Birds of Paradise

by Anne Malcom

  I woke up alone.

  To someone so accustomed to doing so, I didn’t expect to feel overwhelming and complete panic with this fact.

  But I did.

  Because I was in Lukyan’s bed.

  I was Lukyan’s.

  Every square inch of my body ached, considerable amounts of my skin marked with his violence.

  And I’d loved it. Every second. Even the parts I wasn’t quite sure I’d survive. I didn’t even remember drifting off. I had a vague thought that I might’ve done so when Lukyan was still inside me.

  He wasn’t there now. Inside me. Or beside me. It felt empty without him. Before, I’d been so certain, fatally certain that I would never let another man have that part of me, because there was no way that anything but more suffering could come from that.

  I was wrong.

  Movement out of the corner of my eye snatched me out of my interior thoughts.

  Lukyan, of course. He was dressed in his suit, as per usual. This one was charcoal, black shirt underneath. Open collar so you could see the teeth marks and bruises decorating his neck.

  I flushed with the realization that they were my teeth marks. I had inflicted those bruises. The sick part of me—the one that was growing with every second spent with Lukyan—reveled in seeing those marks. That part wanted to make more of them, make them deeper so they scarred and remained on him forever.

  He was standing in the corner of the room, not making a move to come to me like I ached for him to do, seeming to do an inventory of my naked body. There were no sheets to hide under; he had kept them from me all night. Not that I needed them for warmth. My body was covered in a thin sheen of sweat for most of the night, constantly moving against Lukyan’s unyielding appetite.

  I didn’t remember going to sleep, and I didn’t remember waking up with the chill that I had been so sure emanated from Lukyan. Instead, all I remembered was the warmth that came from having his body tangled in mine.

  Maybe it wasn’t coming from him, that frigid cold. Maybe it was coming from me. Maybe being with him made me realize how close to a dead thing I really was.

  “I thought you’d left,” I said, lifting my fragile body upward to lean against his headboard.

  He didn’t reply, just continued to stare.

  I chewed at my lip, uncomfortable and vulnerable. I waited for the inevitable, for him to shoot some cold venom at me, kicking me out of his bed, his house, his world.

  It didn’t come.

  I bristled against the silence, frustration chasing away whatever timidity I’d been clinging to. “Are you just going to stand there and try your best to kill me with your stare?” I demanded.

  His jaw ticked. “You’ve settled in here and shut out that world you are so certain will destroy you,” he said, stalking toward me. “You’ve shut yourself in here with me, thinking you’re safe, when that world you’re so terrified will kill you isn’t anything compared to what I could do.” The bed depressed as he leaned on it with his knee, leaning toward me to grasp the back of my neck, press my forehead against his.

  “I know,” I whispered. “I know that. And maybe that’s why I did it. Because I knew you would destroy me. Because I want you to destroy me.”

  His hand flexed, and a thin streak of pain radiated down my spine. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

  I didn’t back down. “Then show me.”

  And he did.

  And it was magnificent.

  One Week Later

  A lot could happen in a week.

  But not everything.

  I wasn’t miraculously cured. The broken pieces of me weren’t put back together by Lukyan’s touch, by his intoxicating and brutal presence.

  If anything, I was more broken. Sicker. More depraved. He wasn’t bringing me back to life—he was yanking me further into the grave.

  But I learned something about myself, something I’d always known but never admitted. There was no coming back to life for me. It just wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes people were so broken that they had to live with it. Carve themselves a life in the wasteland that was their world.

  And I was accepting that. I was going to be sick and ugly, and it wasn’t going to be the end of the world. I was becoming comfortable in my wasteland.

  But it was full of discomfort.

  And learning.

  About sex.

  A lot of sex.

  Which we’d just finished.

  My body throbbed with the remainder of his touch. The shower rain in the background of my thoughts. The memories of what had just happened.

  My skin was hot and cold at the same time, his mouth plundering my own, his body crushing mine.

  We were naked, so his delightfully hard skin ground against my agonizingly sensitive flesh. I cried out into his mouth as he bit my lip. He liked to do that, draw my blood.

  I wanted more.

  My mouth wanted more.

  I wanted control.

  Craved it.

  My fingernails sank into the skin of his back, scoring at the flesh, opening cuts that were only just scabbing over. He let out a hiss of pleasure.

  He liked it when I hurt him.

  “Lukyan,” I demanded as he poised himself at my entrance.

  His eyes glued to mine, his body stilled, his neck pulsed with restraint. But he did not speak.

  “I want to suck your cock,” I whispered.

  There was a split second of silence, and then he was no longer poised at my entrance, no longer on top of me. I was on top of him.

  Not only that, I was somehow upside down. My knees were on either side of his chest, my hips open at his mouth, I was exposed to him so brazenly, my body flushed.

  But I didn’t move, because his cock was there, right there in front of me. My hand was circled around it before I properly understood how he got us in this position.

  He growled and there was a loud slap and sharp sting on my ass as the flat of his palm made impact. The pain vibrated downward where it turned to pleasure.

  “You suck my cock, I eat your cunt,” he said, voice thick.

