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)
She cried out and fought, her collar making that delicious mocking jingle against the hook holding her in place.
“I’m real. You’re real. This is real.” It was second nature now to gather up her blood in the cleverly designed glass tube. Sucking it up, I siphoned red from her body to paint mine.
This wound bled a little more.
I’d lacerated a little longer.
Marked her a little deeper.
The pipette was full by the time the cut forbid me anymore.
Her gaze tipped up, her eyes blazing gold and almost holy. I froze as I tripped into her celestial stare, once again seeing an angel I’d ensnared from the heavens and dragged down to wicked hell.
Unlike before, whenever I’d see a stunning woman and fought disgraceful urges to hurt her, I no longer hated myself. I no longer punished myself. No gush of sickness. No urge to purge myself from sin.
This was how things were always meant to be.
Victor was right.
Life existed in balance.
Predators and prey.
Monsters and meek.
I couldn’t change who I was; I’d only killed myself by trying.
The world needed men like me because goodness couldn’t exist without evil. Light couldn’t shine without darkness. And Ily would never have existed if she hadn’t been born for me to ruin.
No, not just ruin.
Shred apart.
Feast upon.
Consume.
Placing the pipette and knife on the table holding all manner of torture devices, I grabbed the back of my t-shirt and wrenched it over my head.
Ily shivered as I stood before her bare-chested. Her eyes skittered over me. Her lips thinned as she shook her head and saw things I couldn’t see.
“Just a man. He isn’t made of smoke or shadow. He’s not scaled like a dragon or—”
Grabbing her chin, I forced her eyes to lock on mine. “What do you see when you look at me?”
Fresh tears glimmered in her stare. The glossy wetness punched me in the stomach, and my cock almost crawled out of my trousers.
Biting her bottom lip, she tried to pull her jaw out of my control, but I merely tightened my grip. My fingers hurt her. I knew they did. Her body tightened with pain. Her eyes flared with discomfort. But she didn’t speak. Didn’t obey. She merely slipped into the language I couldn’t understand, making sinister things slither through me.
“Fine. Keep your secrets.” Letting her go, I grabbed the pipette and held out my palm.
My body was oversensitive.
My pulse haywire.
My instincts off the fucking charts.
Numbers were nothing to me now.
Words nothing more than barbaric human communication.
I was above such things.
Yet I had to count…
“Seventeen.” Victor’s cool, collected voice interrupted my black-dripping thoughts. “You’re at seventeen.” He smirked as I shot him a look. “Don’t worry, I struggle to keep count too when I’m in the midst of this game. It’s addictive, isn’t it? Illuminating and invigorating.” Leaning forward, he licked his lips as he studied Ily and her four shallow wounds. “By the time you’re done, she’ll be marked and bloodied, and you…”
“Will be the man who signed and drank her.”
He canted his head with dark respect. “Precisely.” Waving his hand, he grinned. “Continue. I’m rather enjoying the show. In fact.” Snapping his fingers, his gaze shot to Peter still kneeling on the rug. “I’m in need of a skilled mouth, my sweetling.”
Peter couldn’t hide his gulp of disgust.
His skin already held the remnants of a Master cutting him.
His face gaunt.
Eyes broken.
He couldn’t look away from Ily even as he crawled on hands and knees to Victor and waited patiently while Victor shimmied on the chair and yanked down his navy pyjama bottoms. A small part of myself that used to know what jealousy felt like, what covetousness and resentfulness burned like, watched the well-trained slave as he reared up on his knees and fisted Victor’s thick erection.
To think I cared that he was aware of Ily.
So what?
He’s nothing.
Victor gave him a doting look, running his hands through Peter’s dark brown hair. “I’m so glad you’re back to behaving, Peter darling. Please don’t disappoint me like that again. It hurt.”
“I won’t, Sir V.”
Victor shuddered as Peter gave him a hand-job, his gaze still pinned on my trophy strapped to the cross.
Ily breathed shallow and quick; her entire attention locked on Peter.
There was that connection again.
Some sort of bond that had no fucking right to exist.
My chest swelled with possession.
Ily studied him with despair and pity.
But Peter watched her with respect and hope.
Hope?
Fuck.
I saw through all his training.
I arrowed straight to the truth he couldn’t hide.
He wasn’t just aware of her; he wanted her.
This obedient, broken little slave had enough audacity to want what was mine.
“If you ever touch her, I’ll make you wish you were dead,” I hissed, jerking his gaze to mine. “I see what you feel. I see you wanting.”
Victor stilled and grabbed Peter’s chin. “Is this true? You? Out of all my jewels? You would be stupid enough to lust after what isn’t yours?”