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)
But that was when the nausea always found me—slapping such stupid ideas away, smothering me in humanness, sending me bolting for a bush or toilet to vomit in.
But now?
I felt…healthy.
Energised.
Reborn.
No sickness. No churning gut. No reprimanding inner voice telling me to be better.
I’d tried to be better.
I’d tried so fucking hard.
But this was better.
Giving in.
Going home.
Becoming who I truly was.
It was motherfucking liberating.
Blinking slightly hazy eyes, I focused on the sparkling jewel bound to a cross before me. Whatever I’d felt for this slave? The overwhelming crush I’d harboured? The nonsense belief I could save her…all faded into a different sort of conquest.
I cringed at my embarrassing past and all my struggles.
I turned my back on the man I could never be.
My past self fucked me off.
His patheticness.
His weakness.
His desperation to be normal.
Fuck that.
Why be normal when I could be this?
This powerful. This free. This whole.
Never again.
Never fucking again would I kill myself trying to be something I wasn’t.
And it’s all thanks to her.
Letting my cock go, I traced the dagger along her pretty cheekbone. Such flawless skin. Such an angelic colour as if she were borne from sunlight and butterscotch. “Ah, Ily…” My hand was steadfast and stable as I scribed an H over her cheek—not cutting, merely autographing her with invisible ownership. “You freed me, little nightmare. Your silly little kick unlocked every part of me.”
She stretched on her tiptoes, tipping her head back as if she could escape my knife. “This isn’t you. It’s not.” She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, her collar jingling on its hook. “You don’t have wings. You aren’t some son of darkness. I’m hallucinating, and this will all be over soon—”
“It’s already over.” I dragged the dagger along her jawline. “The moment you kicked me, it was all over.”
“Don’t.” She strained from my blade, lengthening her neck, revealing the small cut I’d already made and inviting a thousand more. “Please. Stop. Please, please stop.”
Dropping my head, I pressed my mouth to the wound I’d caused. I tongued the cut, my stomach snarling for sustenance. To taste her. Truly taste her in a way I’d never tasted anyone.
I’d never gone that far, despite my dreams and longings.
Never drawn another’s blood and feasted, despite my tastebuds turning every other food to ash.
But only a faint metallic flavour teased me, the wound already sealing and refusing to give me its gift.
Fine.
I still had ninety-eight more droplets to draw.
Pulling away, I studied her fear, her tension, her twitching, jerking terror.
As much as her beauty beguiled me, I saw the truth now.
She was just a girl. A toy. A belonging.
My belonging.
To do with as I please.
Painting her plump pink lips with the sharp tip of my blade, I shivered as she gasped in panic. Her body twisted in the binds, the clink of the buckles around her ankles music to my fucking ears.
“You should really thank me, you know,” I murmured, utterly entranced with the way brutal metal threatened to puncture her fragile skin. “This knife is sharp and clean. Far, far better than those disgusting ones Victor offered.”
A string of words escaped her in a language I wasn’t familiar with. Peter gasped behind me, obviously understanding her.
Breathing hard, she repeated them, over and over. A mantra.
Her pretty voice filled the room, weaving around dead animals, invoking a spell that only freed me further.
I smirked and waited for her to open her eyes.
Her voice slowly drifted off; I grinned the moment her golden gaze met mine. “No amount of prayers or chants can save you, little nightmare.”
Her lips twisted, fighting tears.
My entire body stiffened, transfixed on the glossy-wet glitter in her eyes.
With one hand, I adjusted my hard-on, just daring her to cry in my presence.
With monumental effort, she sniffed back every sorrow and trembled in her imprisonment. Bound and subservient, her forced submission seeped into my mind, adding yet another layer of freedom.
Sighing with utter relief and newfound power, I hunted for a new spot to cut.
Ily moaned in utter despair as I drew my knife across her neck, over her shoulder and down, down her arm. She flinched as I kept going, stopping on the paper-thin skin of the inside of her wrist. The golden cuff keeping her arms spread had already bruised her. Slight redness from her struggles marred the perfection of her flesh. “You know…I never intended to use this blade like this, but it’s fitting. It’s new. A virgin to blood…just like me.”
Gritting my teeth, I added pressure to the blade right over the web of veins keeping her alive.
Ily’s self-control broke.
She thrashed and fought. Jerked and jangled. The cross didn’t budge. The buckles didn’t unbind. Her collar and cuffs held, trapping her in helpless fury.
Nowhere to run and no way to hide.
I let her tire herself out.
Never lifted the knife point from her wrist.