way a blade is handsome-sharp, cold, eager to cut. His eyes rake over me and he licks his lips.

"Perfect," he murmurs. "The Hunt begins at moonrise tomorrow. Until then, you're mine to play with."

He steps closer, fingers brushing the crescent scar at my throat-the one my mother kissed every night and told me never to let anyone see.

"Such pretty marks," he whispers. "I wonder how many more I'll leave before Vuk tears you apart."

My stomach drops.

He bought me because of it.

I try to step back, but the chain jerks me forward. His hand slides under the silk, cups me between my legs like he already owns what's there. I'm humiliatingly wet-terror and wolfsbane and something darker I refuse to name.

"Good girl," he croons. "Save that for the forest. I want you dripping when I chase you."

He leans in, breath hot against my ear.

"And when I catch you-and I will catch you-I'm going to fuck you raw in the snow while the Devil Alpha watches. Then I'll hand you over gift-wrapped. He'll never forget who broke you first."

I spit in his face.

The slap that follows splits my lip. Blood fills my mouth.

He laughs, delighted, and wipes the spit away with his thumb before forcing it between my lips.

"Save that fire, Bitch. You'll need it."

He turns to leave, tossing over his shoulder, "Lock her in the red room. No food. No water. Let her hunger make her sweet."

The maids drag me away.

The red room is exactly what it sounds like: crimson walls, crimson sheets, chains bolted to the headboard and floor. They lock the chain to a ring in the ceiling so I have to stand, arms stretched high, toes barely touching the ground.

The door slams.

Silence.

I hang from the ceiling by the silver chain, arms wrenched high, toes barely brushing the floor. The white silk slip clings to me like a second skin, soaked with sweat and blood from my split lip. Every breath tugs the collar tighter against my throat.

Hours pass. Or minutes. Time is slippery when you're waiting to be hunted.

My legs give out. The chain holds me up. My shoulders burn. My head lolls forward.

Eventually the exhaustion wins.

I fall into sleep the way you fall into a grave.

And the nightmares come for me.

My father's throat torn open, eyes staring at nothing.

My mother curled around her swollen belly, blood pooling beneath her.

Silas laughing, golden hair shining while he drives the knife in again and again.

The crowd screaming "Witch! Witch! Witch!" as the wolfsbane whip eats my back raw.

I jerk awake with a scream that rips my throat.

"Ahhh!"

Tears pour down my face, hot and useless. My body shakes so hard the chain rattles overhead.

I hate myself.

I hate that I'm still alive while they're dead.

I hate that I ever loved him.

The door opens.

"It's time, slave."

Two guards unclip the chain. My arms drop like dead things. They drag me down crimson corridors, past mirrors that show a girl I don't recognise: hollow cheeks, silver eyes too big, collar like a brand of shame.

Lord Cassian waits in the entrance hall, dressed in black hunting leathers, silver mask hanging at his belt. He grins when he sees me limp and shaking.

"On your knees, toy."

I don't move fast enough. His hand cracks across my face, then slides down to slap my ass so hard the sound echoes.

"That's for later," he says, licking his lips. "I like my prey marked."

He clips a longer leash to my collar and yanks me outside into the freezing night.

A sleek black carriage waits, pulled by six white wolves the size of horses. He shoves me inside, climbs in after, and we ride through snow and moonlight until the fortress rises ahead of us like a mountain carved from obsidian and nightmares.

The Northern Dominion.

The Alpha Devil's house.

The second the gates open, something inside me fractures.

His scent slams into me-wildfire, midnight snow, raw power. It floods my lungs, sinks into my blood, pools hot and shameful between my thighs. My wolf-drugged silent for weeks-stirs with a violent jerk that makes me gasp out loud.

Cassian notices. His grip tightens on the leash.

"Behave," he hisses. "Or I'll fuck you right here in front of the entire court before the Hunt even begins."

