Page 14 of The October Trials

I’m trembling, fighting it, thighs shaking in his iron grip.

Don’t make a sound. Don’t—

He sucks my clit into his mouth hard, merciless, hollowing his cheeks as he pulls with filthy intent.

A broken moan rips out of me before I can stop it. It echoes in the dining room.

God, this is so embarrassing. But so good.

My eyes stay locked on Parker’s the entire time, wide and utterly horrified, as pleasure spikes through me like lightning. Parker flinches like I slapped him.

I can’t stop myself from moaning now. Jesus Christ. I must look like a goddamn slut in front of the others. And shamelessly, that only makes me wetter, quivering at the embarrassment.

The masked devil growls against my pussy, the vibration shooting straight through me, and sucks even harder. Like he’s rewarding me for breaking. Like he wants Parker to hear exactly who is making me come undone.

“Good girl. Let him hear who this pussy answers to now,” he rasps.

Then he dives back in, tongue fucking deep inside me. The praise does something to my insides, liquefying them as a heat blooms starting in my stomach.

Another moan slips out, softer, but just as damning.

When I force my eyes back to the doorway, Parker is already gone.

The empty space where he stood feels heavier than his presence did. He saw everything. He heard me.

Even if I somehow survive tonight… even if I get the money and make it out of this hell alive…

Will Parker and I ever recover from this?

6

Blair

The graveyard behind Ashvale Manor reeks of wet earth and the essence of death.

My favorite place to be.

I used to sit for hours at St. John’s cemetery, visiting my grandfather and aunt, basking in the quiet of the dead. I’d admire the headstones, read the names, and piece together the stories of the ones buried just below my feet.

The guards lead us around back with no explanation as to why we’re out here. We stop in a small clearing in the grass, between two large oak trees. Everything seems to be swallowed by a layer of frost and fog.

And that’s when I see it. Her.

Veronica lies crumpled in the dirt, limbs bent at unnatural angles, a dark seep of blood still pouring from her forehead. Her face—God, I can’t—I force my eyes away, but the image is already burned into my skull.

Her eyes… they never closed. She’s still looking at the world, staring up at the very fucking people who killed her.

She had a family, friends. And they’ll never even know what happened to her.

The Archon steps forward first. The guards follow his lead, like always, forming a tighter circle around the body. He’s somewhere among them, too.

I don’t know if he’s looking at me.

I don’t want to know, after what he did.

A low murmur begins, snapping my attention back to the crowd. They chant in unison, in a language that sounds like… Latin? Sorry, I’m not brushed up on my two-thousand-year-old languages.

Their voices rise and fall together as they lift their hands toward the sky. One by one, all except Archon slice their palms with small blades and let the droplets fall onto Veronica’s corpse.