Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters Book 1)

by Lana Sky

  This is the only language we know how to speak. Fingers. Skin. Nails. He thrusts his hand, and I lunge forward to bite the arm he has braced against the floor. He deepens his touch...I bite harder. Grunting with pain, he doesn’t let up. He’s searching me the same way he did the night with Donahugh, seeking out any trace of another monster. I know before he gives up that he won’t find any—if only he could do the same thing to my head—rip out Vinny and leave me hollow. My old tormentor rages from the grave, bellowing in my ear...

  “You think,” the devil starts, drowning him out and everything else, “you think I was watching over Espi?”

  I don’t like the note of confusion in his voice. If he wasn’t guarding Espi’s door, then why...

  “I don’t care.” I shake my head, consumed by the hand he still has between my legs. I look up to find three tiny puncture wounds pierce the flesh of his forearm bared beneath the sleeve of his dark tee shirt. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth, but my throat rushes to swallow it down rather than spit it out.

  Whore, Vinny would cackle. You deserve to be used like one.

  But the cadence of Lucifer’s breathing makes it harder to hear him. Harder to care. Harder to focus on anything but the searing burn of hellfire. Without warning, he touches me again...and, like a true addict, I can’t resist the promise of one last high. My hand finds his, the nails digging in until he retaliates, clutching my thigh so tightly he breaks the skin. More blood spills, coating his nails and catching on the air like the opening notes of our own fucked-up melody.

  I assume he takes my gasp for permission because the next second he manipulates me like a rag doll, stripping off the pretty, comfortable clothing Espi picked out for me. My pink sweater hits the counter. My black stretch pants bunch up around my ankles. I hear his jeans come undone. I feel the slick heat of him against my inner thigh, but the bastard waits until I reach back myself and slide my hand along his length before he mounts me, shoving himself deep.

  The searing friction ricochets through every nerve ending, but I need him deeper. Harder. Faster. More, more—God I need more. I writhe until he gives in, riding me like an animal right there before the sliding glass door. Any nosy neighbor with good vision could see us. Hear us.

  And I don’t give a damn.

  “More,” I rasp. “More, more.” He pivots, swiveling his hips to spark a carnal friction that makes me bite my tongue, it’s too much. Not enough, even as my knees are rubbed raw while he lunges to find his own primal rhythm.

  We’re animals.

  But I don’t even start to ride that dizzying trip to the edge of insanity until he flips me over, pulling out. Only to wrench my legs apart and slide back in. Slower, this time. Deeper. Harder. His eyes find mine, glowing in the shadows, reinforcing with every thrust just who really owns my soul. I can almost see the letters of his name, flashing across my vision like stars. D A N T E...

  The brand on my chest is on fire. The blood in my veins simmers. When the fire finally spills over I can only gasp, digging my nails into his shoulders so fiercely they break the skin.

  Spent and slick with sweat, he gives me five seconds to catch my breath before rolling from on top of me. With my eyes on the ceiling, I expect him to walk away. Instead, he merely waits until my vision clears before rising onto his hands and knees, dragging me closer by my ankle.

  It’s a familiar scene as he hunches between my splayed legs like a wolf, lowering his head. One brush of his tongue and I croak out the language that he made me fluent in. “Fuck, Fuck—” my voice dies off when he lashes at my throbbing skin, taking his time, heedless of the mess. Lapping. Sucking. Devouring.

  Any disgust I might feel is too weak to truly register. I’m riding the high again. By the time my voice returns, I’m already over the edge, and his name spills out like a curse and a prayer.

  His lips are still wet when he breaks away, and his mouth finds mine. I should cringe away from the pungent taste his tongue carries when he slams it past my lips—but I don’t care. I kiss him back. Bite him back. I dig my nails down his arms, leaving my mark until he takes me again.

  Harder. Faster. Meaner. Rougher. Deeper.

  We may never be fully adept at the art of verbal conversation...but our bodies have mastered it.

  I’m sore when he pulls out the final time, painting my stomach with his release. He doesn’t bother to rub it in this time. He doesn’t have to. When he collapses down beside me, we both know who really owns whom.

  But even this moment can’t erase three months of suspicion.

  “You went back to him,” the devil spits out at the ceiling, broaching the topic I suppose festered between us since the morning I left him at Mack’s. “That fucking bastard. You went back to him.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” I hear myself say, though do I truly believe that? I damn well had a choice—I just made the one that worked in his favor. The act didn’t make me a saint—in fact, it made me more corrupt than any fallen angel.

  I’d willingly traded my soul for the devil.

