Soulless: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy Book 2)

by Jade West

  My heart was pounding as I waited for her to continue, and not in a good way.

  Her voice was so gentle as she carried on talking.

  “He tore up my lines and said I was a very bad girl for not giving enough care and attention. He pulled me up to my feet and pushed me forwards over the desk, and then he told me what he was going to do to me, and he was so strong and so sure and made me feel like such a naughty little girl . . .”

  “He spanked you, didn’t he?”

  She nodded, and her cheeks were pinking up. “Yeah, he spanked me. He lifted my skirt up and he spanked me over my panties. I was so embarrassed, but I bit my lip, not wanting to say anything or let him realize just how naughty I felt.”

  “What did he do after it? Make you carry on with your lines?”

  “No,” she said. “He acted like it was the most normal thing in the world that he’d hit me and called Margaret back in to march me upstairs. I tried to tell her that he’d hurt me and I needed to ring my mother, but she kept her face stern and grabbed me by the arm when we got to my room. There’s nothing wrong with accepting punishment through Reverend Lynch’s hands, she told me, he’s the messenger of our Lord. I thought she was right. I thought Mom would get mad about me needing that sort of punishment.”

  I tipped my head to the side and tried to act nonchalant, but it was hard. I felt anything but calm at her words. Under regular circumstances I’d have expected to be cold as all fuck at the thought of a young, bitchy little Elaine Constantine getting a spanking over a school desk, but I wasn’t. My fists were struggling not to clench at my sides.

  “How often did he punish you?”

  She shrugged. “I was sent there every weekend in the beginning, even though I was screaming not to. Uncle Lionel was telling Mom just how much good it would be doing me, and she was happy about it. To be honest, I think she was just glad to get rid of me for a couple of days.”

  “Did he hit you every week?”

  She shook her head. “Not at first. At first, he sometimes made me feel like a good girl. He’d smile and say I was smart and well behaved and should be proud of myself for being one of God’s beautiful angels.”

  “I imagine it only made you feel more naughty when his punishments came.”

  “Yeah, it did. It was probably a few months in when I first tried to tell Mom he was hitting me, but she didn’t want to listen. She said I’d already screamed too much about not wanting to go for my lessons, and I could stop being a little liar, as it wouldn’t make any difference.”

  I could imagine Caroline Constantine hissing and cursing like the callous bitch we all knew her to be.

  “How long were you going to Reverend Lynch before his punishments got worse than spankings?”

  She was struggling with speaking, and I could see it in her eyes. She was shuffling, uncomfortable. It only made me more determined to hear her speak.

  I was ready to push her, but I didn’t need to. She took another deep breath then carried on talking.

  “A long time. So long that I was getting well used to his hands on my ass, slapping my bare skin until I was squirming and yelping.”

  “And then?”

  Her pause was profound as that little caterpillar lived through her memories.

  “He came into my room at night and asked me to thank him for my lessons. I already had a sore ass when he started coming up to my bed and holding out his hand in the lamplight and telling me to kiss him as a thank you.”

  “When did his hand turn into other things?”

  “Slowly . . .” she told me. “I was already getting scared of the bedroom door opening at night, knowing it was going to be him. He told me that good girls showed their thanks in very nice ways. I must have been sixteen but felt like a little kid when I was around him. There was something about being a naughty girl that felt so wrong and so bad, I was scared of telling anyone just how much of a naughty girl I was.”

  Her cheeks were pinked up so beautifully I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.

  “How old were you when he made you kiss him in filthy places?”

  “Nearly seventeen, I guess.”

  Oh, the little Elaine Constantine kissing that sonofabitch’s cock on her knees. I could have slit his throat there and then, just by laying eyes on the piece of shit.

  “He was preparing you, you know that? Right from the beginning, he was preparing you.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s easy to see that when you get a bit older. I’m sure other people would have seen that if they’d have believed me.”

  “Did you try to tell them again?”

  “Yeah, I tried to tell them, but every time I did they’d say I was a liar.”

  “And none of your sisters went to him?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was always the naughty one who needed the extra lessons. I felt like a bad person inside and it made me act like one. I was a brat at school, a liar and a cheat, sneaking around and being nasty.”

  “Hardly a surprise,” I told her. “No doubt it fucked you up.”

  Her eyes were tearful when they next met mine, and it hit me in the gut, just how beautiful and broken my little butterfly truly was.

  “Not nearly as much as it fucked me up when the punishments got a whole load worse,” she said.

  21

  Elaine

  I still couldn’t believe I was telling Lucian my past. I felt sick and vulnerable as I stood there, but it wasn’t because of the man who had promised to destroy me, it was because of the men who’d already destroyed me. The man before me was doing anything but laughing at me like I thought he would. He looked anything but excited about my suffering at the hands of Reverend Lynch and his fellows.

  The sickness was bubbling inside me as I carried on speaking. I lost track of my own train of thought as I let the words flow free. They just came, unbarred in a way they’d never been allowed to be.

  Lucian’s eyes were so firm on mine as he digested everything I was saying.

