by Ashley Black
“Thornton?”
Bob was here! He sounded so afraid.
I watched him approach Thornton Darko. His gloved hand fell on the big man’s right shoulder and squeezed as he twisted him around to face us.
“No,” Thorn wailed angrily. “I don’t want you to see this dad.”
I wasn’t aware of falling to my knees until the ground met them with a resounding crack.
Five bodies. All the chests pried apart. A pile of glistening rose red hearts on the ground before him. I counted two, the third was gripped in his monstrous white hand.
He had already inhaled two hearts!
Who was Thornton Darko? Death metal rock star? Warlock? Or demonic beast?
“You need to stop son,” Bob’s voice cracked on a desperate plea.
Tears were hissing down my blood splattered cheeks.
“Go away. Please. Leave me alone.”
He was seriously going to eat five fucking hearts.
This man was so irretrievably fucked in the head.
“Why is he doing this?” I wept.
Bob’s wet blue gaze lifted sharply to mine.
“To save me.”
Two
“Get her away from me.” Thorn snarled.
He ripped his shoulder from Bob’s tenuous grip, and turned away, hunching over his truly fucked up meal.
“Thornton?” Bob asked worriedly.
“Just get her away from me now! Before she does it to me again,” he moaned.
The truly awful procession of sounds I had heard the first time in his castle in the little alcove of horror beyond the burgundy curtain, swiftly ensued.
Gurgling.
Sucking.
Chewing.
Swallowing.
A desperate moan.
A grunt, and it started again.
What in the fuck was he talking about?
I shivered, the once warm blood cooling on my skin.
“Elena is not the problem, Thorn. You are. You need to stop this nonsense son.” Bob reprimanded in a shaky voice that lacked authority. He was on the verge of tears.
I reached and rubbed his arm awkwardly with my hand, the only part of me that wasn’t blood splattered.
Bob heaved a weary sigh addressing Thorn’s violent shuddering form. “If I had the strength I would pull you by the ear away from those damnable things. You don’t need them. You cannot save me. Accept it. This will change you into everything you have fought so hard against. Please, Thornton.”
‘Put her in the van. I’ll deal with her later. Please. Just … leave me in peace!”
That was all Thorn had to say.
‘How about you stop stuffing your face and deal with me now?” I challenged.
Those awful sounds ceased and Thorn’s powerful back straightened.
Bob’s hand flashed warningly to my wrist but I stalked to the front of Thornton Darko.
The man was raging.
Just not between his legs now.
Thank the Gods.
It would break my mind if he managed to maintain that insane erection after expiring 5 whatever the fuck they were from the physical plain.
His face was red, eyes aflame, strong chin blood slicked, the pulp of what had once been a heart lying glistening in his palm.
My gaze dropped to the heartless figures, smashed like broken dolls, upon the grass.
I noticed guns in the death grip of their hands.
“Witch,” he hissed. “Leave me alone. I can’t stop when I start. Don’t you understand? That is how it has to be. I saw an opportunity to get more power to save my dad from dying. I took it.”
As if to defy my severe look of disapproval, he took up the pulp and munched on it, but immediately clutched his belly. His eyes squeezed shut as he appeared to gag. Blood red tears spilled down his face.
“Eating hearts is just crazy, gross, and fucking disgusting. It’s going to make you even more insane from what Bob’s saying.” My strategy was to snap him out of this crazy with sheer audacious insensitivity.
He stopped munching. His gaze took my breath away in its feral, urgent need. “Want to hurt me Elena? Stand there and condemn me with your cold unfeeling eyes. Fucking bitch. I will devour you next!”
My strategy clearly sucked.
Terrified, I was aware that it was just Thornton Darko and I … alone.
Bob had left me here with a fucking lunatic.
“Did you not see the guns Elena?” Thorn went on softly. “When they got close enough, their intent was plain enough. They intended to incapacitate me, lick you out, fuck you up and then eat you.”
All of my skin cringed. “Oh,” I heard myself say hollowly.
“That is what they wanted to do to you, love.”
His head fell. “Please, just go away Elena.”
“Why? Why did they want to do that?”
“To hurt me.”
I saw his big hand curl around another heart.
Revulsion twitched my body to-fro. The word ‘no’ was forming on my lips, but Thorn was whispering something – so softly it barely punctuated the now freezing night air.
I fell to my knees before him.
“Help me,” he whispered.
He was staring helplessly at the heart in his hand.
“Please. Some one. Help.”
Three
Thorn said nothing when my hand closed over his monstrous one. My fingers twined with his, rubbed over the blood slicked slender length of them. I deftly unlocked his grip from the heart.
I threw the heart away.
His gaze fell hungrily to the final one pulsing a silent death beat before us.
I knew what to do.
I grabbed his hand and brought it to my necklace.
“Try to remove it,” I invited with a faint smile.
He frowned, gripped and pulled.
As I had anticipated his hand caught fire. I pressed it to the yellow grass and it ignited in a whoosh of indignant flame.
I picked up the remaining heart, even as he was protesting wordlessly, dark green eyes feral and wide. I tossed it into the fire.