  I instantly twitched at his crude words. My body sang with this position, with how filthy it was. How perfect.

  There was another resounding slap. More pain.

  “Suck my cock now, Elizabeth.”

  I forgot I was nervous, that I’d never done this before. His command had me doing just that.

  The second my lips closed around him, his mouth was right there, moving between my most intimate of places to the most forbidden places.

  I groaned onto his cock, my lips moving in the same rhythm as his own, everything but our mutual pleasure fading away into nothingness.

  There was power in this. Control.

  Excellent and brutal power.

  And I made sure I utilized every second.

  “Elizabeth.” Lukyan’s curt voice jerked me out of my memories. I was hot and flushed, and the area between my legs was damp once more. “I thought I told you you were to come in here so I could clean you.” His voice came over the sound of the running water.

  Every inch of me ached. I didn’t know if I could handle more, if my legs would support me on the short walk to the bathroom.

  But I got up anyway.

  Because the only way I was going to deny Lukyan entry to me was if my legs collapsed from under me.

  One Week Later

  We were sitting in the library. The sun streamed through the glass, hitting the sofa I was curled on, warming me with its rays. It should’ve been a comfort, especially with the chill in the cavernous room that never seemed to hold heat—but was still my favorite in the house—but it wasn’t comforting.

  It was a taunt.

  Lukyan’s hand on the nape of my neck as he circled the sofa, that was a comfort. As were the chills that chased away the sunshine that accompanied his stare when he made it to the front of the sofa.

  I dropped the book I’d been reading. Not before marking my page, o
f course.

  His stare was heavier, more disquieting than the assault of the sunshine I’d only ever experience through glass. I wasn’t used to it. I was still trying to figure it out. Figure him out. The coldness that bordered on loathing, his touch that taunted me with the other L-word. His extensive silences. His violence. My love for it.

  We weren’t easy. Us. Being together. It was uncomfortable, uneasy, the feeling of walking along ice on a lake that wasn’t quite frozen over. One wrong step fueled with too much confidence in the thickness of the ice—that’s when the depths would swallow you forever.

  I was dancing with my own demise, and I couldn’t bring myself to muster enough dread at this fact like I was supposed to. Lukyan wouldn’t let me. There was nothing but the immediate moment when we were together. His presence didn’t invite contemplation, didn’t offer the room for it.

  His gaze penetrated my thoughts, teased my attention away from him and onto his onyx black suit, the white shirt underneath it and the cold eyes focusing on me.

  “I have some people coming over, some men—”

  “People? Men, coming here?” I interrupted, in shock. “I thought no one came here. That no one knew about here. That you didn’t tell anyone about this place, that it was kind of the point of this place.”

  “It is,” he said. “It was. These men are different. And—”

  “They’re coming to see you?” I tried to chase away the rogue terror that convinced me they weren’t here for him but for me. That this was part of his entire plan, to play with me like a little boy might play with a butterfly before he plucked my wings off and crushed me beneath his shoes.

  Then again, I wasn’t a butterfly now. If I ever was one. My wings had been ripped off long ago.

  He nodded, the mention accompanied by a jaw tic.

  “And they’re… friends?” I probed.

  “I don’t have friends,” he shot sharply. Like I’d accused him of having a hand in the Kennedy assassination. If it didn’t put him in his early eighties, at the least, I wouldn’t’ve ruled it out. “I have people who are my enemies and people who aren’t dead.”

  I smirked.

  He did not appreciate it. Not that his face betrayed this—the air did. It became heavier. Harder to swallow.

  “What am I, then?” I challenged.

  “You’re mine,” he said instantly. “My… complication.”

  I stopped smirking. “You said you’d kill me if I turned into a complication.”

  That rogue terror I’d been hiding from found purchase on my weakness, which wasn’t surprising since there was a lot of it to grab onto.

  He leaned downward so his arm was braced on the back of the sofa, breath hot on my face. His hand brushed my breast and I suppressed my gasp. But I was sure my face gave it all away. It always did. My poker face was laughable compared to Lukyan’s. But even I managed to crack it when my mouth was between his legs.

  “You’re an unexpected complication, zvezda moya,” he said, tweaking my nipple over the soft fabric of my sweater. “An enjoyable complication.”

  This time my gasp was audible.

  “A permanent complication,” he continued with hooded eyes as he released my nipple and moved his hand down. My skin prickled with anticipation. And something else. Even in the haze of my pleasure, the ‘permanent’ comment stuck out. It was the first reference to undermine the unsaid ticking of the clock on my time here. On my remaining heartbeats.

  “These men, just because they aren’t dead doesn’t mean they mean me no harm.” His hand went into the waistband of my jeans, brushing the skin underneath my panties, toying with me. “The only reason they don’t harm me is because they know I will end them and everyone connected to them should they try. Or even betray an inkling that they’re thinking about trying.”

  His hand moved. Pleasure shot through my nerve endings.

  “They don’t try because I don’t have weaknesses for them to exploit. I’ve never had weaknesses to exploit. Which got me to where I am, at the top.” His fingers entered me. “Should they find out about what you are to me…” His fingers moved quicker. “They’ll exploit you.” His other hand left the back of the sofa and brushed at my bottom lip, grasping it between his thumb and forefinger. “And you won’t enjoy it like you are now.”

