Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Death is better than what he’s about to do,” a crocodile, forever trapped in water-like epoxy, croaked.
“I’m glad you decided to finally stop fighting who you truly are, Henri.” Victor’s vile tone cut through my delusions. “Just in time, I might add. Then again, I’m still unsure if I should let you live or die…”
“You’d kill me the moment I’ve come alive?” Henri muttered. “Bit unfair.”
Victor didn’t reply for a while, his face carefully cold. Finally, he said scarily softly, “I’ll postpone my judgement until after…how about that?”
“Fine.” Henri nodded, his face etched with shadow.
For a moment, I saw things as they truly were.
Henri just as a man—his black t-shirt rising and falling with heavy breaths, his black slacks so severe compared to his bare feet.
Peter just as a slave—kneeling on blood-dripped carpet, the cuts across his torso like red scripture scrawled into his skin.
And Victor as a king—sitting with his legs primly crossed on a rattan peacock chair. His lambskin slippers tapped out an impatient beat while his black dressing gown parted, showing navy silk pyjamas beneath. His hands folded over the gun he’d held to my head, resting like a deadly pet on his lap.
With a tight smile, Victor ordered, “Now you’ve strapped her down, choose a weapon.”
“A weapon?” Henri’s voice dabbled with drunkenness, lazy and hostile.
Victor pointed at the table full of rusty, unhygienic torture devices. Even the barbaric thousand-year-old instruments displayed in the Tower of London were better looked after. Two of the knives had dried blood on them, and the thumbscrew looked as if it had a torn piece of flesh.
Oh God…
My delusions pounced again.
New wings sprouted from Henri’s back, and the blood-speckled white carpet beneath my bound and buckled feet poured like a river, swirling around Peter’s knees across the room.
Peter gave me a despairing smile.
His dark honey skin began to glow as if he’d been anointed by the divine.
Strands of light feathered from him, dancing past Henri and soaking into my chest.
I sucked in a breath.
I felt Peter’s regret at drugging me.
Tasted his fear.
Heard his sorrow.
With lamenting birdsong erupting around the room, I forgave him.
Forgave him for drugging me.
For making this impossible for me.
For destroying me.
With a soft growl, Henri swayed toward the table holding such nasty things. In my narcotized eyes, the weapons morphed into sentient beings, vampiric daggers just begging for a bite and hissing clamps just waiting to suffocate.
Running his fingers over the array, Henri selected a particular blade. Holding it up to the glittering chandelier, he ran his thumb over the dull rustiness. His nose wrinkled as he slammed it back down again. “They’re not sharp enough to cut cleanly.”
Victor smirked. “That’s the point. Makes you work a little harder for those sweet drops of ruby.”
Nodding as if he followed Victor’s twisted logic, Henri slowly stepped away from the table. “But what if I don’t want to work harder? What if I want her blood to pour easily, freely, and all over my goddamn hands?”
Victor shrugged. “Then I’d say you’re shit out of luck, as I don’t have anything that sharp.”
“I do.” With a smirk, Henri shoved his hand into his right trouser pocket.
No…
Sanity came roaring back.
Don’t show him.
Don’t reveal what you smuggled in—
“I want to use this, if it’s all the same to you.” With a flourish, Henri held up the fatal little switchblade I’d woken up to him inspecting in his room. A blade he’d hidden the moment I’d noticed and then smothered me with his half-naked body to keep me quiet.
I gasped as memories of what he’d done after that ricocheted through me.
I relived it, not just recalled.
A movie of us played out before me. A doomed, depressing hologram as Henri rocked against me, rubbing my clit with his cock, offering me chocolate in the form of an orgasm. An orgasm that’d torn through me. An orgasm that was the last piece of goodness I’d ever feel.
Victor stiffened in his chair, his fingers tightening around the gun. “You brought a fucking knife into my home, Ward?” Raising the weapon, he aimed the muzzle at Henri. “Care to tell me what that was for?”
Henri didn’t look at me.
No shred of the man who’d begged me to play along with him existed.
He was merely an animal that’d prowled out of its cage—a beast slowly growing accustomed to its new freedom. “If you must know, Vic, I brought it as protection.”
“Protection? From what?”
“From you.”
Victor scowled. “Why would you need protection from me? We’re the same…you and I. Or at least…that’s what you’ve attempted to convince me of. Whether I believe it or not remains to be seen.”
Henri shrugged and flicked open the switchblade. He hissed under his breath as he ran his thumb along the sharp, pointy end. “To be honest, I’m having a hard time remembering much right now. My mind is quiet for the first time in decades. My thoughts are so fucking calm, it’s eerie.” He slur-chuckled and tapped his temple with an unbalanced sway. “Must be the booze.”