He roared as he beat the flame from his hand. His fist smashing repeatedly against his thigh. He knelt there, staring dejectedly. His breathing, rasping in and out, as he fought for control.
Over what? His inner freak? His beast?
He had asked for my help. This was me helping. I was a little afraid he didn’t see it that way and would duly eat my face.
I stood staring down at the heart twisting and writhing to black in the searing heat of the blaze.
Thorn slid up behind me.
I felt him before his body had even touched mine.
His dark, intoxicating energy rippled along my skin before his warmth closed in around me.
He spun me around and kissed me. His lips slanted brutally over my mouth. His tongue impatiently prodded, parted my throbbing lips and drove inside. It twisted with mine in a seductive assault. I moaned in spite of myself. I had resolved to be silent. In truth, I was, as always, weakened by the powerful thrall of this man. Hopeless desire flooded into my belly.
I became drunk on the intensity of the sensation of that wide sexy mouth expertly pulverizing mine with toxic bliss. His hands were on either side of my face. I felt the beat in the pads of his fingertips against my skin. Emerald eyes on fire. I kept forgetting to ask him what that even meant when his eyes did that. I think I hadn’t asked because on some level I didn’t want to know. But …. I did didn’t I? I wanted to know more about this intense, deranged, certifiable death metal rock star, Warlock, Hell Beast. I think I wanted to know everything.
The man’s sinful mouth, was everything.
It was my fucked up reality.
I loved his kisses I decided. Even though they left me a puddle of arousal. Left me feeling all melty, sticky and twitchy between the legs. Damn that man, I hated being so … affected.
“I want a room inside of you,” Thorn slurred as he lifted his lip
s from my stinging mouth.
“You are already inside of me.” I sighed. “Surely you already know this right? You don’t need a fucking room in there as well.”
He laughed, biting his flirty bottom lip as he considered me.
I tried to ignore the distinct, rather insidious, urge I felt to bite that lip of his … just a little. To nip it. To taste his blood. How beautiful it always tasted to me. There was the usual coppery sharpness, but the sweetness of its sugar, the salt and the insane power.
“You still want me,” he breathed. His gaze grinned at me in demented delight. “Even after seeing me act like a such a fucking animal.” He slammed me against his hips. Filling his hand with my left ass cheek as he thrust his alarming hardness against my mound. He dipped his head, his lips brushing warmly against my forehead. “Thank you,’” he said in a low dark voice. “Your help feels especially good right now.”
Overcome by his physical assault. The frantic tingling mess it left me from head to toe, I blurted, “Thorn you were eating fucking hearts. You need professional help.”
He tipped his head back and laughed. “Ah, yes! I’m addicted to your mouth. Good to know you took my invitation to never stop teasing me seriously.”
“I am not teasing you,” I said softly. “I am perfectly serious.”
He smacked me hard in the pussy three times.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I gasped.
“This mouth was acting out, I needed to slap it down a little,” he shrugged. Then his huge hands fell and grabbed the globes of my ass. He squeezed, fondled, and stroked over my butt as he walked me backwards to the van.
I shot him a questioning look.
“Jacob’s staring at your ass. It was bothering me,” he answered softly. “It’s a fucking weapon,” he squeezed, drawing a tremulous cry over my lips that were already twitching in barely restrained laughter. “You can’t just go flashing this thing around!”
His expression became serious as he pushed me into the van and pounced on top of me, breathing hard. “If anything happened to you or that ass, I would never forgive myself, love.”
As the van hurtled into the night, with Bob and Jacob singing loudly and badly to Cellrager (to Thorn’s supreme mortification); Thorn held me firm within the circle of his arms. He had assured in soothing dark honeyed tones that I could clean all the death off me soon. Funny, that he felt that was the highest ranking worry I had! I felt his heart pulse rhythmically against the back of my head as I rested it on his magnificent chest. I had deliberately angled my butt away from the bulging sinful snake in his pants. I didn’t want to be accused of enchanting the fucking thing again.
Sweet Jesus!
Thorn’s bandaged hand covered my right arm and was rubbing up and down it.
I frowned at it. “Why don’t you heal?”
“I am saving my powers to heal my Father.”
And what then? I wondered.
Who is going to heal you?
Because you? Thornton Darko. You are fucked in the head.
It was breaking my heart. I loved him so much.
There was so much I wanted to say to this man. I was still gathering my scattered thoughts.
Thorn had threatened my man at our wedding.
I felt I had no choice but to go with him, not just because of the threat but because he was going to keep fucking coming back anyway.
As long as I wanted him.
I was determined to figure out how to stop this.
Not wanting him seemed the obvious answer.
My lip curled in a sneer remembering what he had said to me when he had rode that beast of a motorcycle out of the cathedral.
“You will always want me.”
Is this because I truly wanted him? Or did it have something to do with the damn necklace? Did it somehow manipulate me? Was it his insurance of me always wanting him?
There had to be a way of getting the truth out of him. I was steadfast in my resolve to find it.
“We are going back to Mexico,” Thorn’s voice intruded on my thought drift.
“I still owe my buddy an appearance and Cellrager is there awaiting me to fuck that album with them.”
