Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 114936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
I hissed, moving my face to inhale her scent around her neck. “I know just who your daddy is, Princess, and that’s precisely why you’re staying right here.”
“I won’t join Midnight Mayhem…” Her eyes were wild. The kind you knew wolves chased. “Oh, but you will…”
Her head moved from side to side, her finger mirroring the motion. “Nope. I won’t.”
I tensed around her frail windpipe, looking between her mouth and her eyes. “Oh, but you will.”
“Or what!” she snapped, and the way her teeth sunk into her bottom lip had my brain short circuit, for reasons I wasn’t willing to touch. Who the fuck is this girl and why the fuck is she staring at me like I’m her favorite monster? Her lashes fanned over her cheeks. “Or you’ll cut me open like you do the rest of the people who don’t join your sick little cult?” The tip of her nose touched my jaw, and my body pushed into her before I could stop myself. “Tell me, Keaton, is it true what they say about you? That you do this for fun?”
Present
Time hovers below midnight. Sitting on my bike behind the stage, I watch as the aerial girls hush behind the closed curtain and Lilith strolls past, flicking her top hat over her silver hair. Midnight Mayhem began to lose its edge when Delila died, but lately, since there has been some movement in The Castle, it has started to feel like it did before. Before Persephone dropped the whole fucking ball. It almost feels like someone has taken over again. I just have to figure out who. It’s obviously no one here. You can’t do the things that are needed to be done and still perform in a show. Delila was the exception, and her sets were small.
I fire up my bike as Kill’s pulsing KTM parks beside mine, leaning on one leg. “Bro, you are way the fuck out of it tonight.” Tossing his lit cigarette onto the grass, he points at me with his finger. “You need to go out on a job before that crazy look in your eye turns into something none of us wanna see.”
He’s right. I run my palms down my thighs to wipe the sweat off, my finger tapping against my leg. “I’m fine.”
Killian laughs, twisting the handlebar of his bike until it reds out. “No, brother, you ain’t.”
Leaning against the customer entryway, I stare up at the high pointed ceilings. Four perfect upside-down V’s pull up to the sky, where lilac and white stripes lead the way. Where the cage ends, trapeze planks hang over each side, awaiting the second to last final act. I’ve thought about moving the acts around more times than I know, but with The Dolls now riding with us and their siren water act, we don’t have much room when it comes to times unless we extend the overall show. The bikes are now first with the four rings of death, and then the siren act.
Burning fuel and rubber suffocates me, and I close my eyes and inhale deeply, groaning when the smell touches the back of my throat. When the pulsing bike that stops beside me doesn’t move, my eyes open lazily onto Keaton. He’s shirtless and wearing nothing but destroyed denim jeans and biker boots. His clown face mask is hardly in place, smudged across his lips and beneath his eyes. I lose myself on the pulsing vein that swells against the side of his neck before finally drifting up to the bottomless depths of his eyes. My thighs clench together at the intensity of his gaze. He doesn’t need to say a single word because I feel it. I feel it everywhere.
I raise my brows. “Where’s your other toy?”
“Get on my bike.”
I tilt my head. I’m already in trouble, may as well make the most of it. My mouth curves in a smile but the butterflies in my belly roar as a warning. “Aw, Candi too sweet for you, hmmm?” I shift over and lean against his bike, my hand covering his as my legs part over his front wheel. I bring my lips almost to his, enough for us to touch without touching. “Forgot you preferred spicy over sweet?”
Awaiting his wrath, maybe a hand around my throat or buried in my hair to yank my head back, I count to five. Seconds pass before he smirks against my mouth. “Tigger, you’re getting on this bike whether you like it or not, but if I have to throw you on myself, you’re gonna be riding my dick all the way there and I don’t give a fuck who is watching.” His tongue slides over my bottom lip as a soft growl leaves his throat. “Your fucking brother included.”
“Fine!” I push off the bike, moving to the back. “But only because I’m bored.”