The carriage stops. Guards drag me out into a massive open arena ringed with torches and high seats full of masked nobles. Below, the snow is already stained red. Bodies lie scattered like broken dolls.

The Hunt has already started.

Cassian parades me along the front row like a prize, letting lords and ladies touch my hair, my arms, my face. Some pinch. Some lick. I bite my tongue until it bleeds to keep from screaming.

Then the air changes.

The temperature drops so fast my breath clouds.

Every torch flares higher.

A ripple of fear runs through the entire arena. Masked nobles drop their eyes. Guards fall to one knee.

Heavy footsteps.

I don't want to look. I have to look.

He steps into the torchlight.

Seven feet of pure ruin. Black robe hanging open, chest scarred and glowing faintly with Lucifer's mark. Golden eyes burning like fallen stars. Fangs visible even from here. And the bulge straining against his trousers is obscene, impossible, terrifying.

Vuk Kael Lasković.

The Alpha Devil.

He raises a crossbow and fires, once, twice, three times. Bodies drop silently in the snow.

Then he stops.

His head turns slowly.

Our eyes lock.

The world falls away.

My wolf surges forward so hard I stumble, leash jerking taut in Cassian's hand. Electricity explodes under my skin-every nerve ending screaming one word.

Mate.

Mate.

MATE.

I can't breathe. I can't think. I'm drowning in wildfire and moonlight and the sudden, violent certainty that I was born to burn in this male's arms.

Cassian snarls, yanking me closer. "What the fuck are you-"

Vuk moves.

One moment he's thirty feet away. The next he's right in front of us, snow swirling around his boots like he summoned the storm itself.

He doesn't look at Cassian.

He looks only at me.

Golden eyes flare brighter, pupils blown wide with rage and hunger.

His voice is soft. Deadly.

"Take your hand off my mate."

A pause.

"Or I'll wear it as a fucking necklace."

Cassian's grip falters.

Before anyone can blink, Vuk's hand shoots out, closes around the leash, and rips it from Cassian's fingers like it's tissue paper. The collar snaps open and falls to the snow.

Then I'm in his arms.

One iron arm under my knees, the other crushing me to his chest. His skin is burning hot against my frozen body. His scent floods me until I'm dizzy, drunk, aching.

I should fight.

I should scream.

Instead my traitorous hands fist in his open robe and I bury my face against his throat, breathing him in like air after drowning.

The bond snaps tight between us-violent, irreversible, alive.

He growls, low and wrecked, lips brushing my ear.

"Mine."

And for the first time since they killed my family, I'm not afraid.

I'm home.

Vuk Kael Laskovic

Mine.

The word is a war drum in my skull.

I carry her through the fortress like I'm carrying the moon itself, and every wolf between me and my chambers drops to their knees so fast their spines crack. Good. Let them break. I will break the fucking world if one more person breathes the same air as her before I've buried myself inside her and made sure she'll never smell like anyone else again.

The doors to my private wing explode off their hinges the second my shoulder touches them. Wood splinters. Iron screams. I don't slow down.

I kick the bedroom door shut behind us; the impact rattles the walls hard enough to shatter a mirror. I don't care. Nothing exists except the tiny, shaking female in my arms and the scent of lunar blood and slick that is currently rewriting every law of my existence.

I set her on her feet only long enough to rip the remnants of that bastard's coat off her body. Silk tears like tissue. The collar Cassian dared put on her snaps between my fingers; I crush the silver into dust and let it fall.

She stands naked, trembling, silver eyes huge, lips bleeding where he split them.

I drop to my knees.

Not submission. Worship.

I drag my nose up the inside of her thigh, inhaling so deep my lungs burn. Her scent is everywhere: terror, grief, slick, moonlight, mine. My fangs ache. My cock is so hard the head is purple, leaking a steady stream down my thigh like I'm a boy again.

"Fuck," I snarl against her skin. "You're going to kill me and I haven't even tasted you yet."

She makes a broken sound. Her hands fist in my hair, not pushing, not pulling, just holding on like I'm the only solid thing left in her world.

