The Salvation of Daniel (The Blue Butterfly Book 2)

by Sidebottom, D H

  “Fuck!” I snarled when I clamped her down harder. “You bitch!”

  “Let me go!” she cried, a deep sob wrenching from her as she writhed against me. My chest tightened. Shit, this was so wrong.

  Slinging her face down on the couch, I straddled her back, bracing any moving parts as I fought for breath. “Jesus Christ, love. You’re a lunatic!”

  “GET OFF ME!” she screeched.

  “Sshhh.” I slapped my hand over her mouth. Her teeth sank into the flesh of my palm. The slap around her head was instinctive as I brought my bitten hand to my mouth, sucking on my own blood. “Fuck sake, you crazy bitch.”

  The heel of her foot thudded into my lower back. I turned round, wondering how the hell she had freed the lower half of her legs. This bitch was crazy. However, I was slightly in awe of her spirit and her fight.

  I forced her face into the cushion with my hand on the back of her head and leant into her ear. “Will you stop! I’m seriously considering making your death as painful as possible!”

  She froze, her body seizing up beneath me. My heart beat stuttered.

  “What?” she whispered, her body completely lax underneath me.

  “It’s your time to die, love. I’m sorry.”

  She was silent, her whole spirit drowning in my declaration. “Why?”

  I frowned. I hadn’t expected that question. Sometimes kids were more intelligent than the hardest adult who would right now be begging me to let them live, not asking why I was ending their time on earth.

  “I have no idea. You’re just a job to me.”

  “How?”

  What the fuck was this chick on?

  “Uhh, I don’t know, how would you like it?” I shook my head in bewilderment.

  A small hiccup echoed from her before she tilted her head to the side and looked up at me. Her blue eyes shimmered under the pool of her tears, her lower lip trembled but she had this resolve about her, a steel spirit that was determined to keep her dignity.

  “Please don’t hurt Mae,” she whispered. “You can do what you want to me, but please don’t hurt my sister.”

  I stared at her, my heart threatening to break out of my chest. Her eyes locked on mine as she pleaded with me. My throat constricted, the bile in my stomach threatening to spray across her pale cheeks.

  I turned her body under me until she was on her back looking up at me. “Do you know what I am?”

  She shook her head, a tear that was rolling down the side of her face flinging off her face and landing on the knee of my jeans. I blinked at it, pressing my finger into it, the damp transferring onto my fingertip. “I’m a Phantom,” I told her as I ran the tip of my finger along my bottom lip, tasting the salt in her despair. “I’m trained to kill. I have a contract to end your life.”

  Her wide eyes stared up at me, her chest heaving with my words as she tried to stop herself from crying. I had never witnessed anyone with as much resilience as this thirteen-year-old girl trapped under my weight.

  “I’m afraid that whatever happens tonight, I have to kill you and your sister. It’s my job.”

  “No!” She shook her head from side to side, her tears fluent. “No, please. Leave Mae. Tell whoever sent you that she was in France with my parents. Or… or you could just say that you killed her and they’ll never find out. Please! Please! She doesn’t deserve this.” Obviously she thought that she did.

  I slid my thumb across her cheek, collecting her tears. She reached down and tore at her t-shirt, ripping it over her head, baring her small breasts sheathed by a simple white bra. “You can take what you want, you can…” She nodded to me, not wanting to voice her words. “Just leave Mae alone.”

  “Jesus Christ!” I stuttered out, yanking the throw from the back of the couch and covering her with it. “I’m not going to touch you. Not like that.”

  “Anything,” she begged. “Anything.”

  Fuck!

  I looked away, biting down the hatred curling inside me. An idea started to form in my head and I slowly lowered my eyes to her. Cocking my head, I studied her. She was exactly the right material; strong, feisty, brave and fucking crazy.

  This would cause a shit storm back home, but something told me it could work.

  Pulling in a deep breath, I narrowed my eyes on her. “I’m going to try something.”

  She frowned but gave me a slow nod.

  I lifted my hand, then paused and lowered it. Shit! Lifting it again, I slapped it across her cheek. Her eyes widened as her skin blushed but she bit into her lip, nodding in understanding. She braced herself and turned her face to the back of the sofa. “Do it.”

  I slapped her again, watching how she reacted to it. After twenty she started flinching, her skin now sore and her tears stinging where her skin erupted with tiny blood vessels.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as I smacked her again.

  “C…Connie.”

  “Connie, listen to me.” She nodded, squeezing her eyes closed as I hit her again. “You’re not breathing properly. You’re tensing before I even connect with you. Your tears are making this harder. Your fear is making adrenaline, which in turn is heightening the pain.”

  She opened her eyes, looking at me curiously. “Breathe in and out slowly.”

  She fought with herself but I waited until she’d taken control, the deep heaves of her chest bating.

  “Relax your body.”

  She scoffed at me, looking at me like I’d gone mad. I quirked a brow. She shrugged and took a deep breath, forcing her body to loosen. I smiled to myself, satisfied with her ability to take orders.

  “Now,” I whispered as I tilted her to face me with a finger on her sore cheek. “Stop crying.”