  I told him about how Reverend Lynch’s kisses became sucks, and about how he’d tell me I was a good girl as I dropped to my knees and gave him what he wanted.

  He’d still spank me, harder and harder.

  I got so desperate to get away from Reverend Lynch that I tried to sneak out of the place in the middle of the night. That’s when he started using my escape antics as an excuse to shackle me to the wrought iron bed frame at night. He’d say it was because I looked like I was planning to be a bad girl, but it wasn’t. It was when he’d be opening the door into my room and I’d see the shadows outside, men watching me from the hallway.

  I don’t know when they started stepping inside, but they did. I’d close my eyes and pretend they weren’t there, but I could hear them breathing, right by my bed.

  I should’ve known what was coming, but I tried not to think about that. My behavior was getting worse and worse at home because I was so angry every minute of the day.

  Uncle Lionel told Mom that he would start overseeing my education there. He said he owed it to me as my uncle.

  He wasn’t anything like my uncle when he was in Reverend Lynch’s place.

  He would be the one to open the door at night when the fellows stepped inside and began to put their hands on me. I was already used to kissing and sucking, but not a few different men at once. Sometimes they would punish me for bad things. Sometimes they would bind me to the bed and hit me until I cried out and begged for forgiveness. Sometimes, they would put me over their knees and call me a naughty girl and hit me until I cried.

  “And your uncle watched this?” Lucian asked me once I took a pause to breathe.

  “Yeah, he watched it. They knew who he was and gave him a handshake every time they came inside.”

  “They were paying him,” he told me, and I nodded.

  “Probably.”

  “Definitely,” he said. “But there was more to it than that, this fellowship, I can assure you. An underhanded allegiance of filt
h between men who think they are worth something noble. I’m well aware of their games, but it’s never come into my circle. It seems that you have been at the heart of it.”

  I retched when I thought of the men who’d come to me at night.

  I knew their names. I knew their position in the world. I knew just who they were.

  Sometimes I still came into contact with them. Drink and drugs were my very best friends of all time at those parties.

  “They didn’t fuck you, did they?” he asked me, and I shook my head.

  “They didn’t take my virginity, no. I always thought they might, but they didn’t. Nobody has ever done that.”

  “Even their allegiance doesn’t warrant the risk of taking the virginity of a Constantine girl.”

  I felt my cheeks burning as I faced up to telling him another bout of truth.

  “They took me . . . in other ways.”

  His eyes narrowed, and his anger wasn’t at me. It was a refreshing thing to see.

  “They fucked your ass.”

  It was a statement not a question. My fingers twisted in front of me.

  “It hurt a lot at first.”

  “They took turns.” Another statement.

  “They were long nights.”

  “When did they start fucking you like that?”

  “I’d just turned eighteen,” I said. “But you wouldn’t know it. I was still acting like a girl. I didn’t know how to grow up; I didn’t want to.”

  “Your parents never suspected?”

  “They believed whatever my uncle cared to tell them.”

  I pictured Uncle Lionel’s face when I saw him at our house, and the looks he gave me when nobody else was watching. I hated him so bad I wished I could see him die.

  “They always believed him about everything. Every little thing that he said I did. Every lie that came from his rotten mouth.”

  “And what is he like to you now?”

  My response was instant. “An evil piece of shit.”

  He nodded, but didn’t speak. He looked like he was battling with words of his own.

  There was a whole load more I wanted to tell him but couldn’t; even then I couldn’t find the strength to voice it aloud. I couldn’t tell him how they confused me by touching me in places that felt good and started rewarding me with drinks that made me spread my legs wider and made my whimpers louder. I didn’t want to remember how I’d become so confused that I’d started touching myself in places that felt good and pushed back against them when they were pushing inside me.

  Uncle Lionel told me that I was a good girl for being so well behaved around the fellows. He said maybe I’d redeem myself for being so bad for so many years if I took my punishment and asked for more and showed them how much I was grateful for it.

  I did tell them that.

  I said thank you.

  Thank you for hurting, thank you for hitting, thank you for making me do what I’m told.

  That’s when I got so confused that I started hurting myself when I wasn’t around them. It felt good, to make myself feel so pure.

  Lucian seemed to see where my mind was going, even though he didn’t speak to me. He moved in close, looked down at my legs. I flinched when he touched me then ran his fingers over my cuts nice and slowly. A loud breath escaped me. I expected him to slide his fingers between my thighs and make me feel like the fellows did, but he didn’t. His hands stayed focused on my legs.

  “How about that for my secrets?” I asked him. “I guess we’re about even now.”

  “Bound in secrets much stronger than blood,” he said.

  I was sure I saw pity in his eyes as he stared down at me, and I hated it. I hated pity from the monster.

  “Go on and touch me then,” I whispered. “I guess it’s about time you made me suffer now.”

  He pulled back from me with a puzzled look on his face.

  “How the fuck does that work, Elaine? You think I’m going to hurt you for telling me that a group of sick fuckers hurt you first?”