  “The fuck you didn’t,” he snarls. “I would have gotten Espi back on my own—”

  “He would have killed you.” I let the words hang, but when I hear his mouth open, I reach for his hand and dig my nails into the scarred, calloused surface. The remains of our promise leave an ugly mark across his palm, identical to the one on mine. “He would have killed you,” I croak, surprised that he doesn’t try to pull away—not that I could let him go. “He would have made me watch. And I couldn’t...I couldn’t.”

  I’ve stabbed a man to death. Had sex with a stranger on camera. My soul was stained black with so many crimes, but I couldn’t bear to watch him die. Maybe that made me a coward, worse than Vinny. He had been sadistic. I was selfish.

  Dante wrenches his hand from my grip, only to turn the tables by seizing my wrist so tightly the bones compact. “So, you figured it was easier to let me watch you die,” he says in that dangerous, unsteady octave.

  “It wasn’t how I thought,” I croak out when he doesn’t say anything else. “Killing him. I thought...I thought it would be easier to...” Move on? Look at my future with Espi at the helm and magically heal like every other damsel in distress did at the end of her fairy tale? Some days, I even longed for that simple, easy bliss. Lynn used to pray for it.

  But now...

  “Killing him wasn’t enough, Dante. Not when there are a million other bastards waiting to take his place. I want...” My eyes scan the ceiling once again while the weight of those two words settles over my tongue. I want. A fancy music school or peace wasn’t enough to satisfy this new creature born in the ashes of Vinny’s destruction. “I want to ruin everything he’s ever built so that no one can claim it. I need to.”

  The devil stirs beside me, dragging himself upright, but he doesn’t loosen his grip. “So what? You think you can just go back and take on fuckers like Mack on your own?”

  “I heard what Arno told you,” I admit. They may have been brothers, but even the closest of family didn’t enjoy sharing power. “And you have Espi to look after. This isn’t your problem—”

  “Damn it. Get up.” I blink as Dante rises to his feet, drawing his jeans back up. He took his shirt off, however, and I catch a glimpse of the silvery scars left on his torso. “Now,” he snaps when I don’t move. “Get up.”

  Wincing, I obey and follow him up the stairs, into the small bathroom. When he flicks the switch, the artificial light washes over our bodies, casting the blood on his arm in stark relief—not that he bothers to even wince as he cuts on the shower. We take turns bathing, and when I’m done, he leaves for a minute only to return with clothes fished from my duffle. The lilac sweater and dark jeans make for a strange armor against the uncertainty.

  In silence, we return downstairs, and the devil opens the front door, marshaling me out onto the front stoop—though we leave my bag behind.

  Darkness paints the quiet neighborhood gray, almost swallowing the black
truck idling alongside the curb. When Lucifer pulls open the passenger-side door, I recognize the driver and my heels promptly dig into the pavement.

  “It’s all right,” the devil claims while Gino stares dead ahead, his hands on the steering wheel.

  “Evening Ms. Manzano,” he greets me, but I can’t seem to move until the devil climbs in first, jerking his chin for me to follow.

  “It’s all right,” Dante repeats, and I climb onto the backseat. The moment I close the door behind me, Gino starts driving.

  “You make sure he’s secure?” Dante asks him, his voice gruff.

  “Of course.” Gino shrugs without taking his eyes off the road. There’s an ease to his posture that wasn’t there around Vinny. Hell, he almost seems relaxed as he blends into the trickle of late-night traffic. “Your ’friend’ hid him well, but not well enough.”

  “Good,” Dante grunts, flexing his hands in and out of fists. “I hope the fucker’s comfortable.”

  “Who?”

  Gino ignores me, but Dante glances back and the dangerous gleam in his eye...

  It’s terrifying.

  It’s beautiful.

  “Stacatto didn’t get lucky,” he says, “someone sold out, Espi. I know who.”

  I don’t have the chance to question him before the truck comes to a stop in a narrow alley and both men climb out. Drawing a gun from his pocket, Gino waits near the truck while Dante drags me forward, toward a battered metal door that opens into a small building. It’s dark inside, and the air smells dank, like rust. Only a flickering light bulb illuminates the cavernous storeroom of what appears to be a warehouse.

  The stench of rust tickles my nose, and I have to feel along the wall with one hand until the moment Dante comes to a stop. He inclines his head toward a single flickering light bulb dangling from the ceiling. There, on his knees is a man stuffed inside an ill-fitting suit, his hands bound behind his back. In a second I can place a name to the kneeling figure. Donahugh.

  “You want to get rid of the bastards who run the city?” Dante questions, watching the man before us with those hellfire eyes. “Then make a choice, right now. Either you wait around for monsters like Stacatto to die off or...you beat the fucking peace in, blow by blow.”