  On the brink of climax, I only half heard him, despite the obvious weight of his words. He remedied that by yanking away his fingers right at the crucial moment, leaning backward slightly.

  I glared at him the same moment as he brought his other hand to my opened mouth, inserting the fingers that had just been inside me. My tongue lapped at it instantly, and my arousal intensified at the taste of myself on him.

  “They’re important business associates and powerful men, but I’ll kill them in a heartbeat if they even start to suspect that you’re something more than a captive,” he rasped. “And that will start something that will require rivers of blood to keep you safe.” He removed his finger to grasp my neck with both hands. “And I will do it. Make a whole ocean if I must. Only one person in this world gets to hurt you, and that’s me. But I’m also going to be practical and make sure we don’t spend the entirety of our lives spilling blood, especially with our current situation making our only battleground the place that shouldn’t even exist.”

  My breath caught at this. This not subtle but not unkind reminder of what my handicap might mean. What it already meant.

  For once, Lukyan didn’t notice the catch in my breath, too focused on the current situation. “So you do not act in any way that betrays your connection to me. You do not speak, nor move, lest I say it is okay. Are we understood?”

  I nodded. “So… I’m going to be here, with you, when they’re here?” I clarified with unease. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to hide me in my room and pretend I don’t exist?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I can’t pretend you don’t exist. And you’re going to exist for longer than I planned, much longer. Which means you’re not going to hide. Not anymore.”

  I swallowed roughly. “Okay.”

  They came that same day. Like Lukyan had told me at the last possible minute so I didn’t have time to stew over the fact that more strangers—dangerous strangers—were entering the structure I’d manipulated to become at least a façade of safety.

  So I didn’t have time to get hurt by the betrayal from Lukyan at having me in front of these men when he knew what it meant for me.

  I didn’t have time to think of that because Lukyan had fucked me on the sofa in the library after telling me about the visitors. Then he’d taken me to my bathroom, fucked me in the shower, and then we’d gotten dressed.

  Then they were here.

  And I was sitting in the main living room, still, doing my best not to betray any fear as the men entered and Lukyan poured himself a drink.

  The men were sharply dressed. Much like Lukyan, but the suits weren’t quite up to his quality.

  Lessers, I decided immediately. People lower than him who will serve him until they find a chance to take him out. Not that they likely would find a chance.

  But still dangerous nonetheless. I could see it in their eyes, the way they held themselves, the way they regarded me. Especially considering what I was wearing. What Lukyan had told me to wear.

  All my skin was covered with fabric, as always. But this fabric was little more than sheer mesh, and skintight. A black maxi dress designed to communicate the wearer was at the height of fashion trends, not that they were a murderer’s captive. But it worked quite well—perfectly, actually—for the latter. I had on a black slip, also skintight, that went down to my ankles, so technically only the white of my arms showed through the fabric. But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel just as exposed as I would’ve if I were naked.

  And that’s how I felt when their eyes roved over me, the gaze akin to maggots crawling over my skin.

  “And what’s this, Oliver?” one of them asked. The younger of the two. Not even pas
t his twenties, I’d guess.

  But one didn’t need to be middle-aged in order to be cruel. It was the kind of thing that didn’t discriminate by age. He stepped forward, brushing at a strand of my hair with amused menace.

  I had to steel myself from my flinch, had to physically suppress a glance at Lukyan, who didn’t say a thing at the contact.

  “A souvenir, from my latest contract,” Lukyan said smoothly without a hint of discomfort. He leaned back in his leather chair, rolling his crystal tumbler of vodka in his hands. To the outside observer—that would be anyone but me—he would’ve looked relaxed, even a little bored. But I saw the way his eyes strained in the corner, the way he gripped his glass just a little too tight.

  But that didn’t give me much comfort since the younger one was still close enough for me to smell his sharp expensive aftershave.

  “I didn’t realize you took souvenirs,” he said with a grin. I held my breath as he lingered in front of me, toying with my hair for a second longer before stepping back.

  “Well I don’t usually keep them for long,” Lukyan replied, pushing out of his chair almost lazily. I saw straight through Lukyan’s act because I knew nothing he ever did had even an edge of laziness.

  But these men clearly didn’t know the Lukyan I did. These men knew Oliver, the cold-blooded contract killer, the one who took human beings as souvenirs and then killed them when he was done defiling them.

  He played his part well.

  Maybe because it wasn’t a part at all.

  The hair that had fallen down my back was lifted when Lukyan made it to his spot behind me. The nape of my neck was exposed, and he let his lips fasten against the skin. This was like nothing we’d had before. This made my skin crawl with so much intensity I almost ran from the room.

  Almost.

  I clenched my hands against the arms of the chair so hard one of my nails broke off.

  I didn’t flinch when Lukyan’s teeth broke the skin, nor at the pain that came with it, because I was expecting it. It didn’t hurt more than anything we’d done before. But it hurt more in all the ways that mattered. Because it was being done to degrade me, in front of two killers who thought of me as something less than a person.