Birds of Paradise

by Anne Malcom

  He stared at me, whatever effect this little heart-to-heart was having over him little more than invisible. But he was touching me. And he’d just said he loved me, in his cold and calculated way. I didn’t expect more. I didn’t want more. Anything more, anything beautiful, would be artifice.

  “You’re wrong,” he said.

  I tilted my head in question.

  “I will not leave you, nor will my feelings be altered in any way if you don’t kill him,” he said, referring to Christopher.

  That was the only sign of his fury. Everything else about the way he spoke about him was even, uncaring. Except for the fact he never gave him a name. Never labeled him a person.

  Oh, and the fact that he’d cut off his fingers and currently had him tied in the basement.

  “Despite what you may think,” he continued, “I did not bring him here as some sort of… treatment for you. Nor did I bring him in here to ignite a cold sort of bloodlust within you. Lastly, I do not crave to turn you into a monster.” His hands went to my lips. “Because you can ignite your own bloodlust. Unleash your own monster. I merely wanted to contribute—albeit selfishly—to your… evolution.”

  “My evolution?” I asked. “Into someone worthy of you?” Unease sprinkled my words and I hated it.

  His jaw hardened. “No, you were worthy of me when you were on that bed trapped in your own nightmares.” His thumb trailed my jaw. “You were worthy of me when you opened your eyes. When you got out of that bed. Crawled back up to life, the grave still stuck underneath your fingernails. You’d be worthy if you didn’t change an inch until the day you die.” The harshness of his tone and face didn’t suit the words, but it was the only way Lukyan could do this. “You’re changing into someone worthy of yourself. Who you know you are. Maybe it’s a monster. I hope it is.” His palm spanned my cheek. “In fact, I know it is. Whether or not you spill blood. And I think you want to. It’s your humanity that’s stopping you. You need to let that go. You don’t need that anymore.”

  “You don’t think I need my humanity?” I scoffed.

  He didn’t blanche. “The question is not whether I think you need it. Do you?”

  “You know, there are many things worse than death,” I said, testing the weight of the object in my hands. The power. “People fear it so much it almost drives them crazy, trying to escape it. They think the absolute worst thing is to be taken from this world, leaving no mark but a rock sticking out of a pile of dirt.”

  I walked forward, my steps measured, calm. Like my voice. I stopped in front of the chair.

  “But that’s not the worst thing,” I said. “Being buried in the ground and becoming nothing more than a pile of bones amongst millions. Billions. More than that.”

  I stared at the man who was once my husband. My tormentor. Then I looked over my shoulder. To the man standing in the corner, arms at his sides—not crossed because that betrayed weakness, unease—his face granite, eyes cold. The man I thought of as my murderer. The one I’d been so sure put the final nail in my coffin by yanking me out of it and forcing me to see the corpse I’d turned into.

  The man I hated for killing me.

  But you couldn’t kill something that was already dead.

  I turned back to my husband. His eyes bulged with pain, with panic, with weakness. None of that cold, cruel sadism that had lurked in there. That arrogant kind of strength of a bully, of that boy torturing the butterfly, knowing they were harming something that would never hurt them back.

  He was the man who killed me.

  And I’d let him.

  “You’re the butterfly now,” I said to him.

  He didn’t have the presence of mind to look confused, of course.

  But it didn’t matter.

  I wasn’t saying any of this, doing any of this, for him. Or even for Lukyan. The man I hated. The monster I loved.

  No, this was for me.

  For the daughter I never named because it hurt too much to put a label on the last broken piece of myself I’d let be chiseled off.

  “There are a lot of things worse than death,” I continued, my voice cold, unrecognizable.

  But I liked it. I liked the weight of the gun in my hand, liked the sweat and blood and excrement covering the man who thought power and pain were his right. Lukyan was right, this was who I was. The monster I was afraid to be.

  “I could educate you on them,” I said, pressing the barrel of the gun between his legs.

  Christopher’s moans were muted by his gag, but that didn’t mean they weren’t music to my ears. I smiled, leaving the gun there for a few long satisfying moments.

  Then I released it.

  “But that would be giving you something you don’t deserve,” I said, lifting the gun. “Another second of my time.”

  The roar of the gunshot echoed through the room, and the recoil painfully vibrated all the bones in my arm and shoulder. I watched the wound the bullet had created expel blood, the last of Christopher’s life and whatever had been left of my humanity.

  If it had even been there at all.

  14

  I thought after murdering the man responsible for almost every single scar on the inside and the outside of my body—the man who killed my daughter—I’d be filled with some kind of peace. Some kind of closure.

  This was not the case.

  I did not find peace with the murder I committed.

  It didn’t bother me. That wasn’t it.

  “I want more,” I informed Lukyan.

  He glanced across at me, satisfaction flickering for a second on his face before he looked to my empty plate. “I’ll get Vera to get you a second serving.”

  I looked down too, surprised I’d even finished the food. I’d barely even tasted it. I only forced it down because of Lukyan’s subtle hints about nourishing my body and punishing me—not in the good way—if I didn’t.

  “No.” I waved my hand. “I want more blood.”

