The Uprising (GRIT Sector 1 Book 2)

by Rebecca Sherwin

  “Oh, baby,” he crooned, leaning closer to sink his teeth into my flesh until I cried out and attempted to push him away. “I can hear all those thoughts running through your mind.”

  He blew on the assaulted flesh, drawing my attention to the throbbing pressure and burning heat of his aggression.

  “Do you want me to lay you down in the blood of these bastards and fuck you until your blood runs with theirs?”

  I swallowed hard again, acutely aware that yes, I did want those things. Brutally conscious that it made me sick. It made me a sick, sick individual and I should have been cast out with the underground for being turned on by so much pain and degradation.

  “Elias.”

  “Yes, Ashford?”

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say anything and I couldn’t formulate another thought as I looked past him again at the bodies in the cell. How many men had he killed? Fifteen? We’d been here less than a few minutes and he’d fired fifteen shots, every one of them hitting the bullseye.

  Elias leaned closer as his hand moved higher and, on instinct, I raised my leg to wrap it around him. He tutted, smiling a sadistic grin that made his eyes come alight with black lava. Shoving my leg back and slamming my foot to the ground, Elias tore into my pocket and pulled out the bullets I’d stuffed in there when I’d attempted to be brave and prepare to stand with him. How could I? How could I want to? Why would I want to, when I not only knew what he was capable of, but I’d seen it with my own eyes? Fifteen murders, and I was still standing, still conscious, still in love with the puppet master behind the massacre.

  The magazine dropped from the handle of the gun and Elias slipped it into my cleavage, the barrel still holding my head back against the wall as my eyes fixed on his.

  “Stay still.”

  He winked and I sighed. He parted his legs, widening his stance, and I moaned. I watched on, keeping my eyes on his, as bullet by bullet, he reloaded.

  “Good girl,” he said, tapping my cheek with the barrel of the gun before shoving the magazine back in. “Ready?”

  I shook my head. “No. I want you to stop.”

  “That won’t happen,” he said with a dry laugh. “These people are keeping me from fucking my wife. I want this over with quickly.”

  “And if I say no? That I don’t want you to fuck me? That I won’t let you?”

  His eyes flashed with rage, his nostrils flared as he turned to me and glared down at me like I encompassed everything the underground held so near and dear.

  “You’re forgetting how well I know you,” he barked, grabbing my hand. “Don’t play me now.”

  With that, Elias turned and kicked open the sixth door.

  Women. Heavy breasts poured from lace corsets, lipstick painted full lips, kohl rimmed eyes with faraway gazes. There was something about them—something striking and unique to London, and they were all chained to the walls of the cell.

  “Who are they?” I asked when Elias paused, gun down.

  “These are the whores of the underground, Trixie.”

  “Prostitutes. You pay them for sex.”

  “I don’t pay anyone for anything,” he growled, closing the door and turning to face me as he leaned against it. “In London, men pay whores for more than sex. They pay them for blood. They pay them for destruction. They pay them to shut the fuck up and do whatever it is they’re paid for.”

  “Why are they here?”

  “You ask that about the women, but not the men,” he said. “Interesting.”

  “I want to know why you’re doing this.”

  “Because I can.” He shrugged. “Because I have to. Because I’m not releasing them into the world to continue to exploit themselves…and others.”

  “Others? The men?” I scoffed. “They pay for it. They asked for it. They deserved it. These women…how do you know they’re not just doing this to survive?”

  I watched his gaze slip as he thought about it, glancing down at the ground, then at the gun.

  “Take it,” he said, shoving the gun into my stomach.

  I covered it with my hand, taking it from him on instinct. Not because I was going to use it—I wasn’t. Not because I felt for these women—if they’d been anywhere near Elias, I’d happily watch them rot in a cell. I took it because I could relieve him from the conflict. I knew what was in his mind. These women deserved to die, for sins he was yet to tell me about. But they were still women. Elias wouldn’t kill them, because of some outdated notion that women deserved respect from men no matter how much they pushed their boundaries.

