The redhead to my right released a dry laugh. “We know exactly who owns you, Plague.”
Ice-cold fingers gripped my heart and they felt awfully like Saint’s.
“No,” I breathed in horror.
“And I ain’t risking my job for some blonde chick who’s father fucked the whole world in the ass,” the other guy added with a scowl.
For a moment, taking my chances with the cliff almost seemed like the better option than letting them take me back. But they came at me anyway, snatching my arms and holding me between them.
My heart ached as they dragged me back down the hill then all the way along the road. I could have kicked and screamed and fought, but I knew it was pointless. I couldn’t run now they knew I was out here. The dogs would always find me. I was screwed. And as they led me back through the school gates, terror pulled and tugged at my insides.
I’d failed. Screwed up the one chance I had of escaping this place. Well, Sneak’s goddamn mom had.
The most terrifying thing was, the Night Keepers were going to punish me for this. And it wasn’t going to be pretty.
I spotted another guard guiding Bait off to the right of the lake and called out to him frantically.
He glanced back, his face pale and his eyes full of fear.
I wanted to apologise, but I couldn’t manage to get any words out as my escorts hauled me down the path to the left. I knew where I was going long before we arrived there.
Haunting classical music rose into the air from The Temple like a warning of what was waiting for me inside.
I was soon thrown to my knees in the porch of the church and I fought the urge to tremble as one of the guards knocked on the door.
My mouth was too dry, my heart beating too fast. I couldn’t breathe or think or manage anything but kneeling on that frozen ground, awaiting my fate. I was covered in mud and bloodied scratches. My desperation to get away was written all over me. And now they’d know just how much I wanted to be free of them, how far I’d go, how afraid I’d been all along. And I was sure this night was about to be the longest one of my life. Even worse than the storm on the beach.
I stared at the ground beneath me as the door yanked open, refusing to look up as their three shadows fell over me.
“She got out the gate,” one of the asshole guards said.
“I see,” Saint said in a breath of a whisper, so much danger in those two words that I couldn’t take it.
“Thanks for returning our property,” Kyan said and I heard the guards walking away.
Saint’s shiny shoes appeared beneath my nose and I felt as small as an ant about to be crushed under his heel.
“Did you really think you could escape us, Plague?” he asked, his voice level and yet as sharp as a razor.
“Yes,” I admitted as my heart thrashed even harder.
“And what do you think now?” Saint purred.
I stayed quiet, pressing my lips tightly together.
“Get her inside,” Saint demanded, walking away and Kyan and Blake’s strong hands hauled me to my feet.
I didn’t look at either of them, my jaw grinding. I was furious with myself for screwing this up, but most of all I was furious at them for making escape so impossible.
“Here,” Saint directed and I was thrown onto the flagstones at his feet. I was kneeling before the old stone altar at the back of the church. Saint was leaning back against it like this place was built to worship him instead of God and fear trickled deep down into the root of my soul.
“Up,” he demanded of me and I pushed myself to my feet, wetting my horribly dry lips as his eyes scraped down my appearance. “You must be thirsty,” he breathed, reaching out and taking hold of my hand. His fingers closed around mine like a vice and he tugged me to one side of the room where a large stone font stood. My muddied reflection gazed up at me as Saint held me before it and I hated how much fear I could see swirling in my eyes. I couldn’t find a way to mask it in that moment; my layers of bravado had been stripped bare by my failure and the horrifying reality that there was no more hope. I was theirs. Wholly, fully, completely. There was no way out.
Saint’s other hand slid into my hair and I had half a second to drag in air before he shoved my face down into the water. Panic bloomed in my chest and I grabbed the sides of the stone basin, shoving backwards in a desperate attempt to get free. Saint was terrifyingly strong and he pushed my head in farther until all of my hair was submerged with it.
One second, two, three, four, five -
He yanked me back out and my scalp screamed with pain as I spluttered and coughed.
His mouth pressed to my ear and made my gut knot with tension. “In the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit. Hallowed be thy fucking name.”
He shoved my head back under the water and fear took me hostage as he held me down, longer and longer. My ears popped and my lungs burned.
I was going to die. This psycho was going to fucking kill me.
A stream of bubbles burst from my lips and I was suddenly dragged free of the font. I hit the ground on my ass, my mind spinning, my thoughts splintering and breaking. I was half aware someone was shouting and it took me too long to realise it was Kyan.
“-don’t want a fucking body on my hands, idiot,” he snarled.
“Don’t be such a drama queen,” Saint laughed.
I scrubbed the water from my eyes as I dragged down lungful after lungful of air. Someone touched my arm and I yelled in fright, throwing a fist out on instinct and cracking them in the side of the head.
“Fuck,” Blake snapped and I bared my teeth at him, daring him to lay his slimy hands on me again.
I scrambled backwards until my back hit the altar and I tugged my knees to my chest, staring at the three monsters before me.
Water soaked through my clothes from my hair and I didn’t know if my trembling had become shivering, but suddenly my teeth were chattering and goosebumps were rushing across my flesh. For half a second I thought, I have a gun in my bag, before realising the implications of that thought were insane.
