God of Monsters (Juniper Unraveling Book 4)

by Keri Lake

  A patch of fresh grass tickles my feet, when he sets me down and spreads the fur rug over the ground. Taking my hand, he guides me to the makeshift bed beneath the stars and lowers to his knees before me. Unpatched eye on mine, he takes hold of my hips and draws me close, kissing my belly. If not for the sheet concealing my scar, I’d be mortified, but there’s something very humbling about watching this strong and powerful man treat me with such reverence. Such admiration. When I’m certain he knows the depraved things I suffered. Can see the ugly bruises and scars that not even I can stand to look at.

  With his coarse, but gentle, hands, he lays me down on the shaggy surface of the bearskin, his lean form shamelessly stretched beside me, swallowing my much smaller frame.

  Propped on his elbow, he draws the sheet away from my body, eyes alight with fascination as he slowly peels away my modesty. “I’ll never grow tired of looking at you.”

  I place my hand over the scar where Remus stabbed me, and the cluster of yellowing bruises that surround it. “You might.”

  Gaze unwavering, he doesn’t so much as glance there. “No. Never.”

  He pulls me into his chest, hands gripping my bare bottom as he presses his lips to mine.

  A sharp, sweet scent, like nutmeg, fills my nose, watering my mouth.

  “What is that … delicious smell?”

  “Jasmine grows along the banks of the river. A natural aphrodisiac.”

  Palm to the back of my head, he steals another kiss, this time dipping his tongue to deepen it. Heat from his body leaches into my skin, cooled by a passing breeze, and I feel so cozy tucked against Titus that I could fall asleep here in his arms.

  Lowering his head, he swirls his tongue over my nipples, and I tip my head back, moaning toward the night sky.

  The brush of stubble over my collarbone marks a path of kisses across my throat, his palm pressed against my spine, trapping me to his chest. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, just breathing, holding me.

  I run my fingers down his back, and he shivers. “What is it?”

  “I’ve never had anything in my life that felt like mine.” When he lifts his head, there isn’t a trace of amusement in his fiery gaze. “To watch over and protect.” He strokes a hand down the length of my hair, his grip tightening enough to tilt my head back. “What I feel for you is the kind of possession that makes a man want to do violent things.” Teeth gritting, he tightens his grip. “Things that make him more evil than good.”

  “What’s done for love can’t be evil, Titus.”

  “This is beyond love. What I feel for you is both maddening and merciless.” Dragging his teeth over my throat, he draws me closer, smashing my body against him. Silently claiming me for himself.

  I recall the nights when he held me captive--blindfolded and tied--and how much I enjoyed the surrender. The trust. The lack of control.

  As his tongue stokes my desires, I long to feel that again, but a niggling sensation stirs in my gut.

  Fear.

  What if doing so triggers a memory? A flashback to the many times Remus tied me to his bed.

  I remember Titus’s words from before: fear and courage aren’t mutually exclusive.

  In order to regain those feelings of trust with Titus, I have to trudge through my fears.

  Even if it means triggering my nightmares.

  “Titus,” I whisper, before his mouth closes over mine, sealing my breath with a kiss. “I want …. I want you to tie me. Like before.”

  Breaking the kiss, he pulls away, his face twisted into a scowl. “I won’t bind you again, Thalia. Not after--”

  “I’m fine.” There was a time I enjoyed that feeling of submission. I want to erase the fears I’ve associated with it, and Titus is the only one I trust to do that. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. I’m fine, okay? Please, just trust me.”

  His frown deepens.

  In spite of my nod, the expression etched in his face, the deep grooves in his forehead, tell me he isn’t so sure.

  “Please.” My shaky voice betrays the assurance of my head, and now I’m questioning it myself. I recall the times when my hand shook, the moment the guards tried to bind me. The way my whole body turned cold and nausea stirred in my gut. I feel that now. Like I want to back out and curl up into a tight ball where no one can touch me again.

  But I won’t.

  Because, at the back of my head, I can still hear Remus laughing at me, and I refuse to accept that he’s taken everything from me.