  His eyebrow jerked slightly in either interest or surprise. I was still learning Lukyan subtleties.

  I knew he was going to wait until I explained, so I did. “Blood of the people who hurt me. Who made me bleed,” I clarified.

  “Your family?” he guessed correctly.

  I nodded. “And every single person who watched me get beaten, degraded, tortured. Everyone who contributed,” I added.

  He regarded me. Long and hard. “We can do that,” he said finally. “But there are only so many people I can go and retrieve for you,” he continued. “I could possibly retrieve them all, but it would take time. A lot of it. Not that we haven’t got it.”

  His meaning was clear. He didn’t do subtleties when it came to things like this. Hadn’t pushed me about leaving the house, about getting psychological help. This was him broaching the subject. Not because of my mental health or the repercussions of suffering from something like this. No, for the finer details on mass murdering everyone who’d ever hurt me.

  I’d never loved him more than I did in that moment. Of course, I didn’t say this.

  “You’re referring to me being able to go outside?” I asked.

  He nodded once. “I expect it’s not going to be as easy as opening the front door and stepping out.”

  The mere thought of it ramped up my heartbeat. I shook my head.

  “I’ve never expected so,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “If it was that easy, you likely would’ve done it already. When you first woke up and found yourself facing me and the possibility of certain death.”

  “Perhaps.” I smiled. I was doing more of that. Not a lot. Not even enough to perfect the expression, but I was doing it sporadically. Lukyan didn’t particularly know when or how he was being funny, but I knew he enjoyed my smile. He didn’t say that, of course. He wasn’t a man to engage in something so asinine as sweet nothings.

  His eyes moved over my lips, and he leaned forward and grasped my fingers in his hands. “We will begin our plans,” he said. “And I will retrieve so
me of the lower-risk targets for you to get started on while we find a way toward you retrieving them yourself.”

  That was Lukyan. Making plans. Making things manageable. Even the condition that I was sure would never be anything less than a death sentence.

  Lukyan made me think different. He made me hope.

  Which of course was a dangerous and fatal emotion. I knew that at the time. But I did it anyway.

  Because humans were stupid like that.

  My stomach was full of butterflies.

  With knives instead of wings.

  Lukyan had been true to his word, as he always was.

  Two days after our conversation, Brad—the man who’d sometimes watched as Christopher beat me, sometimes contributed—sat in the same spot where his cousin twice removed took his last breath.

  I was making sure he had the same fate.

  Lukyan had given him the same treatment he had Christopher, but all the fingers on his left hand were gone this time.

  I didn’t go for theatrics, an epic speech while I circled him with my gun. No, I was like Lukyan in that respect. I just put a bullet in his brain and didn’t go for the torture business.

  My hand was still vibrating with the shock from the gun, my blood singing with the heat of revenge when Lukyan’s cold lips were at my neck.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, circling my body with his hands, yanking me back into his chest.

  I melted backward. “I feel… not much,” I admitted. “No guilt.”

  “Guilt is for those who pretend to be saints. We do not pretend,” he murmured.

  His hand moved to mine, lifting the gun. His other hand ejected the magazine, then emptied the chamber. It clattered to the floor.

  “No,” I agreed, my voice husky.

  “You’re doing good,” he said, kissing my earlobe, then moving downward.

  “At killing?” I breathed.

  “At abandoning your humanity,” he said against my neck.

  My heart raced.

  His teeth scraped the area that vibrated below my skin—my pulse. It thundered harder with the knowledge of what his teeth could do, what he could do. Open my vein with the ripping of my skin, hold me while blood poured over both of us and I died in his arms. I could almost feel the wet stickiness of it clutched to our skin.

  Instead of his teeth, his lips circled the area, kissing it, tasting the life beating under my skin.

  I sank back, both relieved and somehow disappointed with the lack of blood, despite the thin trail creeping toward our feet.

  Lukyan’s lips left my neck and he turned me.

  “I will clean this up,” he said, nodding to the body. “You wait for me in our room.”

  It was our room now. There was no conversation, no questions. One day all my things disappeared from my old room and appeared in Lukyan’s suit-filled closet. Twice the size of mine.

  My toiletries were neatly arranged in his bathroom exactly the way they’d been in the one across the house.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Neither did he.

  “Okay,” I whispered, pressing onto my tiptoes to lay my mouth against his. I couldn’t resist slipping my tongue inside, tasting him, letting him taste the death on me.

  I was getting better at it. Touching him. Kissing him. Not less afraid, exactly. I’d always be afraid of Lukyan. But I was more willing to ignore my fear, let it excite me, fuel me.

  He let out a sound in the back of his throat and his hand went to my hair, yanking at it and deepening the kiss, extending its ferocity.

  It was safe to say Lukyan liked my confidence.

  His lips released mine. “Bedroom,” he commanded.

  I nodded once but didn’t move.

  He stepped back, yanking himself away from me with force that looked painful. That excited me more.

  “I’ll be waiting,” I whispered.

  Another growl.

  I all but skipped through the house, my mind on the man who would fuck me after he cleaned up the body I’d created, not even focusing on the murder.