They couldn’t kill me. They might have been callous enough to do it, but that wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted me chained and bound, forced to submit. And I couldn’t see any possible way that I was going to avoid that fate now.
“Put her in your bathroom,” Saint commanded. “And clean her the fuck up. I don’t want that muddy bitch making a mess of this place.”
Blake didn’t approach me this time. Kyan walked forward and I hugged my legs closer to my body as he closed in on me.
“Get up,” he demanded and when I didn’t he dropped down and gathered me into his arms. I stiffened as he held me against his chest, refusing to look at him as he carried me down a corridor, passing through a bedroom into a large, windowless bathroom. It was immaculate with pristine white marble tiles and a huge shower on one side with a claw foot bathtub in the centre.
He dropped me to my feet, moving across the room and locking the door on the other side and pocketing the key as he headed back to the other exit.
He lingered in the doorway, pointing at the walk-in shower. “Get every inch of mud off,” he growled. “If there’s one fleck on you when I come back, you’ll pay for it.”
I clenched my jaw, saying nothing as he slammed the door and the noise made my whole body jerk. A key turned in the lock and I sank down to my knees, my heart tearing right up the middle. The tears came, but I pressed my hands to my face to stop them from being heard as more and more of them fell.
I thought I was strong, but it turned out I was made of glass. And they’d finally hit me hard enough to make me shatter.
To say I woke up would be suggesting I’d slept. And I was damn sure I hadn’t. Not knowing she was on the other side of that bathroom door.
We’d gone through her bag and tossed the clothes and toothbrush inside for her, but that was it. She’d screamed a bit, thumped on the doors, the shower had run and then it had gone eerily quiet. A
lmost like she wasn’t in there at all. But she was. I could practically feel her there. I’d imagined her breath fluttering against my cheek all night long, her whispers in my ears, her false smiles and pretty lies…
In my fitful attempts at sleep, I’d spent the night constantly dipping in and out of dreams which were pretty fucking distracting and all focused around one girl. Tatum Rivers. One minute I was fantasising about fucking her like I had after the initiation party. Her body hot and wet for mine, her screams of pleasure as I thrust deep inside of her and brought her to ruin. The next minute I was imagining how it would feel to wrap my hands around that slender neck of hers and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until she stopped kicking beneath me.
Worst of all was when the fantasies blurred and I imagined fucking her while choking her. Listening while she begged for more while clawing at my arm hard enough to draw blood. I wanted to do that to her on some deep, primal level where the demon in me resided. But only if she wanted it too. I wanted her begging me to hurt her while I pleasured her. I wanted her to accept that she needed to be punished for the crimes of her father and fall to her knees before me, begging for me to make sure that she paid.
I’d never ached for anything the way I was aching for that. And I didn’t know if it was just a product of my grief over losing my mom or if it was a depravity which had always lived within my flesh and had only been brought to light now, in my darkest hour.
I’d always struggled to comprehend why Kyan said he needed pain to feel true pleasure. But I was starting to get an understanding of where he was coming from with that. Everything I had now was coated in a layer of pain and the only outlet I could find for it was when I was transferring it onto someone else. Someone in particular.
I sat up in the darkened room, hearing Saint’s morning music echoing up from the crypt as he abused his body through exercise.
Sometimes I had to wonder about the three of us. On the surface, we were the luckiest sons of bitches I knew. We had money, influence, power. Every material thing we could ever ask for and girls begging us for a taste of our bodies on a daily basis. But we were the most fucked up people I knew too. Three monsters who dwelled in darkness while gilded in gold.
I’d always been the one to pull us back to the light before. But now… Well, now there was no light. Only endless night and the scent of blood on the air. And I found that I was just fine with that.
Saint may have been a controlling, domineering motherfucker but he knew a thing or two about the way to channel bad emotions. He’d been doing it for a long fucking time after all. And if he thought that forming all of it, every feeling of grief, heartache, pain, betrayal and abandonment I had into a cold, hard ball of rage was the way to deal with it then I wasn’t going to argue. I could even admit that it was working already. The only feeling I was having trouble moulding into it was lust. That fucker couldn’t be sated by rage alone. But it sure kept good company with it when it wanted to.
I pushed myself upright and moved to draw back the curtains, letting in the light of the pale sunrise so that it spilled over my flesh.
I pulled a pair of sweatpants on and released a long breath as all of the roiling emotions in me fought to be heard and I smothered them with anger.
My hand curled into a tight fist and I crossed the room, taking the key from my nightstand before unlocking the bathroom door and throwing it wide.
Tatum was curled up in the porcelain claw foot tub that dominated the centre of the space. I guessed it beat sleeping on the marble tiles, though if I hadn’t switched off the underfloor heating last night that might not have been the case.
She was sleeping in a sweatshirt and her panties, her arms curled beneath her head as her brow pinched with some nightmare. Or maybe she could just tell on a subconscious level that her nightmare was standing over her. Her bare legs caught my attention for a moment too long and that treacherous desire I felt for her slithered beneath my skin.
