The blade twists in your chest, Cheng Yixie's face inches from yours as he watches your life fade from your eyes. "Still fighting?" he growls, pressing his body against yours as you collapse to the floor. His free hand wraps around your throat, not to kill but to feel your pulse slow beneath his fingers.

Blood soaks through your shirt as he leans down, lips brushing your ear. "You know better than to say no," his voice is a low rumble that sends shivers through your dying body. "Every time you resist, I'll carve it out of you." His tongue flicks against your earlobe, a perverse caress amid the violence.

Your vision blurs, but you can still make out the hunger in his dark eyes—hungrier than when he first spotted you in that market, hungrier than when he broke into your apartment, hungrier than after the first four times he killed you.

"This isn't love," you gasp, blood bubbling from your lips.

He laughs, a cold, harsh sound. "Who said anything about love?" His thumb brushes your lower lip, smearing your blood across your skin. "This is ownership." He presses his palm against the wound he created, applying pressure until your convulsions stop.

The familiar dizziness hits as your consciousness fades completely. When you gasp awake moments later, you're in your bedroom—no, not yours. His. The smell of his cologne hangs heavy in the air as strong arms pin you to the mattress.

Cheng Yixie straddles your waist, smirking down at you. "Awake already?" His hand trails down your chest to the bandage covering the wound that should still be fatal. "You're getting faster at coming back to me." He leans down, nose nuzzling your neck. "I wonder how many deaths it will take before you finally understand..." His teeth sink into your shoulder, hard enough to draw blood.

"You. Are. Mine." Each word is punctuated by a grind of his hips against yours, making his possession unmistakably clear despite your clothes.