  She gulped but nodded, calming beneath me. Her compliance made me grin. She scowled at me but I shook my head, tutting at her. She relaxed again, taking another breath, her chest still stuttering slightly.

  She blinked when I struck her twice, one on each cheek. The lift of her brow confirmed she had followed my instruction perfectly.

  “Good.” I slid off her. She blinked at me, confused as to why I suddenly relented. “You show promise.”

  “Promise?”

  “Uh-huh.” I made my way back to the door and turned. “You will become a Phantom two weeks after your fifteenth birthday, in exchange for your sister’s life.”

  Her mouth dropped when realisation hit her, her eyes widening as her breath stuttered. “You’re too young yet. However, don’t think I will forget you, Connie. And don’t think you can hide.” I smirked at her. “And believe me when I say that no one can get you out of this. Tell anyone and our agreement is void. I will return and I will kill both you and your sister, but next time I won’t be lenient.”

  I pulled open the door and looked back. “Do you understand me?”

  She nodded slowly, shock obstructing her ability to function normally.

  I winked, clicking my tongue at her. “See you soon.”

  I couldn’t help the large grin from erupting across my face as I left the house. Suddenly, life didn’t seem so bad. There was something about the kid that got to me. I had no idea what, but I was sure I would soon find out.

  Out Now

  You meet someone. You date. You fall in love. You marry.

  The four simple rules of love….

  Wrong! I’m married but I’d never met him before now, never dated him, never fell in love. I have no access to the memories of the most magical time of anyone’s life.

  My mind won’t allow me to evoke the past, I can’t remember those four simple stages.

  I can’t comprehend why I would have ever married someone like Dante. I should never have passed the first stage, although, I may have seen him through the eyes of the woman I once was, this me that lives, breathes here now, can’t understand how we made it to the next stage.

  I’m not sure, without memories, how I know that this voice inside me, telling me I would never have chosen him, speaks some truth, I just k
now. He’s controlling, arrogant, callous and violent, and utterly hell bent on humiliating and degrading me – Like watching me falter, watching me struggle to comply and be the woman he married, powers him- as though he wants to break me piece by piece. Fibre by fibre. Until all that’s here is the shell he created from a soul that I once owned.

  Now my memories are slowly returning. And they show me a completely different side to meeting him. Our dates, falling in love. The Dante haunting me in the shadows of my mind is loving, gentle and utterly enamoured with me, nothing like the man with me now.

  And this is what taunts me. My tender lover turned into a debauched, cruel sadist who is determined to consume my life, destroy my mind and murder my spirit.

  I am, Star, and just like with some stars in the sky, the light you see is an echo, a façade, I am already gone

  I am a no one.

  Especially to him. To him I am the dark in his desires, the corrupt in his depravity.

  The sin in his immorality.

  Olivia Thomas is in love, pure, simple soul consuming love. Nathan Carter is her other half, her light, her passion.

  After three years of being together at university; three years of being joined, of a love so intense, passionate and spirited they thought their future was safe and endless but life always finds a cruel way to interfere and they soon find their relationship can’t withstand destiny’s intrusions and obstacles.

  Two decades later destiny apologises and brings them back together by sheer chance, re-igniting their intense passion, connection and love but they soon find that twenty years of life, secrets and lies creates difficulties and struggles even their bond might struggle to endure.

  When an evil from Olivia’s past returns to haunt them and rip apart everything they have managed to build back up, can the lovers survive with their love and souls still intact…or their lives?

  I am a brother

  I am a police detective

  I am a contract killer

  I don’t want to love

  I don’t want to feel

  I don’t want … EMPATHY.

  They say some people are born with decreased activity in the front central lobe causing them a deficiency in empathy. Maybe that’s true about me but whether I was born this way or created in a moment of evil, empathy was something I didn’t possess until her green eyes met mine in the mirror and I couldn’t take her life.

  I didn’t want to feel, didn’t want this woman in my life complicating how I lived but she was there at every turn. Sent to haunt me for my sins. Her light so bright she provoked a shadow from everyone she touched. When a job turns bad quickly altering my life forever I’m forced to feel. When nothing is making sense I’m forced to face truths I never would recover from. When life drowns you in its cruelty you don’t know which way the current will drag you or who you’ll become once you re-surface.

  I was a daughter

  I was a student

  I was a victim

  Did I have his love?

  Did I make him feel?

  Did I have his empathy?

  When the actions of a soulless killer forces sorrow into my veins I never dreamed the man healing my wounds would be the one to leave the worst scar. His love would scar my soul. Scars are permanent; I will never feel the relief from them. Will I learn to live with them, remember why I have them and learn never to let him close enough to inflict more? Will I eventually cover them… like tattoos coating them with new memories, new love and new starts? I didn’t know these answers because the pain was too suffocating, the only thing I knew was they will always be under the surface lingering. He had scars too, from his sins. There is nothing that can cover them, they were too deep, too ugly, too dark and they marked us both forever.

  Teaser from Empathy

  I burst through the doors, the rain immediately beating against my skin, the cold droplets soaking me through but not cleansing the pain away.