  “How many women have you killed, Elias?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not talking about them exploiting me. I’ll kill any man who runs with the underground, and not think twice before bathing in his brain matter.” I shuddered. The distance he’d kept when he killed the prisoners meant he was clean. Despite wearing Lilin’s blood, there was no evidence that he’d committed fifteen murders tonight. “They abduct. They steal young girls from their parents and they force them to work in the whore house until men pay enough money to kill them.”

  “They’re victims!” I cried, lunging for him.

  His arms banded around my waist as I leaned past him and tried to pass. When I pressed my feet to the wall and pushed off, Elias’ footing stumbled and he held me elevated, throwing me over his shoulder as I wriggled and fought.

  “They are not victims. The victims die,” he rasped, his voice low and taking on that seductive timbre that forced my body to betray me. “The girls they steal die…they don’t become these women. The girls are nothing more than slaves, pumping blood around their bodies until it earns a price tag.”

  I stopped struggling and stared at the door to the cell. They abducted children…was there anything worse than that? Was there anything more heinous than stealing children with the intention of exploiting them, abusing them and, eventually, selling their deaths.

  “What happens to them?”

  Elias placed me on the floor. I wanted to lunge at him for entirely different reasons when he refused to make eye contact and I knew exactly what he was thinking. I wanted to take him in my arms, to find a way to persuade him to do this differently.

  “What happened to us doing things differently?” I asked, my bottom lip beginning to tremble as the sudden heaviness of the gun began to weigh me down.

  “Not tonight. There are too many.” He slammed himself into the door and fisted his hair. “I don’t know how to do this differently. I don’t know how we can fix this without shedding blood. No-” he shook his head. “They need to die. They deserve it. This is the only option, but I won’t kill another woman. You said it yourself, the Sector is yours too. So get in there and eradicate the evil.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. Elias, I can’t.”

  I’d killed before. I was a murderer. But I could excuse myself because I’d had a reason. He’d killed my parents; he’d stolen them from me and he’d sealed my fated upbringing on Ashford Estate. These women had killed. These women had stolen someone’s child, and I couldn’t image even the death of my parents outweighed the pain of losing a child. Of knowing what they were going through, but being helpless to save them.

  “No?” Elias opened the door and stepped into the room with his back to the women. “Let me show you what you’ll be allowing to survive.”

  Another Elias. I felt the switch, I felt the transition; I felt it in my soul when another centuries-old Eli found my husband. I surged forwards and my hands gripped the doorframe as he stepped back further into the room and extended his arms.

  “Girls,” he breathed, his voice thick with deviant promise. “If I offer you a deal, will you take it?”

  The women glanced at each other, drawing on each other for bravery and confidence in a world they’d never imagined being dragged to. They’d thought they called the shots. Well, Elias had taught them differently. Within seconds, they were compliant. They’d been brought to heel just from the presence of underground
royalty.

  “We’ll take it,” the blonde woman said. “What are you offering us, sir?”

  Elias cocked his brow as he kept his eyes on mine and took another step back.

  “Old tradition saw men with harems of women. Some fed them grapes. Some held glasses of wine to royal lips. The others?” He turned his head from side to side, but his gaze remained on the ground and he refused to make eye contact. My Elias was in there somewhere. “The others tended to their other…needs.”

  His voice was a growl, a deep, throaty lament of a lion. King of the pride. King of the lionesses. Elias had become king of the whores in an instant, and my fingers flexed around the handle of the gun, tapping it into my thigh to remind me I had a companion.

