by Kimber Lee
“Enjoy yourself?” I snarled. “This girl…”
“This girl is barely eighteen and claims that angels speak to her,” Damien spat at me, surprising me with his vehemence. But not a second later, his fury dissipated and it was as if he never lashed out. Then a sardonic smile spread across his face. “Pardon my tenses, Miss Erickson. I meant was, claimed, and spoke.”
Beneath my fingers, however, the girl’s pulse grew faster, contradicting what Damien just said. I kept silent, hoping he didn’t notice anything.
“So you… put her on trial? Decided that she was guilty of being a Christian and killed her for sport?” I was shaking, anger so raw and tempting I couldn’t resist it.
“I’m a fair man. She could have told the truth, said that she’d been lying, and I would have let her go with no memory of this.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think…”
“Oh, but Sarah had faith, you see. She had a Higher Power speaking to her, supposedly protecting her.” Damien threw his head back and laughed, pushing soft blond curls out of his eyes. “I asked. I gave her a chance to confess, instead of killing her outright like I should have. I give them all a chance.”
He rose to his feet, eyes turning to slits. “Marco, Nicolas, hold this one down,” he calmly instructed, and before I knew it, hands were yanking me away from the girl… from Sarah.
I struggled. I kicked. I dug my French tips into skin until I broke through it.
Nothing.
Marco and Nicolas turned out to be twice my size, plus they had supernatural beings going along for a ride inside them. Nothing I did affected them. Nothing. They held me down on the cement and all I could do was sit there and let them.
“Now you will see what happens to girls who aren’t as polite as Sarah Roche,” Damien said darkly. And I could only watch as another girl was brought to him, dragged kicking and screaming across the floor.
“Damien, don’t,” I begged, despising myself for stooping to that level. Barely eighteen, he’d said.
The new girl was probably the same age, and she was about to be subjected to the same fate.
“You want me. You want to torture me!” I screamed. They were so close I could almost touch them. Almost.
He held the girl up against his front, and to my surprise, there was a determined look in her moss green eyes, which were brilliantly shiny with tears.
“Sometimes I can take away people’s pain,” Damien was saying, hands on her shoulders. “Most times, I just don’t fucking feel like it.”
If you’re a normal person, there are probably two things that go through your mind when you know someone is about to kill another person. The first is if you know it’s going to happen, shouldn’t you stop it? And the second is that if, for some reason, you couldn’t save them, you hope the innocent person’s death is quick and painless.
Unfortunately, before I could even contemplate the first, it was all over.
For without any hesitation, Damien crushed the girl’s skull and ripped her—this barely eighteen-year-old girl—into two almost equal halves… with his bare hands.
It was surreal. She didn’t scream, didn’t make any noise, but her lips were moving before it happened and I knew she was murmuring a quick Notre Père. That, coupled with her shiny eyes on me, tore a fresh stream of pleas from my mouth.
But it was too late. Even before he crushed her skull in the palm of his hand like it was a peanut, it was too late. Even before he tore through her pale skin and found the muscle and bone, it was too late. It was too late because there was no one of use in that room… no one who could help her… not even me.
I felt hot in my sheer clothing. It was because of the girl’s blood, which soaked through my clothes and warmed my skin. But only when I ran my tongue across my lips did I taste the blood and realized that I was baptized in it. Sprayed. Spattered. Showered.
“Please save her,” I whispered, over and over again—thinking back to the first girl, the one called Sarah. To God? I didn’t know. Perhaps I did want to ask Him to do this one thing for me, but I was too scared. Would He hear my plea? Does He listen to prayers that came even from the wicked? Was I still a good enough of person for Him to consider, regardless of who, or what, I loved?
“Marco, dispose of the bodies,” Damien called, dropping each half of the headless girl onto the ground with a sickening thwack. He laughed over the renewed chatter. “I hope I have proven a point here tonight.”
“You’re a monster,” I breathed.