But that was okay, I could accept it. I wasn’t going to waste time pretending that she wasn’t hot. Or that I didn’t want to fuck her again. There was no point lying to myself about that. But it didn’t mean anything other than that. Her flesh called to me on a base level, but her soul could rot for all I cared.
The scent of vanilla and honey blossom lingered in the air from her skin and I remembered the way it clung to me for a full day after I’d had her. That smell was a form of torture in itself, pointing out the weakness of my flesh.
I growled beneath my breath and reached out to set the cold water running in the tub.
Tatum shrieked as she jerked awake, leaping from the bath and slipping in the puddle of water as she did so. She fell towards me, arms whirling in panic before she slammed straight into my bare chest.
I caught her and she looked up at me in surprise as I offered her a dark smile before dropping her onto her ass on the cold tiles.
She scrambled backwards until her back hit the door to Kyan’s room and she stared up at me with undisguised fear and hatred brimming in her eyes.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she breathed. It wasn’t an accusation or even an insult, more like a genuine question as she tried to figure out how a man could become as twisted as me.
“Many things,” I said as I stalked closer to her, enjoying the way she cowered against the wood. “But top of the list right now, would have to be you.”
I stood over her for a long moment as she panted beneath me, her blonde hair spilling everywhere, looking almost like it had after I’d spent a night buried in her body.
I folded my arms over my chest, my eyes narrowing as I assessed her. Was she finally starting to get the message or was she only just starting to fight back against the rules she lived by now? Not that it mattered. We’d break her in sooner or later. I was just glad to be along for the ride.
“Get up,” I commanded and she scrambled upright until she stood before me, her back pressed to Kyan’s door.
I stood there for a long moment as she refused to utter another word, looking at me like I was the worst person on Earth.
Try, one of the worst demons in hell and you might be getting closer, sweetheart.
I turned my back on her abruptly and moved to take a piss.
Tatum gasped behind me, but she didn’t actually say anything.
“Complain about it and I’ll get a pot and make you hold it for me every time I need a piss. Maybe even when I need a shit, too,” I growled and she looked at me for a long moment like that was the worst thing I’d threatened her with. But if she believed that then she was deluded. Things were going to get a lot worse than holding a piss pot. Her gaze fell to her toes as I relieved myself and I was in part glad that she was learning to keep her mouth shut while disappointed that I didn’t have a reason to punish her.
I shook my dick off then dropped my sweatpants and got in the shower, ignoring her entirely as I washed myself. I would have jerked off just to piss her off too if I could have done it without thinking about her. Even knowing she was in the room with me while I was standing here naked was enough to send blood flooding to my cock like the animals trying to crowd on to Noah’s fucking Arc.
I shut the water off with a curse, drying myself quickly before pulling my sweatpants back on and moving to brush my teeth.
All the time, Tatum watched me with a kind of numbness in her eyes and tension lining every inch of her skin. She knew I was just prolonging the agony, extending the torture until she couldn’t take it anymore and practically begged me just to do whatever it was I was going to do. But I hadn’t quite decided on that yet. In fact, I’d barely given her any commands since she’d sworn herself to us. At least not any that mattered. Because when I did, I wanted it to be perfect, fucking poetic in its brutality. I wanted her to feel it like a sucker punch, just the way I had when my dad had told me who she really was.
I spat a wad of toothpaste in the sink and finally turned to look at her again.
“Are you just going to stand
there in a soaking wet hoody?” I asked as she shivered slightly in the wet material.
“I didn’t know I had permission to take it off,” she murmured and I shrugged, wondering if I liked this whipped version of her or not.
“If I don’t tell you otherwise, you can do whatever the fuck you want,” I said.
Tatum pulled the wet material off of her, dropping it to the tiles with a splat. She stood before me in a pair of white panties and a grey crop top with her hardened nipples pressing through it.
She took a towel from the rail and used it to dry herself off before wrapping it around her body like it mattered if I saw it all again.
“Where are the others?” she asked in a flat tone and I wondered if the idea of spending time alone with me was worse to her than facing us as a group.
“Saint’s working out but Kyan’s still asleep.” I smirked as that gave me an idea and moved across the room to his door. “In fact, you can wake him up for me.”
“What?” she breathed.
“You heard me. He has trouble with alarm clocks so I have to wake him up every morning, but today you can have the pleasure.” I opened his door and led her inside, stepping onto the grey carpet and glancing around at the bare space. My gaze landed on Kyan where he lay fast asleep in the centre of his super king with a sheet hitched up over his waist and his hair loose of its usual topknot and I grinned to myself.
“Go ahead,” I said, pointing her toward him.
Tatum hesitated for half a second before she did as I said with that dead look in her eyes, padding across the carpet on bare feet until she was standing over Kyan as he slept.
I fought to keep the smirk from my face as I watched the show.
“Kyan?” she asked tentatively and he didn’t shift and inch. “Kyan?” a little louder that time which made him roll over and mutter one of his infamous sleeping bullshit quotes.
“I can stick the pineapple up your ass or down your throat, either way them prickles are gonna hurt like a bitch,” he mumbled and I snorted a laugh.
Kings of Quarantine: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 1) Page 26