  Loneliness is suffocating me. I miss them so much I can barely breathe. There was no leads but they were releasing the bodies to us so they could be buried. My heart hurts so much. How can people survive loss like this?

  The laughter of a couple running to find shelter is so deafening, I want to scream at them to notice they have each other, they’re happy and completely oblivious to the person dying right in front of them. I’m here, can you see me…? On the inside I’m screaming save me from the depths of this empty void but on the out my pain is clearly transparent because no way people could ignore the death of a soul happening right in front of them. Right?

  A shiver rocks through my body making my whole body vibrate. I stand there drenched, my clothes sticking to my skin, but I can’t move. The beat from the downpour tap dancing over the ground is keeping me from picturing them, it’s grounding me to this moment, the drops hitting the surface, bouncing off, expanding, swallowing, drowning everything beneath it.

  “Puya?” Blake, barely visible through the torrent, calls to me.

  What is he doing standing there in the rain? I can feel his intensity shift the air around us. My heart begins to beat hard, reminding me it could feel more than just the pain. He affected me in a way that confused and excited me all in the same moment.

  His strides eat up the ground between us. “Why do you call me that?” I murmur, not sure if I’m dreaming him the way my mind has been in a constant fog lately. I wouldn’t be shocked if I suddenly awoke in my dorm alone.

  Droplets formed, pebbling over the smooth planes of his face and in his heavy soaked hair before running a path down his beautiful features, trickles clung from his dark, long eyelashes. He reached out to me, capturing my wrist, the pad of his thumb stroking over my small tattoo there. “Do you want to die?”

  The laugh rippled through me. What a question. I thought I had died. I was living between the two realms. His eyes bore into mine, my laugh turned quickly into a sob, my hands trying to cover my face from his probing stare. My legs were weak, I was going to fall in a heap right in front of him, all my scars on display for him to recoil from.

  Who could deal with someone grieving, losing themselves, drowning in the current of sorrow right in front of them, getting them caught in the wake of my despair? Strong arms came around me, lifting me into a bridal hold. I couldn’t look up at him. I reached my arms around his neck and burrowed my face into the crook there. I needed someone to catch my tears, wipe them away and just hold me, let me know I was still here.

  I didn’t query the fact he knew my dorm room as he opened it and walked us inside, going straight to my bathroom. I could hear the shower start and his heavy breathing as he manoeuvred around. His heart was thumping erratically against my chest.

  The warmth from the water made me sigh as it poured over us still clothed. He lowered us in the cubicle with me on his lap to a sitting position. “I’m so lonely without them,” I murmur into his neck before lifting my head to find an intensity so raw in his eyes it flayed me, stripping back the final layers and exposing my soul completely bare to him. “I needed justice for them but I’m not going to get it… so I want vengeance. But first I want to forget for just a little while.” My breathing became pants. I needed to feel something else, I needed to feel connected. I couldn’t keep dying alone, fading into nothing, I needed an anchor.

  My eyes drop to his lips I feel his already hard cock beneath my ass. “Take me Blake, make me forget for just a little while, make me feel something more than the hollowness.” This must have triggered something inside him because his lips crash against mine hard and mercifulness, his teeth nipping at my bottom lip. His hand slipped up into my hair, grasping fists falls, tipping my head back with force. His mouth claims my vulnerable throat, the build was already catching fire inside my core. He spins me so my back is against his chest, my ass sitting snug on top of his hard erection. He tugs my hair, wrenching my head to the side so he can re-claim my neck with his lips, sucking, teasing me. My hips move on their own, grinding against him to try and gain some
friction to ease the ache throbbing between my legs. His hands grip my wet tee, ripping it from my body, making me gasp and exposing the lace bra covering my hard nipples.

  Reaching for the buttons on my jeans, he tugs them open before I feel the warm solid presence of his body leave mine for a few seconds. He was fumbling above us. Before I could turn to see what he is doing, warm water eased from above, shelling down on us. I’m about to query him until his hand wraps around my front, pulling me hard against him once more, leaning me back and slipping the shower head into my panties.

  The warm water massages in waves of continuous ripples over my sensitive lips, the intensity making me squirm. “Open yourself up for me,” he groans into my ear.

  I’m nervous but so turned on. I need the relief he is offering. I push at my jeans and panties so they move further down my legs, the cold air mixed with the heated temperature of the water makes me catch my breath.

  He hisses when I slip my fingers down my pussy, opening myself for his eyes to devour. His growl and roughness as he tears the cup of my bra away, make my hard nipple impossibly harder, sending shock waves of adrenaline pulsing through me. I’m almost vibrating out of my skin.

  Moving the shower head to my now exposed clit makes me quiver, the pressure was perfect and he held it in a way that his thumb was over the flow and his knuckle was stroking the delicate buddle of nerves. His other thumb had my nipple trapped between it and his forefinger pinching. I couldn’t take it the pleasure was incredible and I lost myself to lust so powerful it took possession of my body and mind.

  I writhe against him, his cock prodding against my ass and lower back. He was thick and long. My needy moans were loud and shameless, hitting and bouncing off the tiled walls creating an echo of chorused moans, my hands exploring myself as his did.