I can't wait.

I lift her again, carry her into the obsidian bathroom, and step straight into the pool-sized bath without bothering with taps. Hellfire flares from my palms; the water boils in seconds, steam rising like a storm.

I lower us both into it.

She gasps as the heat hits her welts, her bruises, the raw whip marks across her back. I growl so loud the surface ripples. Someone is going to die screaming for every mark on her skin, and I already know whose heart I'll be eating raw before dawn.

I wash her myself.

My hands (hands that have ended bloodlines) move over her like I'm handling something holy and breakable. I scrub Cassian's scent from her throat, her breasts, between her legs, until the only thing left is her and me and the bond that's currently setting my blood on fire.

She's shaking, whimpering, thighs trying to close even as slick pours over my fingers.

I can't stop touching her.

I can't stop smelling her.

I can't stop hearing that single word echoing in my skull like a death knell and a prayer.

Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate.

I lift her out dripping, carry her back to the bedroom, and lay her on the black furs like I'm offering her to every dark god I've ever defied.

She stares up at me, silver eyes glowing, chest heaving.

I stand over her, robe long gone, cock jutting up against my stomach, knot already swelling at the base. My claws are fully extended. My fangs won't retract. Veins of liquid gold crawl under my skin like living fire.

I have never been this close to losing control in three and a half centuries.

I have never wanted anything the way I want to split her open and live inside her until the stars burn out.

"Look at me," I rasp.

She does.

I let her see everything: the monster, the devil, the male who will burn kingdoms to keep her.

Her thighs fall open on their own.

The growl that rips out of me is not wolf. It's not demon. It's something older, something that was born the first time the moon looked at hellfire and decided it wanted to burn.

I drop to my knees between her legs.

My hands grip her hips hard enough to bruise.

I lean down until my mouth hovers over her slick, swollen cunt, and I breathe her in like oxygen after centuries underwater.

"Three hundred and fifty years," I snarl against her, voice shredded. "I waited three hundred and fifty fucking years for this pussy, and some bastard thought he could hunt you first?"

I lick one long, filthy stripe from her entrance to her clit.

She screams, back arching off the furs.

I do it again. And again. And again.

Until she's sobbing my name, until her thighs are clamped around my head, until her slick is painted across my chin and dripping off my fangs.

Until the only word left in the universe is mine.

I rise over her, line my cock up, knot throbbing against her entrance, and meet her eyes.

"I'm going to ruin you, little moon."

The words scrape out of my throat like broken glass. I'm shaking. Actually shaking. Three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old bones rattling because the tiny female beneath me is trembling harder than I am.

She should be screaming.

She should be clawing at my face, kicking, begging me to stop.

Instead her thighs fall open wider, slick glistening on swollen pink folds, and the scent of her fear-laced arousal slams into me so hard my vision whites out for a second.

Fuck.

I can taste her terror on my tongue, sharp and metallic beneath the honey of her slick. It's the most intoxicating thing I've ever swallowed. I want to drown in it.

Her chest heaves. Those perfect tits rise and fall in frantic little jerks. Silver eyes (moonlit, ancient, terrified) are locked on my face like she's staring at the end of the world.

Because she is.

She knows what I am.

She knows what's coming.

Her pulse is a trapped bird under the thin skin of her throat. I can see it fluttering. I can hear it. I can feel it in the bond that's currently carving my soul out with a dull blade and handing it to her on a silver platter.

I lean down slowly, deliberately, letting her feel every inch of the monster caging her in.

My cock drags up the inside of her thigh, leaving a wet trail of pre-cum and her own slick. The head nudges her entrance, thick and brutal, knot already so swollen it'll never fit without tearing her apart.

She whimpers.

A single, broken sound that spears straight through my chest and lodges behind my ribs forever.

I stop.

Because if I move now, I'll kill her.

I will literally fuck her to death and not be able to stop.