“I don’t claim to be anything else,” he said, winking at me conspiratorially. “And I like to get creative… in everything I do,” he finished suggestively. “Take Miss Erickson upstairs. Through the back exit. I don’t want my patrons to call the cops…or think she’s Carrie or something.” He watched them tug me to my feet. “Oh, Miss Erickson, you keep sobbing like that and I might just have to shove my dick in your mouth to make you stop.”
“Fuck you,” I raged, launching myself at him. I barely got one step toward him before his Neanderthals yanked me back.
Damien merely laughed, wiping his bloodstained hands down the front of his jeans. “Rest assured, Miss Erickson, you will. The chase is what I most enjoy, so don’t ruin it for me by sashaying in here again. Agreed?”
Damien’s two henchmen was leading me past his open office to get to the back exit when suddenly, Temp leapt out the room, eyes wide as saucers.
“Temp?” I sputtered stupidly, blinking quickly to make sure he wasn’t a figment of my imagination.
“What the fuck?” His face hardened as he took in the scene. “Rae, is this your blood? That’s my sister you’re manhandling, dickfaces!”
“Just get her out of here, then,” the man I guessed was Nicolas said, shoving me at Temp.
I threw my arms around him, sobbing gratefully. “Why are you here?”
“I knew you’d do the exact opposite of what I told you.” He held me away from his body, looking me over. “This isn’t your blood?”
“It isn’t,” I whispered, and cried all over again.
I even cried during the car ride to my penthouse. Temp didn’t tease me at all, not even once.
I made Temp leave, even though he vehemently argued against it. As a result, we had a huge fight. But he understood in the end. And he didn’t come right out and say it, but he knew that the only person I wanted to see was probably the one going to rip me to pieces... then put me back together again.
Once he’d slipped out of my apartment, after promising to call later, I shuffled to the shower and stripped. Then, I watched the water at my feet turn crimson. I could’ve pretended that it was menstrual blood—or even better, hair dye.
But it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. I knew it was Sarah’s blood.
Guilt was a funny thing, wasn’t it? It could consume you like a starving child but it could fill you up as well. Ate at your insides and replenished them… ate and replenished… ate and replenished…
Useless, useless woman, chanted the voice in my head. And she was so fucking right.
All I had been able to do was try to futilely punch Damien in the throat and get myself splattered with a girl’s blood and guts. My existence was pointless. Aside from being a “demon’s slut”—as Damien had so nicely put it, what use did I have? None. None at all.
“Fuck,” I muttered in disgust, realizing that my eyes were misting over.
There was no point feeling sorry for myself like a pathetic loser.
That asshole will pay, I thought to myself, imagining Damien’s twisted leer and cheerful malevolence as he forced me to watch two innocent girls get slaughtered.
It didn’t matter that fallen angels were, in essence, powerful immortals compared to someone like me. It didn’t matter that he had promised to violate my body to spite Andrei, or even that he could crush me between his thumb and index finger.
One way or another—even if I had to get Father Brady to help me do it, Damien Ivanov was going t
o burn in the pits of hell with the scum he so despised. I was done being absolutely powerless. Teddy Bunting was right. Daniel Lawless was right. It was stupid of me to be so stubborn.
It felt like hours passed until the water turned arctic and I was forced to step out of the stall and grab a towel. Shivering, I wiped the steam off the mirror and stared hard at myself. Red, that was all I saw. Iron, that was all I could smell, all I could taste. It filled my nostrils and stayed there, a permanent ghost of a scent that was anything but pleasant.
I took Andrei’s ring off and cried.
“The first time you see someone die isn’t easy, Rae. To be a hunter, you have to block out the overwhelming feeling to feel. It’s the only reason I’ve survived this long.”
“So in essence, you have to turn yourself into a cold, unfeeling thing? A robot? I don’t want that kind of life, Dad. I thought you understood that.”
“You’re the one who asked if an innocent has ever died on my watch.” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as though frustrated. “Why did you ask if you didn’t really want to know, sweetheart?”