  The women crowded around Elias, all six of them. Six pairs of hands, sixty fingers, touched my husband at once, as his eyes remained on me and they revelled in the ability to let their colours show. They knew they were going to die—the fear permeated from them with every breath they took inside the dungeon—and they wanted to go out with a bang. I stood frozen in the doorway and watched on as Elias disappeared beneath the group of women, stepping back to lean against the wall and let them have their way with him. He’d said he respected women. He’d said he had strong morals and principles and what we did was good. How could it be good, if he was using these women to stir the rage in me that would see me pull the trigger? I wouldn’t shoot them. I’d watch on and call his bluff. Either way he was fucked. If these women touched one hair on his head that would contaminate his scent when he touched me, I wouldn’t be firing bullets at them. He’d done this. This was his fault.

  I wanted her to make me stop, but she watched on. I wanted the jealousy to rear up and take her prisoner, forcing her to kill the whores so I wouldn’t have to face anymore guilt, but she stood in the doorway and kept her eyes on mine. She wouldn’t back down. I couldn’t back down, because I couldn’t kill them. Nor could I allow them to survive. Trixie had to do this, which meant I was risking my own life by forcing her to watch on.

  The whores tore at my clothes, fighting over who removed which item. Three pairs of hands pulled my suit jacket from my arms, two more tugged at my trousers while the other unbuckled the belt, and I took my other gun and held it safely in my grasp. God, I was hard. I knew exactly what my Ashford would think. She’d think I wanted them, that the situation aroused me, when really I was repulsed. I could feel the vomit swirling in my stomach as I took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of death. I stepped out of my shoes and trousers, taking my bottom lip between my teeth when my blood-splattered shirt became nothing but rags, and pieces floated to the floor as six pairs of lips landed on my body. It was Trixie who turned me on. It was the fear in her eyes that sent blood rushing to my cock. She was playing a game as much as I was. We needed to get out of our heads for a second and what better way to do it? To give her the raging conflict that had festered in my mind since the night I met her, and take the desire from her. No matter what she said, how much righteousness and innocence she claimed, she was aroused by deviance. Teeth nipped my skin, nails scraped over my nipples, hands fought for possession of my cock as they stroked it through my underwear.

  “Trixie…” I breathed.

  It was the only time I’d ask her to stop this. It was the only get out now clause I’d offer her. If she ended this, I would spend the rest of our lives removing the guilt from her mind. If she didn’t end this…we were done.

  I should have been repulsed that I wasn’t repulsed by the view in front of me. Elias was a virile man. He could take on six women at once, of that I had no doubt, and the sick part of me wanted to watch. I wanted to watch these women fight over his cock. I wanted them to kill each other fighting for a speck of flesh on his body. Every inch of him was worth a thousand deaths. So no, I wouldn’t fire a single shot. I wouldn’t punish myself with a lifetime of regret. Elias had no power here; he’d shown me that when he’d resorted to desperate measures and stepped into the cell with his whores. He had no weapon to use against me. He had no way of forcing me to do this, and I wouldn’t let him smother me with hatred for him that would tear us apart. He wasn’t just a historical Eli in this moment. He was twenty-first century Elias, too, and this one was pleading with me to find an alternative way to do this.

  “Do you want to play a game?” I asked, stepping into the room and closing the door.

  The faint light on the wall cast an orange glow over the cell and illuminated the bodies in front of me. Elias stood out like a god, large and menacing, and surrounded by women who would kill each other for an ounce of pleasure from the king.

  Elias’ eyes flashed with terror as the women mauled him. I’d never seen him look uncomfortable but tonight was different. He hated this. He was used to having women’s hands on his body. He was used to them wanting what they saw without being granted access to the parts of him that made him truly beautiful. He was used to shutting down and using his body as a weapon. He wasn’t used to me being a part of it.

  He said nothing as I stepped closer, shoved the gun into the front of my jeans and tried not to show discomfort. It didn’t look as menacing in Elias’ waistband. It hurt; the barrel scraped my hipbone and the handle dug into my stomach. I wouldn’t remove it. I needed quick access. When I’d shifted to get the weapon as comfortable as it could be, under Elias’ curious eye, I took another step. The women looked at me, feline snarls and hisses escaping their lips because they knew I could end this game at any second.