  I shrugged, because I didn’t know. I never knew how these things worked – punishment and rewards, pain and pleasure. I knew he wasn’t a nice guy in any sense of the word. I’d heard plenty of stories about just how fucked up he was and all the girls he’d been with. The ones he’d hurt.

  That’s when I got the weirdest pang inside me. I didn’t want disgusting pity from a Morelli monster, I wanted some form of respect, even at the end of my life, even if he didn’t want to show it.

  But that wasn’t it, was it?

  Even now, kidnapped in this shithole of a place with the promise of my demise ahead of me, I still wanted the Morelli monster to want me.

  “Touch me then,” I pushed. “Take it. Take what you want.”

  That’s when he stepped away from me, taking his attention right back to his coffee machine.

  His next words were enough to hurt me, in a way that was alien to any kind of physical pain.

  He wasn’t looking at me, just stirring his mug.

  “Right now, I want nothing at all.”

  22

  Lucian

  I was getting used to bizarre feelings, but not wanting to touch a vulnerable Elaine Constantine was something I’d never have expected this lifetime. I didn’t want to touch her, and I definitely didn’t want to hurt her. It was something I was unaccustomed to, not wanting another person’s pain at my hands. Fucking hell, what the fuck was going on?

  She looked bizarrely put out to match, shifting around on the spot like I’d just insulted her, even though it was the least insulting thing I’d ever done.

  “Are you for real? You don’t want to touch me now?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want to touch you now.”

  She laughed a snotty laugh. “I didn’t put you down as that much of a saint, Lucian. People would laugh at you.”

  That riled me. Even the thought of people laughing at me made me want to burn them alive.

  “Nobody will be fucking laughing at me, and even if they wanted to, they’ll never hear a word of this to laugh at. Like I said, these secrets are bound deeper than blood.”

  “I guess you’re still going to kill me then? I guess this means you’re done with the games and you’re going to finish me off without even fucking me first?”

  “Just shut up with that shit,” I said. “Shut your snarky mouth for once in your fucking life.”

  I cussed myself as I pulled another mug down and made her a fucking coffee. Her eyes were still burning as she took it from me with a thanks.

  What the holy living fuck was I doing? I was growing tired of my own fucking insanity.

  The fellowship of cunts should mean nothing to me, they were just a seedy group of rich pricks taking their thrill. Elaine Constantine would have been a particularly attractive prospect. Lionel had been risking his life beyond any kind of rationale to even entertain her involvement with Reverend Lynch and his seedy fucking hellhole. The vile cunt.

  I hadn’t come across that sick fucker, but I was already suspecting just who in our extended circle was at play in his game. I knew some of the aristocrats and their secret handshakes. Their names were on the tip of my tongue, all set to ask her, but she let out a sigh before I spoke.

  “You know this is one of the reasons you managed to snare me with threats about Tristan?” she asked.

  “How so?”

  “I ran away from home once, when I didn’t think I could handle it anymore. I ended up running like a freak down to the Evanvale trailer park. He was running away himself. I met him on the track outside.”

  “Both of you having a shitty time, I’m sure.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, he had a black eye. His stepdad was belting him every time his mom wasn’t there. Not that she’d have stopped him if she was.”

  “Very different sides of the spectrum from each other. People would say you were hardly compatible.”

  “Yeah, very different sides of the spectrum. We didn’t actually talk
about it that much, just walked together, finding some kind of weird friendship in our hell.”

  I could imagine it as she told me. Two fucked-up teenagers finding solace in each other’s company.

  “You went home, though? Hardly likely to stay in Evanvale as a tenant, were you, Elaine?”

  She didn’t react to my sarcasm.

  “Yeah, we both went home. Sun came up, and we were freezing cold and I couldn’t imagine life outside Bishop’s Landing. He went back to his trailer, and I started the walk back to the compound. Only he went back to the belt and his stepdad, while I went back to a stern telling off after I called one of our drivers to be picked up.”

  What poor little fuck-ups. Pussy boy must have been one hell of a wreck. I wouldn’t normally give a shit, and I shouldn’t. The head of the Morelli kingdom didn’t ever give a fuck for anyone that wasn’t a Morelli, and even then I’d struggle. Seamus and Duncan wouldn’t get shit from me, even if they begged.

  “I’m guessing you saw your new Tristan buddy again quite often?”

  “Yeah, as much as I could. We tried to blank out our misery, you know? Tried to find something different from all the shit we were used to, even if we didn’t share the details. I know Tristan’s stepdad did much more to him than the belt.”

  “Weren’t you tempted to run away and fuck it all off?”

  She let out a sigh. “Yeah, but Tristan’s mom was sick, and I had everyone around me, and we didn’t know where the fuck we would go. We always meant to. We always planned it. When I was almost nineteen Reverend Lynch’s school stopped for me, though, and I managed to get Tristan some money for a place of his own.”

  Nineteen years old. I knew she’d have been one damn fuck-up by then. Drink and drugs that those cunts had introduced her to, and cutting herself up when she felt like a freak.