My claws dig into the furs on either side of her head, shredding them. My arms shake with the effort of holding still.

"Breathe," I snarl through fangs that won't retract.

She sucks in a ragged gasp. Tears spill from the corners of her eyes, carving silver tracks down her temples into her white-gold hair.

Good.

Cry for me, little moon.

Cry while I destroy you.

I drop my forehead to hers. My breath saws in and out, ragged and ruined.

"Look at me," I command again, softer this time.

She does.

And I let her see everything.

Every century of starvation.

Every corpse I left cooling because nothing ever filled the void.

Every time I woke up hard and furious and alone.

All of it, gone.

Because she exists.

Because she's here.

Because she's mine.

Her lips part on a sob.

"Vuk..." she whispers.

The first time anyone has said my name in three centuries without permission.

The first time anyone has said it like a prayer instead of a curse.

I lose the last thread of control.

I thrust.

One brutal, punishing stroke that buries me to the hilt inside the tightest, hottest heaven I've ever known.

She screams.

The sound rips through the room, high and shattered and perfect.

Her walls clamp down so hard my vision blacks out. Her nails rake bloody furrows down my back. Her legs lock around my waist like she'll die if I pull out.

I can't move.

I can't fucking move.

Because if I do, I'll come instantly, knot swelling, locking us together while I pump her so full she'll taste me in her throat for weeks.

I drop my weight onto my forearms, caging her completely, and bury my face in her neck.

Her scent is everywhere. Inside me. Under my skin. Rewriting my fucking DNA.

Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

I lick the crescent scar at her throat (Selene's mark) and feel her whole body jolt.

"Say it," I growl against her pulse. "Say who you belong to."

She's crying harder now, shaking her head, but her hips roll up to meet mine like she can't help it.

I pull out slow, torturously slow, until only the head is inside, then slam back in so hard the headboard cracks against the wall.

She screams again.

"Say it."

Another slow drag out. Another brutal thrust in.

Her back bows off the furs. Her nails dig into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood.

"Yours," she sobs. "I'm yours, I'm yours, please-"

The word please undoes me.

I fuck her like the world is ending.

Hard. Deep. Relentless.

Every thrust punches a broken sound from her throat. Every drag back makes her chase my cock like she'll die without it. The wet slap of our bodies is obscene. The scent of sex and blood and slick is so thick I can taste it.

Her walls flutter around me, the first warning.

I snarl, fangs scraping her shoulder.

"Not yet."

I slow down, grinding deep, rolling my hips until she's keening, tears streaming, begging in broken little gasps.

Only when she's right on the edge, shaking apart beneath me, do I let myself go.

I slam in one final time.

My knot swells, locking us together.

I bite down on the soft spot between her neck and shoulder (hard, deep, permanent).

Blood floods my mouth. Lunar power explodes across my tongue like starlight and sin.

She comes with a scream that shatters something inside both of us.

Her cunt milks my cock in vicious pulses, dragging my own release out of me in thick, endless ropes. I roar against her skin, hips jerking, pumping her full until it leaks around my knot and soaks the furs beneath us.

I keep coming.

I can't stop.

I don't want to stop.

I collapse on top of her, careful not to crush her even while the beast inside me howls to keep her pinned forever.

She's crying quietly now, soft, overwhelmed sobs that make my chest ache in ways I didn't know it could.

I lick the bite closed, gentle, reverent.

Then I press my forehead to hers again.

"I'm sorry," I rasp, voice wrecked. "I'm sorry, little moon. I tried to be gentle. I swear I tried."

She laughs through her tears (a tiny, broken sound that spears straight through my heart).

"You weren't gentle," she whispers. "You were perfect."

I close my eyes.

Three hundred and fifty years.

And in one night, one tiny lunar girl rewrote every rule of my existence.

I'm never letting her go.

Not tonight.

Not tomorrow.

Not when the sun burns out and the gods themselves turn to dust.

She is mine.

And I am hers.

Forever.