  With a huff, Titus draws my hands up over my head, pinning them in his grip, and the first tickle of panic flutters in my stomach. “If this is what you need. Then, I’ll do it. For you.”

  “It is.” I swallow back the doubts creeping up my spine when his eye scans over me, appraising me, no doubt. The man is so astute and perceptive, I’m certain he can pick up the slightest tremble in my body, before I even realize it’s there, myself.

  The panic from before churns in my stomach, and even I can feel my body shivering with the phantom sensations that linger on the fringes.

  Next, he tears away a strip from the sheet and ties a blindfold over my eyes, eliminating the safety of knowing it’s Titus.

  It’s Titus, my thoughts echo.

  “You’re certain about this?”

  Swallowing a hard lump in my throat, I nod.

  He hikes my leg up, wrapping it around his back, and already, I can feel the power in his body that sets him apart from Remus. “If it becomes too much, tell me to stop, and I will. I promise you, I will.”

  “I know. I trust you.” My stomach flips on itself, and when he guides his tip to my entrance, alarms blare inside my head. The images there claw at me, like Ragers looking to consume me alive, and through panting breaths, I curl my fingers around his hand that binds my wrists together, holding onto the present.

  Titus.

  He notches himself inside of me, gripping tight to my thigh as he inches deeper and deeper, stretching me with each tiny thrust.

  Another gentle breeze brushes over me, hardening my nipples, the distraction bringing to mind a memory of Remus slapping my breasts, laughing at them as he referred to them as the udders of a cow.

  Lips latch onto the sensitive peaks, suckling me, drawing me out of that horrific thought, and at the sound of Titus moaning, I’m transported back. To here. Right now. With him.

  He palms the other, balancing the constant contact, as he licks and sucks, pumping in and out of me in lazy, unhurried thrusts. “I can’t deny, seeing you like this stirs something fierce inside of me.” The husky tone of his voice, heavy with lust, stokes the flames he’s ignited inside of me.

  Each time the visuals of the past seep into my consciousness, Titus somehow casts them away with a touch, his mouth, or his words.

  He drives his hips forward to the hilt, his teeth scraping over my nipple, and I cry out in pleasure. “I’m sorry,” he says, with breathless remorse.

  “I’m fine. You don’t have to treat me like I’m fragile.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He can’t hurt me. He can’t possibly hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt.

  I want the pain. I want to feel something again. I need to know that bastard didn’t break me. “I said, I’m fine. It’s fine.”

  He strokes a hand down my damp hair and slants his lips over mine. “I know what this is, Thalia. I’ve felt this anger too. Just promise me you won’t punish yourself with it.”

  I’m grateful that he can’t see the tears. That he isn’t privy to the thoughts inside my head, the doubts I have about myself.

  “I need to know that I’m not dead inside.” In the pitch blackness of my blindfold, I try to imagine the expression on Titus’s face right now. The pity in his stare. “I want the anger. The rage. The fear of being alive. I want you to fuck me. Hard.”

  A long pause follows, his cock still fully embedded inside of me.

  “No,” he finally says. �
�I won’t be the one to hurt you like that.”

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore, Titus. That’s the problem. I’ll crawl out of my skin if you try to be sweet and gentle with me right now.”

  Remus happened to me, but I want to take back the power. The control. I want to feel all those fears from before without cowering to the memories and letting them crush me. “Do it,” I whisper.

  “Okay. If that’s what you need, then I’ll do it. For you.”

  My body flips around, and he bands one arm across my belly, taking hold of my hair. He tips my head back, scraping his teeth over my earlobe. “But I’m going to fuck those nightmares out of you for good, Thalia.” He slides back inside me and ups the pace of his thrusts, and in the darkness, I see all the images flitting past behind my shuttered lids, none of which pause long enough for me to recall them.

  New memories filter in. Visuals of staring down at myself from a bird’s eye view, watching Titus taking me from behind. The trees swaying overhead. The moon shining down, it’s silvery beams touching our skin in sparkles of light.