“Because death scares me, Dad. It freaks the fuck out of me and that is the real reason I’m in business school, bored out of my damn mind. Massacres don’t happen in boardrooms.”
“Rae,” a voice growled from my bedroom, ripping me from a very unwanted bout of reminiscing.
I wrapped the towel around me, tucked it, and warily stalked into my room, expecting Damien—or one of his minions—to be there with a sadistic grin on his face. In retrospect, that would have been better than the sight that met my eyes. I was already a bundle of nerves and this did nothing to control them.
He fell to his knees, blood spraying against my carpet with the movement. So much blood. So much blood and suddenly it was like I was back in the basement, retching at the sight of the girl being ripped in half right in front of me.
“Heal,” I said, my voice shaky, barely a whisper. “Heal, dammit!” Begging. Yeah, I was pretty much begging.
He shook his head, reaching for me. I ran, crumpling in front of him. Even on his knees he still looked impressive, a fallen giant. I cupped his face.
“Andrei,” I whispered, tasting salt in my mouth. “What happened? Why aren’t you healing?”
“Fuck… you,” he rumbled, half-heartedly pulling me to his bloodied frame.
I instantly recoiled, hurt. Then I considered the very real possibility that he was mad at me and had gone after Damien, and that this was the result. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Damien ran from Andrei… because Andrei was stronger.
“Need to… fuck you,” he amended, pressing his mouth against my upturned one.
I tasted it, the copper, the thick emulsion that was his blood. This wasn’t like that time he let me hit him. No, this was different because he needed to heal; he needed me.
I kissed him back, surprised that he was letting me lead. Or was he just too weak to direct me himself? It didn’t matter, and I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that I need to make him better.
Our tongues collided, teeth clashing. It was sloppy and it was messy. It was urgent. I reached between us and undid his belt buckle before undoing his fly, dragging his pants as far as they could go in our position. He needed this. He needed me to heal him.
My towel fell off and I gently pushed Andrei away. He moved to lie flat on his back, doing what was necessary. His T-shirt had once been white but the entire front was stained a startling burgundy shade, almost onyx. It was practically ripped to shreds and pieces of it hung off his body. It was disconcerting to straddle him and stare down at the hellish aftermath of whatever it was that he had gone through, and even worse to see angry red gashes on his body—gashes that would not heal until he was deep inside me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, grasping his rigid shaft and guiding it to my astonishingly slippery folds. I was sorry for being way too headstrong, sorry for the pain he’d obviously gone through tonight. Sorry for being so damn useless.
Andrei’s eyes fluttered shut as he let out a soft sigh when I lowered myself on him. I leaned forward, legs spread further, and placed my hands on the carpet, bracing myself on either side of him. He was rock-hard inside me yet he wasn’t thrusting.
So instead, I rode him, murmuring stupid, meaningless things such as “It’s going to be okay.” and “I’ll make it better.” He was swelling inside me then and my inner muscles clenched around him—eager to massage, eager to work on him. The low groans in his throat sounded so pained, so agonized.
Then I put my hands on his face, tracing the cuts, bumps, and bruises, committing them to memory. I refused to think about what would have happened if I wasn’t around. Would he have fucked someone else to heal himself? Would I have blamed him if he did, perhaps hated him for it?
Furious with myself, I resumed riding him up and down and in quick succession, faster and harder… as if time was running out… as if my climax was within arm’s reach—when in fact it was oh-so-far away. As I pinched my nipples with determination, I leaned down and traced Andrei’s lips with my tongue.
As if electrocuted, his hands shot out to grip my waist. The ripped T-shirt vanished before my eyes, as did the feel of the denim beneath me. I fed him my surprised cry of pleasure when he maneuvered me onto my back, all the while, he remained inside me, throbbing.