  Times were changing.

  I was changing.

  My plans had been to take off all my clothes and wait for Lukyan. Perhaps thumb through a book while I did so.

  These plans changed as I wandered into the walk-in to deposit my clothing in the laundry bin. Lukyan liked things kept neat. He didn’t drop clothes on the floor, not even a rogue sock. I wasn’t quite as pedantic as Lukyan, but I also liked neat, so it didn’t bother me.

  My eyes caught on some of the things that were moved with the rest of my clothes. The garments I supposed were mine, despite the fact that they’d never touched my body.

  I stepped forward to finger the fabric. It was smooth, buttery underneath the rough pads of my fingers.

  Black, of course.

  Sexy.

  Elegant.

  I glanced to Lukyan’s suits.

  This was the dress that matched these suits. That matched the man who wore these suits. Not my rotation of skintight black jeans and long-sleeved tops. They were the uniform of the woman who liked to hide indoors and nurture her pain.

  I bit my lip.

  This would show skin.

  Scars.

  Not that Lukyan hadn’t seen them before. He’d explored every inch of my naked body. But there was something different about exposing yourself when you were meant to be naked than when you were meant to be clothed.

  My stomach prickled.

  I slipped the dress off the hanger and onto my body. It fit almost perfectly. A little loose around the hips and breast area. I was eating more, which meant my body was bigger than it was, and Lukyan’s training meant it was defined with a small but impressive amount of muscle.

  It didn’t mean I wasn’t still small. Virtually curveless.

  But it was going to have to do.

  I padded over to the mirror in the middle of the room, regarding the stranger staring back at me. She looked much different than the woman I’d stared at weeks ago. And it wasn’t just the dress.

  She looked more dangerous.

  Unhinged.

  She was wearing her depravity on her sleeve instead of hiding it from the world. Hiding it from herself.

  I touched my cheeks, fuller with a slight flush.

  It suited me.

  As did the dress.

  But it needed more.

  So I opened the lingerie drawer, and I got more. Snatched a pair of spike-heeled patent leather shoes and got more. Walked to the bathroom and spread out the cosmetics and got more.

  When I was done, I was more.

  He had paused for a split second when he entered and saw me standing in the middle of the room. Then he walked, not toward me but toward the hidden weapons case behind his dresser.

  He plucked a long, curved and sharp knife from the wall before pressing the button that hid it once more.

  I didn’t move when he picked up the knife.

  Nor as he approached me with it.

  His face was blank, but that didn’t mean much. His face was always blank. Wiped of all conceivable human emotion, to the point you were almost certain that human emotion never once existed within this thing doing an almost perfect job of impersonating a human being.

  On the outside, that’s what he made you think.

  But even now, I—maybe the only person who saw a scrap of the fullness behind all of that—even I only saw blank. I imagined my face might’ve been blank now too. It wasn’t my default like his. I hadn’t mastered it the way he had. But around him, somehow I could present the blankness I couldn’t even perfect in solitude. Around him, I was nothing. And that meant everything.

  His eyes flickered upward and downward, again blank, predatory in a cold and detached way, and my heart skipped slightly.

  So maybe I wasn’t quite nothing, but something less than the sum of my parts.

  Of my suffering.

  My pain.

  It was all sucked into the void that was him.


  It was nice.

  My heartbeat increased only slightly as he approached with the knife. As he trailed the cold steel across my collarbone.

  His eyes were glued to mine. Capturing them. I wasn’t fooled by the obvious weapon at my chest. That was a distraction.

  A trick for new players.

  Those new players, they’d focus on the sharp steel as the threat.

  They’d be wrong.

  And being wrong in Lukyan’s world—what I guessed was my world now—meant being dead.

  Watching him, I didn’t know what he was going to do. But I knew he was going to do something. He always moved with purpose and no threat was empty.

  He was going to use the knife.

  The purpose he was going to use it for remained to be seen.

  I failed to muster any fear. I had it with other things. With everything else in the world that existed outside these four walls. But I didn’t have it with him.

  The one creature every human on this planet should fear.

  He didn’t speak as the knife cut through the fabric of my dress, right down the middle. It paused, moving to the space right above my heart, scoring the skin so red blossomed at my chest, escaping the confines of my skin. A crimson rose pooled above my now-exposed nipple and trailed downward, following the continuing stroke of his knife.

  It didn’t break the skin anywhere else.

  This was all deliberate.

  There were no accidents—especially not with deadly weapons—in Lukyan’s life.

  He didn’t stop until scraps of expensive fabric, including my lace underwear, pooled at our feet. My naked skin prickled with the chill that came with his presence.

  But I didn’t move to cover myself, didn’t open my mouth to protest. I was always naked in front of Lukyan, no matter what.

  His gaze trailed up and down my naked body, still blank, not even a flicker of heat that usually lurked at this point in our relationship—the sex point. So I guessed this wasn’t about sex.

  “I just wanted to be beautiful for you,” I whispered so softly I was barely audible.

  His eyes flickered upward. “Well don’t do it again,” he commanded coldly. He lifted the knife so the back edge of the blade ran along my cheekbone.