  Beautiful.

  I smile as the tears saturate the cloth blinding my eyes.

  The sounds of Titus grunting and moaning fades beneath the pounding of blood in my ears. Why has he gone quiet?

  A cold, tight feeling expands across my chest, and the air withers, like a deflating balloon.

  Titus?

  I open my mouth to say his name, and feel the scratchy cotton against my tongue. The damp, moldy taste of the rag fills my mouth and invades my sinuses.

  Titus? Titus! Stop! Stop!

  Why isn’t he stopping?

  Wriggling in my binds is futile. My pulse slams through my veins as panic settles over me.

  “Stop! Stop!”

  The blindfold is ripped away, my body flipped back around, and Titus stares down at me with horror carved into his expression. “Did I hurt you?”

  Gaze trailing over my surroundings, I note the gentle sway of trees. The bright moon, a full moon, overhead. A sky full of stars.

  I clamp my eyes and breathe deeply to calm my rapid panting. I’m safe. It’s Titus. I’m safe.

  At the soft touch of fingers trailing down my temple, I snap my eyes open to be sure they belong to Titus.

  Brows still furrowed with worry, he studies me, no doubt, searching for explanation.

  “I’m … fine.” I cast my gaze from his, so he won’t see the truth there. The reality that I’m not okay. The rims of my eyes burn with the threat of tears, but damn it, I’m tired of them.

  “Hey.” With a gentle grip of my chin, he guides my eyes back to his. “No one said you had to tackle everything all at once.”

  “I just … want things to be the way they were. Before. I want to be normal again. To forget what happened.” My view wavers with the tears brimming in my eyes, and when he kisses my temple, they slip away.

  “Someday, that may happen. But not tonight.”

  “And what if it takes years? What if it never goes back to the way it was?”

  He thumbs the tears away. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere.”

  The emotions inside of me explode, and I lift my head, wrapping my arms around him, and press my lips to his. “You can still make me forget him. Please.”

  I trap his massive body between my legs, and he keeps his gaze locked on mine when he slides back inside of me. As I arch back, he buries his face in my neck, kissing my throat, while he moves against me like waves on the ocean. Slow and steady. He’s the calm, placid sea coming to life, crashing over me.

  Pulling me under.

  An impossible need stirs deep inside of me, a feeling beyond sex, like something stitching my soul to his. I breathe him in and drag my tongue over his skin, filling my mouth with the taste of metallic fire. Leaves rattle in the wind, background noise to the masculine sounds in his throat. All my senses are tethered to him like an anchor that keeps me from drifting away. Sight, sound, smell, taste.

  Titus.

  My Titus.

  “No one is ever going to hurt you, Thalia. I will break anyone who tries to touch you again.” The torment in his voice is overpowered by the anger, and he digs his fingers into my hips, as if imagining such a thing. It occurs to me how much pain he’s stuffed into compartments, too. Perhaps feeling helpless. Useless.

  Each drive of his hips becomes more fervent, laden with purpose.

  As we claw and bite and fuck each other, I feel a sense of release. Liberation.

  He slices me open, exposing the raw, untouched parts of me still coursing with passion and desire. The pieces that Remus could never touch, no matter how many times he took from me. Without even trying, Titus uncovers the delicate fragments of yearning left inside me, my rapture, and unleashes it from my body.

  My stomach twists into tight knots, raveling like a winding thread attached to my now-mutilated womb.

  I open my mouth around an agonizing moan that fractures to a scream as the orgasm slams into me. Hot cold tingles explode beneath my skin. “Titus! Oh, God!”

  He presses his forehead into my collarbone, his hand cupping my jaw, and his curses echo around us.

  If there was ever any doubt about what I feel for him, it’s now permanently seared into my heart.

  I love him.

  Forevermore.

  Chapter 45

  For the next week, Titus and I waste the hours together, bathing, eating, sleeping and making love. With every blissful climax, I’m drawn closer to him, and further from Remus. The shadows remain on the fringes, as I suspect they always will. All I can do is learn to coexist with my fears, and hope that, one day, the demons of my past will tire of me. That maybe my will to keep fighting will become exasperating for them.

