Page 61 of Grave Devil
“For this? Yes. I will take much more from you without permission, but this can be your choice.” The fact that I know what she will decide makes my adrenaline course in ways that nothing in any realm can match. It’s sadistic foreplay. I feel it in the heady space between us that exists only for this false politeness. When really we are both chomping at the bit, ready and eager and desperate to tear each other to shreds.
“Fine. I’ll let you do it. But only if you give me something I want in return.”
“Another blasphemous bargain to tempt fate with? All right. I’ll play along. What does my little Harker whore want?”
“Okay, now I want two things. One, for you to stop calling me that. And two, I want to see the scar on your thigh. The one you got from falling into the river when you were a kid.” Her eyelids flutter, and I know that she is close to blacking out. I’ve drained her of so much blood and energy. This bone infusion will surely be the thing that sends her over the edge.
But her relentless stamina excites me. “You don’t believe I am who I say I am. Interesting.”
“I do actually, but Bones needs to know for sure. It’s what I came here for tonight. To trick you into showing me your scar. Clearly, that didn’t work, so now let’s make a deal. You show me yours, and I’ll let you give me mine.”
She intrigues me more and more by the second. “Oh, sweet, Mia. I don’t believe for one second that you came here tonightjust for that. But if you want me to take my pants off so badly, all you have to do is ask.” I lift off her and strip down to nothing before retaking my position over her chest. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
I lift up my cock and pull it to the side. The four-inch scar on my left thigh healed about as well as the one I’m about to give her. Bones was always better at breaking skin than stitching it up.
She nods. “I knew it. You’re him. Why do you have to be such an asshole about it?”
Feisty at every fucking turn. Even with my cock in her face.Which I’m about to fucking choke her with.“Getting swallowed into the fiery pits of hell as a child has a way of making one less pleasant to deal with.”
“Fiery pits?”
“No. Not even close to that silly expression your new gods claim it to be. It’s far from fiery, but it is hot. It’s dark and desolate and riddled with despair. And yet, when you expect it to be cool, it’s sweltering. And sometimes it’s below freezing, which also burns.” I finger my scar, tracing over it and wishing it were her lips instead of my own hand.
“Don’t go back then.”
A fire burns in my belly. “Who said I was? I have every intention of torturing you for the next century.”
“Good. I’ll make you up a room in the guest house. Can’t have you in the main building until you’re house-trained.”
Oh, she’s trying to be clever. Trying to soften me. Just ashesaid she would. I pinch her chin hard between my fingers. “Stop. I can still kill you. I still want to, despite how tight your pussy is. Do not for one second think that I care about you. I never will… my little Harker whore.”
“I changed my mind. You can go straight back to hell.” She turns her head as more tears spill down her cheeks
I snarl down at her without empathy. For someone who claims she’ll never cry for me, I’ve managed to make her do just that three times this evening.
And now I’m going to make her scream too.
“Maybe I’ll take you with me so I can play with your cunt while the devil gives you a proper skull like mine,” I growl. This push and pull between us has me unhinged. Ineedto spill more of her blood. I love the way those pretty red droplets glisten for me.
“Never. I’d rather die.”
“That is exactly how I intend to get you there, mi amor. But first, a deal’s a deal. I showed you mine, now I get to mark you.”
Her lip quivers. “Fine. Get on with it then.”
I grab the last item out of the drawer, a thick wooden stick, and shove it into her mouth so that it’s sideways. “Bite down, dark one. What I’m about to do is going to hurt like hell, and I’m not quite ready for you to lose that sharp tongue of yours.”
MIA
Ilove it when people underestimate just how unhinged I am. If Sonny Crane thinks he can traumatize me by cutting me up, he has no idea how wrong he is. I’m the orphan girl with the nightmare man. There’s not much you can do to me that hasn’t already been done. And not much that I won’t actually enjoy because I’m a little masochistic glutton for punishment.
The wooden stick in my mouth tastes like mothballs.Thatinduces way more nausea than the psycho waving a knife in front of my face. I take a deep breath and give him a slight nod as if he needs permission to mark me. As if I haven’t been tied to this bed for so long now that I can’t feel my wrists.
My dress is nothing but a shredded mess of fabric surrounding me on the bed, so it wasn’t too difficult for him to find the vials of poison hidden in the pockets of my skirts. He uses it to sterilize the dagger.
“I bet you want a little taste, don’t you, Mia?” he taunts, knowing full well I do and that he has no intention of giving it to me. That would mean I could escape the pain he’s about to inflict. And that would defeat the purpose of this entire act. He wants to see me scarred as much as he wants to be the one who scars me so that he can claim every single one of my screams.
I spit the stick out. “I’m done begging. My fate is in your hands. All I ask is that you make it quick.” He won’t, but my will is fading, and I fear that I will black out soon.