  “Only one of you may touch him here,” I said, stepping up to my husband and stroking his cock through his underwear. “And you decide who.”

  It was decided. I wouldn’t kill them, but they’d kill each other. The last one standing…she would be given a chance to escape. One chance.

  “Trixie,” Elias breathed again, but I raised my hand. He groaned, flexing his hips as if asking for me to return. I obliged. “You’re sick.”

  “I’m sick,” I returned. “But you’re mine. I decide who touches you. Anyone unworthy dies. It’s simple, really.”

  The women pause for a second. Hands freeze on Elias; lips stopped moving over his golden skin. All gazes fell on me.

  “What are you waiting for?” I asked, taking a step back and ignoring Elias’ incoherent plea for me to take him. “Let the battle begin.”

  She was insane. Certifiably insane.

  I hated her. I hated her because I’d kept my desires hidden from her until now…now, she was forcing me to acknowledge them in front of her and it would ruin us. She wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t hide it. I growled as the whores glanced at each other. They wondered if it was a game, if there was some way they could get out of it with a smart mouth a ton of excuses. There was no way out. My Ashford was serious and, finally, she had taken control. It may have brought me to my knees; it threatened to ruin me and steal me from the only place I’d called home—the box of deviance I kept locked. The one that would make Pandora puke—but she was taking control. Finally, she had embraced GRIT. Finally.

  A slap flashed in front of me, tearing my eyes from where they lingered on Trixie’s. One of the three blondes had struck first, forcing herself upon the woman she assumed threatened her. She would try to get rid of her first, to move herself higher up the food chain. Trixie’s hungry gaze watched as the other women turned on her too, five whores fighting the one they’d casted out first. Bare-knuckle murder. It was brutal. It was…beautiful. Blood sprayed from her nose and she raised her hands to try to shield herself from the blows. I watched on, as my cock wept for attention and twitched in my pants when the first of the victims was shoved to the ground and a pair of tight, toned legs straddled her. One pair of hands wrapped around her neck, then another and two women forced down until she turned blue. Her lips swelled, her eyes turned red and restricted chokes turned to silent bucks before death took over. The whores had accepted the challenge just like that…all for the promise of a quick fuck they wouldn’t receive and mercy they
wouldn’t be granted. I could see from the wicked glint in my wife’s eyes as she watched on in instinctual horror, that she had a plan for the last woman standing.

  The first woman was dead. I’d orchestrated that. I may have kept my hands clean and remained physically distant so I could claim innocence later…no. I didn’t want to claim innocence. These women had stolen children, they had forced them to do things no children should have even know had existed. I had the right to take justice for stolen futures.

  Five women were left and they all stood, surrounding the first woman, as if waiting for a bell to ring or something to tell them to continue.

  “I still see five women, don’t you, sir?” I asked Elias, keeping his identity secret…just in case. “How long shall we give them before we get you dressed and just put a bullet between their eyes?”

  To emphasise my point, I ran my hand over the gun, up and down. The barrel dipped lower in my jeans, stroking itself over my pussy. I clenched. My stomach fluttered and alerted me to my arousal. Why was I so turned on by this? I would have gladly let them kill each other and taken Elias in the corner of the cell, if it weren’t for the risk they’d break free, and I was in character. Character. I was playing a role. Had this been planned? Was this supposed to happen all along?

  Elias said nothing. He studied me, seeing me in the new light I had felt cast over me out of nowhere. I hadn’t seen this coming. I didn’t know I had the potential to be so…depraved. It was the only word I could think of to explain why my nipples were peaked beneath my bra as another soul slipped away and contaminated the air, another body on the floor of the dungeon. My clit throbbed as the four remaining women continued without a break. All of this for Elias. Murder, betrayal and deviance in the hopes of claiming Elias Blackwood as a gift.