  And in the meantime, perhaps the fissures and cracks will begin to seal, to heal, as the love burgeoning inside of me pushes against my ribs, filling the spaces that were once empty.

  For now, I’ll try to meet each sunrise with a sliver of hope on the horizon.

  “He’s returned.” Atticus’s voice bleeds through the half-cracked door, as I stand in the bathroom, patting my hair dry with a towel. Believed to be relaxing in a bath, I tiptoe toward my pile of clothes to dress quickly. I very much doubt Titus would’ve opted to meet with Atticus inside the cabin, had he thought I might hear them, but remembering I left the hairbrush in the bedroom afforded me the opportunity to catch the most important part of their conversation.

  The part I’ve waited for.

  “Where?” Titus asks.

  “They’re holed up in the convent. Extra forces were dispatched after the attack, to protect the labs. They seem hellbent on turning the place into the next Calico.”

  “Before, you said they’re building the labs underground?”

  “Yes. Before they decided to turn me over to the docs, they put me to work, hollowing out the tunnels.” With a voice as deep as Titus, it’s hard to distinguish Atticus at times, so I tiptoe closer to keep up with the conversation.

  “Just like Calico.”

  “Seems they didn’t learn their lessons the first time.”

  “And you’re certain Jack is with them.”

  “Oh, yeah. I dream of the day I can wrap my hand around his throat and--”

  “No.” I step out from my hiding place, where the two of them can see me. “My vengeance is long overdue.”

  In spite of the efforts he made to help free me from Remus, resentment still burns in Atticus’s eyes. “Your vengeance? Last I remember, you sided with the snake-eyed prick and had me sent to Purgatory. Do you have any fucking clue what they do to a man in Purgatory?”

  “It wasn’t my decision. Had it been up to me, you’d have been put to death, and we wouldn’t be here arguing. I wanted the man who killed my father then, as I do now that I know for certain who he is.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to inform you, sweetheart, but you’re in no shape to exact vengeance. And I’ve waited too long for it.”

  “Atticus
…” The warning in Titus’s voice is telling of the irritation simmering inside of him.

  “Brother, you know damn well this is my revenge.”

  “She is as deserving as you. Purgatory was no easy fate, I know this. But she’s been through hell and back. A hell we’re both familiar with.”

  Atticus’s brow flickers, as if the understanding slapped him in the face right then. He doesn’t dare turn his gaze toward me, as if he can’t bring himself to look at me now. “Their men have the perimeter heavily guarded.”

  “Then, we’ll need to take them by surprise.” The way Titus paces the floor in thought reminds me of my father during the times I snooped on his secret meetings with his officers. “Penetrate their defenses. Jack will undoubtedly hide behind his men. He values his life too much.”

  “I agree that the element of surprise is a wise approach. But, how? We don’t have the manpower, or technology, the way the rebels did when they attacked Calico. The small band of vicious women isn’t going to breach any more than the main entrance, and we’ll have Legion pouring in from all directions.”

  “You need a distraction.”

  Both men finally lift their gazes toward me.

  “We need to catch this snake before he strikes,” I continue. “And there’s only one way to draw a snake out of its hole. Live bait.”

  “No. Bullshit.” Biceps bulging with the crossing of his arms, Titus shakes his head, while I tap the stick against the ground beside the diagram I’ve drawn out.

  “It might work, though, Titus. It’s a good plan.” Lilith stands over me, one hand propped at her hip, the other rubbing her chin.

  “Handing her over to them is never a good plan.” The growl in his voice conveys only a small fraction of the fury etched in his face. “We tried this plan once already.”

  “It isn’t handing me over. Jack believes I trust him,” I argue, the fatigue of fighting this point taking its toll on my patience.

  “Unless Remus told him otherwise.”

  “True. But even so, he isn’t going to deny me passage. So long as he believes I’m alone.”