Page 18 of Temptation
My stomach lurched, the acid climbing up my throat, and I swallowed, terrified that anything I did that could anger them would end up with me dead.
Red marred his lips as he turned toward me completely and pressed the remaining piece to my lips. “Open up,” he whispered. “It doesn’t taste that bad.”
I swayed on my feet but he held me steady, keeping me standing.
I opened up slowly and bit down on the raw meat, fighting the nausea threatening to take over my body. I swallowed down the bile climbing up in my throat and chewed. Metallic taste hit my mouth while I fought to chew the best I could, but disgust and shame held me captive.
My body recoiled from the filthy taste in my mouth, and I tried spitting it out. Dylan’s hand pressed on my mouth and the silent warning in his eyes told me I had to swallow.
“Do it.” There was no arguing with him. Taking a deep breath through my nose, I swallowed down, feeling the piece going down my throat. Disgusting, wicked and depraved, that’s what this entire exchange was, but I didn’t have a choice.
I wanted to die, but I also wanted to live. If I were to die, it would be on my own terms, not on theirs.
I wouldn’t let them take that away from me.
“That’s my good girl,” Dylan praised me, sending a swarm of butterflies to my stomach.
Storm and winter clouds, thunder and lightning, Dylan’s heady eyes observed me, dragging his gaze from my eyes to my mouth, where my tongue played with the remnants of the blood on my lips.
Before I could react, step away, run or hide, he was right in front of me. His hands wrapped around my neck, his thumb stroking my pulse on my throat.
Thump-thump-thump, my heart started beating with a frenzy.
The look on his face was a familiar one. I saw it on Kane’s face every time he wanted to kiss me. I saw it on Ash’s face every time he wanted to devour me, and I could see it on Dylan’s now.
“Our blood looks perfect on you.” His tongue darted out and licked over my bottom lip. “And you taste like heaven.”
“I-I—”
His mouth collided with mine within a second, his body plastered to mine. His tongue pressed against my lips, while his hands roamed over my shoulders, until they connected behind my back, pulling me closer and closer.
I gasped as he moved one hand, sliding it over my chest, over my nipples, and his tongue sneaked in, battling with mine. A soft growl mixed with my moan echoed around us, but I imagined it was somebody else devouring me in front of all these people.
The shade of blue in his irises was wrong, all fucking wrong, and I closed my eyes, imagining another pair of hands roaming over my body. When I lifted my hands, wrapping them around his neck, I wished it was Ash standing in front of me, and not Dylan—not my brother.
His teeth nipped at my bottom lip, and he slowed down, pressing his forehead to mine.
“You are finally mine, Skylar. All mine.”
But I wasn’t. How could I be when my heart belonged to somebody else?
4
ASH
Cheers and clapping eruptedaround us. People pushed me, celebrating their new King and Queen, but I couldn’t move my eyes away from her.
Half of my life was consumed by hate for the people that destroyed my childhood, my family, and any happy memories I had until that point. I was fine with it all. I was willing to do whatever it took to take them down, to make them feel all I felt when reality became too much, when my heart couldn’t bear another day spent without my parents.
I wanted them to feel despair like I did when Sebastian asked if Mom and Dad were coming back home. I wanted them to feel the anger I felt every time he cried because he didn’t want to move to a different city, thinking that our parents wouldn’t be able to find us if we didn’t stay at the same place. I fucking hated them for every single nightmare I had, because every time I closed my eyes, pure darkness wasn’t what welcomed me. It was always the flames swallowing the house we lived in, while their sharp claws bit into my skin, tearing out my flesh, making me watch while they destroyed the innocence I carried until that point.
I thought remembering would be better than not knowing, but I would give up everything now not to remember. And that anger, that pain, it all helped me to march toward the goal we set for ourselves. But now, standing here beneath the filthy streets of Winworth, watching the only girl I ever loved be swallowed by the same darkness I wanted to keep her away from, felt like a thousand blades slicing through my heart, bleeding me out.
She looked so fragile, so out of place in her white dress surrounded by monsters other people could only imagine. She looked like an angel even with her blond hair matted and darkened from what I only hoped was mud and not blood.
When Judah Blackwood told me to come tonight, I was prepared for a fight. But instead of knives, guns and more spilled blood, a hooded figure welcomed me in front of City Hall and led me beneath the town, into the catacombs, where all their crimes whispered from the cracks in the walls. Skulls littered the hallway as we started descending lower and lower and lower, until we reached the main chamber, from where I could see the hallways leading toward other sections.
It looked like a maze. No matter how much I wanted to just pull out the knife I hid in the waistband of my pants and stab the person in front of me, I couldn’t, because this was my only chance to get closer to them. If Judah didn’t want to kill me, then I had to know what it was that he wanted from me.