I scoffed at the dizzying heights of his egomania. “You just abducted me from my wedding. Don’t you think shit is going to blow sky high? You can’t just presume to pick up from where you left off as drunk and disorderly Cellrager?”
He rumbled with dark delicious laugher that sent tingling vibrations right to my core. “I am only drunk and disorderly when you are not by my side, Elena,” he sighed, fingers stroking lightly along my neck. “Your absence makes me fucking senseless love. It is a kind of sickness, I’m afraid. You are … the remedy.”
I shivered.
I couldn’t help it.
His touch.
His words.
Devastated and elated me.
Thorn shifted and grunted.
All the bliss ignited within as I felt his swollen package jut into my trembling rear.
My freckle squeezed shut from the assault of that thing.
I tried to wriggle away. He gripped me tighter within the circle of his powerful, overprotective arms.
“You could have got us killed Elena,” he moaned despairingly. He shifted again. I felt him lean back. Something softer but equally engorged rubbed up against my butt. His balls.
I rolled my eyes. This man was impossible. Was that how he made me want him? Rub his bits over me at regular intervals? Hmmmmm, I might be onto something there. It was my best theory yet; I think it topped the raven necklace theory.
“You do understand don’t you what is going on here? I didn’t just remove you in a jealous rage in your attempt to marry that soft cock Brett. I specifically told you that would not happen. I did it because of what is coming for you, for us Elena. Your trigger unhappy solider artist man isn’t going to be enough to protect you against that black magic! Yet out in that field just now, you played a game with me Enchantress. Why did you do it? Are you so obsessed with my cock you would risk your life for it?”
“Why did I do what?” I managed to get out despite every nerve ending screaming his name. Loudly. I wondered if he could hear it with his Warlock senses. Did that make his heads bigger?
“You truly don’t know do you?” He wriggled against me, lifted me to my knees and spun me around to face him.
I shook my head.
“You enchanted my cock again,” he insisted. “All I felt like doing was putting my parts inside of you and fucking you until we both exploded. But I had to make sure that try hard Warlock and his half-witted demon crew didn’t kill you.”
I stared at him.
“You truly don’t know you are doing it do you?” Thorn gaped astonished. “Fuck woman!” His hands sped into his longish black hair. “This is unacceptable. We need to get you some help. That is a power you need to understand how to use. It would be helpful for example, not to use it when you are about to get fucking killed and I am trying to protect you.”
“Clarissa can help!” I eagerly offered. “And Aaron,” I added quickly.
I didn’t think Thorn would seriously bring either of them to me but it was worth chancing a lie.
He surprised me yet again.
Thorn was on the phone barking something in another language, whatever it was, he sounded very demanding and bossy. He tossed his phone aside. “Done” he muttered angrily and wrapped his coat securely around me. “They will be discreetly dispatched to the hotel I have hired for our stay in Mexico.”
My eyes popped wide open. Fuck me, my best buddy was going to kill me for this. Shit. Even still, the selfish bitch in me was flooded with relief at our impending reunion.
And what was this shit about the hotel he hired?
“You got us a room in a hotel right? You didn’t hire the whole hotel out?” I sought to clarify.
Thorn’s lips twitched faintly in a smile. “You are hilarious. Of course I hired the entire hotel. We are at war. Som
e sinister old magic has just declared war on your gorgeous ass. Do you seriously think I would put innocents in the middle of that shit? Those who will assist us at the hotel are my faithful servants. They help manage shit in my own castle.”
I shivered with unease. Not more circus witch hating freaks? “I had them checked,” Thorn tried to assure me seeing the concern on my face. His hard serious face, softened. “They are not connected with that lying misfit Ryan. They will not harm you. All are deeply loyal to me Elena. They respect what my heart craves most.”
“Which is?”
“Ahhhhh,” he sighed, licking his lips. “For you to be finally mine.”
I frowned. “You must explain what the fuck that means? It’s been bothering me.”
“Why Aaron?”
Infuriating! He had answered me with a question.
“He has physic abilities. He might help stop me from breaking you,” I explained lamely.
“You can’t break something that's already broken,” Thorn’s huge hand sped between my legs, palmed my panties and squeezed. “So calm your pretty bits love. You won’t break me.”
Four
Thorn really had hired out the entire hotel. Holy hell! It was grotesquely luxurious. A beautiful five-star exclusive sprawling white washed building overlooking a restless bay. He had stocked the hotel with what looked like extras from the freaking Addams family. There was insane joy and commotion from his loyal little army at being reunited with their freak King.
He embraced and kissed each and every one of them with equal vigor. Adoration and love shining bright in his emerald eyes. Watching him with them, my heart cracked open and wept for him. The lost and misunderstood. Cast aside. Overlooked. The very people he so fiercely protected were his family now. I had been standing with Bob and the rest of the Cellrager crew on the sidelines mesmerized by this outpouring of love. Thorn’s arm swept around me as he pulled me flush against him. “Elena and I were attacked tonight. We must clean up and rest. Please, everyone, stay alert. Stay safe. Take extreme care. You take a huge risk being here. I am gladdened but also saddened by this. I love you. All of you. I will end this stupid war about nothing.”