“Mea domina,” he said, his breathing ragged. The cuts had vanished, and I reached out and touched his unblemished skin. “Get ready to be fucked,” he added as his lips claimed mine and his arousal claimed me.
Looping my legs around him, I allowed him to take over. He withdrew himself almost completely, before slowly pushing back into me. I bit my lower lip, moaning softly. Every satisfying inch of him was inside me then. And when he began to ram into me, earnestly so, the tears I shed were because it felt so damn good. With each deep thrust, he groaned out my name, pressing his mouth against my damp skin—licking, tasting, and biting. The hard planes of his chest were torture against the hard buds of my nipples, and his pelvis hit my sensitized spot whenever we collided. He bore me down on the carpet, so harshly I could feel the imprint of each individual thread on my bare ass.
“Shit, Andrei,” I cried out, arching my back on a particularly incredible thrust.
And then the pad of his thumb sought what his pelvis was previously taunting, rubbing circles there before teasingly swirling around it and repeating the process. I was delirious from all the sensation and the feel of his weight on me.
“That’s good, my little one,” he ground out, tweaking my nub between two fingers. “You deserve to be fucked. You deserve to come.”
“Yes,” I agreed on an exhale, deciding to spread my legs to give him better access. “Oh, Andrei!” I cried out. His mouth came upon mine and he swallowed my gasps and wails and moans, feeding me his own cacophony of pleasure.
Biting my lower lip, he whispered, “Come with me, mea domina.”
Thrashing my head from side to side, I squeezed my eyes shut. Images of Damien tearing Sarah in half rolled through my mind and I knew that I couldn’t come… wouldn’t come.
I felt Andrei’s breath caressing the column of my neck and when he drew the sensitive skin there into his mouth, the decision was made for me. I let go. I convulsed around him, tightening my hold on him inside me as I came.
Andrei’s entire body tensed and my eyes flew open. I didn’t want to miss the beautiful image of him reaching ultimate bliss. This time, he raised his head and released as he said my name, dragging it out as if it were made up of the entire alphabet. Hot liquid jetted into me, so thick and copious that it set me off again. It was a mini orgasm, but an orgasm nevertheless… and I found that I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to feel this good when there were innocent people out there suffering simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time and I…
“Stop it,” Andrei commanded, pulling out of me.
My body instantly bemoaned his absence. �
�Stop… what?”
“Worrying. Stop worrying.” His mouth was nestled between my breasts. I shivered from the vibrations of his voice against my skin. “You think the coward, Ivanov, could do this to me?” He created a delicious path of liquid heat down my belly with kisses and traced my navel with his forefinger. I was never so grateful before to have an innie than I was at that moment. “That’s my cum,” he observed, his attention obviously fixated on me. The sudden change of topic from Damien possibly attacking him to Andrei’s ejaculation glistening in my most intimate part made my head spin.
His warm liquid spilled from me and trickled down my ass. I was incredibly sticky and filthy but all thoughts of yet another shower flew out the window when Andrei slowly tongued his way up my wetness and swirled his tongue around my highly sensitive bud.
“Don’t!” I yelped in disgust, but cancelled out the refusal when I involuntarily clamped his head between my thighs. “I’m… I think I’m still bleeding.”
“We taste so fucking perfect, Rae,” Andrei groaned, stroking me there with his expert tongue. “The only thing I see is your beautiful pink pussy. I can only taste you and me. Only you and me.”
I moaned, dragging my nails across the carpet as I arched my back. “Oh, God, Andrei. I can’t… Not again.”
He ignored me, the loud noises of his ministrations filling the air. It was hard to describe what the slurping, swishing, and appreciative groans did to me. It wasn’t just the feel of him tonguing my swollen labia, driving into me like a tiny but powerful shaft, or even his sucking on my sensitive nub like it was a mint. No, it was the fact that he wanted to please me. Just me. It pleased him to please me and that was what made me come so hard that I broke three fingernails desperately clutching the carpet… and probably almost suffocated Andrei between my thighs.