_Maureen Laurent

I wake up drowning in him.

The black furs are soaked with us-sex and sweat and blood-and they cling to my skin like a second, heavier shame.

My thighs are sticky.

My breasts ache.

Between my legs feels swollen, tender, used in a way that makes heat crawl up my neck even now.

The bite on my shoulder throbs with every heartbeat, a living brand that whispers his name over and over.

Vuk.

Vuk.

Vuk.

I reach for him before my eyes are even open, fingers searching the ruined bed for seven feet of scorching heat and golden eyes.

Nothing.

The sheets beside me are cold.

My stomach caves in.

I sit up too fast. The room tilts. Every muscle protests; my thighs tremble, and something warm and thick slides out of me and down the inside of my leg.

His seed.

Still inside me.

Still leaking.

Proof.

I yank the fur up to my chin like it can hide me from what I let him do-what I begged him to do.

The mirror across the room is shattered.

The floor is littered with shredded silk and silver dust that used to be a collar.

The headboard has claw marks gouged so deep the obsidian shows pale scars.

My white slip lies in ribbons, soaked crimson at the hem.

It wasn't a dream.

He really pinned me down and split me open and bit me and called me his while the entire fortress shook with his roar.

And then he left.

My breath hitches. My eyes burn.

I press shaking fingers to the bite. The skin is raised, hot, perfect half-moons of his fangs. When I touch it, pleasure stabs straight between my legs so sharply I gasp and jerk my hand away like I've been burned.

A sob tries to crawl up my throat. I swallow it.

I force myself to the edge of the bed. My legs refuse to hold me. I collapse to my knees on the cold floor, fur clutched to my chest, and for one humiliating second I just kneel there-naked and dripping with the Alpha Devil's come, terrified he's already bored of me.

The silence is crushing.

I crawl-actually crawl-to the foot of the bed and grab the post to haul myself upright.

My reflection in a cracked shard of mirror shows a stranger:

silver eyes too wide,

lips swollen,

throat ringed with bruises shaped like his fingers,

breasts marked with his mouth,

bite shining wet and fresh.

I look claimed.

I look ruined.

I look like exactly what he called me: his.

And he's not here.

The sob wins this time. It tears out of me, small and broken and ugly.

That's when the door opens.

I whirl, clutching the fur tighter, heart slamming against my ribs.

A woman steps inside-petite, maybe mid-thirties, dark hair in a severe knot, wearing a simple black dress with a silver crest over the heart. She closes the door softly behind her and dips into a curtsy so perfect it feels rehearsed for centuries.

"Good morning, Miss," she says, voice gentle, almost warm. "My name is Livia. From this day forward, I am your personal maid."

She straightens, meets my eyes without fear or disgust, and smiles like she's looking at a queen instead of a naked, freshly knotted, tear-stained mess.

"I've been instructed to see to your every need."

She pauses, gaze softening as it drifts over the fresh, glistening bite on my shoulder, the purple fingerprints blooming across my throat, the way my knees knock together like a newborn fawn's.

"Whenever you're ready, Miss," she says again, quieter this time, as if the words themselves are afraid to startle me.

My tongue feels thick, coated in ash and him.

"I... um... can I get water at least?" The question comes out cracked, barely louder than a breath.

Livia's eyes crinkle-not quite a smile, but close. She dips her head in the smallest nod and slips out the door without a sound. It closes with a whisper-soft click.

I count my heartbeats.

One,

two,

three-

The door opens again. She's back, holding a crystal bottle beaded with condensation. The water inside looks impossibly clear, almost silver in the torchlight.

She uncaps it for me-my hands are shaking too hard-and presses it gently to my lips.

I drink like I've been lost in the desert for weeks. Greedy, sloppy gulps that spill down my chin and onto the black silk still clinging to my breasts. I don't care. I can't stop.

When it's empty I lower it with trembling fingers, water dripping from my bottom lip, and look up at her. My eyes feel too big, too glassy, like a child waiting to be scolded.

Livia takes it gently, sets it aside, then simply opens her arms a little-not quite a hug, just an offer.

I don't even think. I let the fur drop and stumble into her.

She catches me like she's done this a hundred times.

She guides me into the bathroom, sits me on the edge of the massive obsidian tub, and starts the water. The moment the steam hits the bite on my shoulder, I whimper. It still feels alive, pulsing with him.

Livia doesn't flinch at the marks. She just wets a cloth and starts washing his seed from between my thighs with the same care someone might wash blood from a wound: careful, practiced, silent.

I finally find my voice, small and cracked.

"He... he's going to kill me now, isn't he?"

I don't know why I ask her. Maybe because she's the first person who's looked at me like I'm still human.

Livia stills for a heartbeat. Then she meets my eyes in the mirror.

"The lord does whatever he wishes, Miss," she says quietly. No cruelty, no comfort-just truth. "But I have served in this fortress for thirty-two years. I have never seen him carry a female through the halls like she was the only thing keeping the world from burning. I have never seen him shatter his own doors to get her inside faster. And I have never-" her gaze drops to the bite, then back up "-seen that mark on anyone who lived past the next sunrise... who wasn't his mate."

My breath catches so hard it hurts.

She resumes washing me, gentler now.

"So no, Miss. I do not think he plans to kill you." A tiny, sad smile. "I think he is trying very hard not to scare you more than he already has."

I don't believe her. I can't. Hope is too dangerous here.

She dresses me in a soft black silk gown-no underwear again, of course-and braids my hair with steady fingers. A little makeup to hide the worst of the bruising around my mouth. When she's finished I look almost... regal. Like someone who belongs at a devil's side.

She walks me back into the bedroom. Someone has already changed the sheets, swept up the glass, erased every trace of last night except the scent of him that still clings to my skin.

Livia stops at the door.

"You are not to leave these rooms unless the lord sends for you himself. Food will be brought. If you need anything-anything at all-pull the bell cord. I will come."

She hesitates, then adds, softer, "You are safe here, Miss. Safer than any creature in this dominion has ever been."

The door closes behind her with a soft click.

I stand in the middle of the vast, spotless room, alone again.

My fingers drift to the bite.

Safe.

The bond thrums under my skin like a second heartbeat, warm and alive and terrifying.

He didn't throw me away.

He didn't kill me.

He sent someone to take care of me.

The door opens without a sound.

I'm still folded in on myself, arms tight around my ribs, when his presence floods the room like a tide of heat and midnight. The torches bow. My heartbeat stutters.

Vuk.

He is dressed in simple black-no armor, no crown, no blood. Just loose linen trousers and a shirt half-open at the throat. His hair is damp, pushed back from his face, and the golden glow in his eyes is banked low, almost gentle.

I scramble backward anyway. My spine hits the bedframe and I sink to the floor, knees folding under me, palms pressed to the furs.

"Please," I whisper, voice cracking. "Please don't kill me. I'll be good, I swear, I'll-"

The words die.

Because he drops.

Not in violence.

Not in threat.

He lowers himself to his knees right there on the rug, slow and deliberate, until we are eye-level. Seven feet of ruin and flame brought low for me.

He doesn't reach yet. He simply waits, palms open on his thighs, letting me see the tremor in his fingers.

"Little moon," he says, so softly it hurts. "Why would I ever kill the only part of me that feels alive?"

I can't breathe. Tears spill hot and silent.

He crawls forward-one careful movement at a time-until his knees brush mine. Still he doesn't touch. He just bows his head, presses his forehead to the floor between us, and stays there.

The Alpha Devil on his knees.

Submitting.

"I left," he murmurs into the rug, voice ragged, "because I was terrified I'd hurt you more if I stayed. You were bleeding. You were shaking. And I-" A broken laugh. "I have never once in three and a half centuries been afraid of anything. Then I looked at you and thought: if I crush her, I will follow her into death myself."