  I swallow hard as his words resonate through my skin, settling deep into the remains of my soul. Donahugh spots us and a bead of sweat trickles down his forehead while his eyes widen. “What...what do you mean?” I rasp.

  “Someone gave this fucker a new kind of leverage to barter with Stacatto,” Dante says.

  “Who?”

  He shakes his head. “That bastard is mine. But him...”

  He reaches into his pocket and shoves something into my hand. I know what it is, even before my fingers seek out the familiar shape. My trusty little knife. The weapon is more symbolic, however, compared to what he gives me next. I stiffen. He hasn’t taught me how to wield this item yet.

  “Like this,” he prompts, nudging my fingers into what I assume are the proper positions. Regardless, the weapon still feels heavy and awkward in my grip, not that I let it go.

  Instead, I start toward Donahugh. At this moment, I’m not Lynn anymore—but I’m not Daniela either. I’m not quite sure who this new creature is eyeing the figure before her, muttering curses behind a strip of duct tape sealing his mouth shut.

  The bastard doesn’t even seem human...

  Just a liability. Another potential Vinny. Another danger to some other helpless girl too stupid to know a man from a monster.

  Does he deserve to die?

  Maybe not. After all, the devil taught me that you can’t hate an animal. You can only fear it...or “put it out of its fucking misery.”

  Knowing that, it’s easy to raise my arm and position my fingers over the trigger. A warm hand grazes the small of my back, reinforcing the devil’s latest advice. Make a choice.

  With him beside me, it’s easier to aim the barrel of the gun straight at the man’s head.

  Wrapped beneath the shadow of Lucifer’s fallen wings, it’s even easy to squeeze the trigger, snuffing out one more monster’s life.

  But there are plenty more awaiting their turn, and with hell at my back...

  They only need to be patient.

  LEARN MORE:

  www.lanaskybooks.com

  Lana Sky is a reclusive writer in the United States who spends most of her time daydreaming about complex male characters and legless cats. She writes mostly paranormal romance, in between watching reruns of Ab Fab and drinking iced tea. Only iced tea.

  OTHER NOVELS:

  https://lanaskybooks.com/books/

  When diagnosed with a fatal illness at the age of twenty six, Eleanor Gray is resigned to her fate—at least until the enigmatic Dublin Helos appears and makes her an offer she knows she should refuse:

  Life or Death?

  With a decision as harmless as checking the wrong box on a mysterious questionnaire, Ellie is plunged into a dangerous world where souls are sold to the highest bidder and pleasure is fueled by pain.

  The rules of this new life are simple: submit everything—mind, body and soul. But the further Ellie falls under Dublin’s control, the more she comes to realize that it’s not just her sanity at stake, but her heart and a whole lot of blood too.

  All's fair in sex, love, and Rock N' Roll.

  Star publicist Abby Newman takes only the roughest, toughest and naughtiest rockstars under her belt. Her love of bad boys has warranted her a naughty reputation to boot—but her newest client, country crooner Jason Daniels, is anything but. In fact, Jason’s sweet, wholesome image isn’t in need of a clean-up, so Abby can’t understand why he’s so insistent on hiring her.

  But, after a few clandestine meetings, she’s quick to realize that the Jason Daniels isn’t exactly the same man in real life that he pretends to be on the radio. In fact, he brings a whole new form of ‘bad’ to the table and, before she can help it, Abby finds herself hopelessly falling under his spell.

  After all, all's fair...

  Sheltered by an overprotective family, Amy Sager—a shy twenty something poet from Canada—just wanted to break out of her shell and be free to live her own life. What better way to assert her new found independence than by moving to San Francisco?

  However, when she meets a tall, blood-drenched stranger she gets more than she bargained for. Jackie is everything she should never want. Violence, lies, and even murder taint this strange man, but she finds herself irresistibly drawn to him…like a moth to flame.

  When their relationship strains her loyalty and his livelihood, it isn't long before violence consumes her independence and Amy’s quest for freedom turns into just another story of a good girl caught on the wrong side of the tracks, too far gone to turn back.

  Perfection. It is an illusion that twenty-year-old Anya DeSotto strives to maintain.

  The perfect ballerina.

  The perfect daughter.

  The perfect liar.

  Everyone else seems fooled by the charade—but Anya isn’t prepared for the moment her perfect mask is cracked in half by someone much more adept at the art of pretending.

  Nearly two decades her senior, Revend Marcus, the owner of a prestigious international ballet company, has no problem with breaking Anya down to suit his own twisted idea of perfection. But when a shadow from Revend’s past looms over their futures, and Anya’s insecurities push their relationship to a violent crescendo, the resulting chaos threatens to destroy them both.

  Though, sometimes, even destruction can be pretty perfect.

  LEARN MORE ABOUT HER:

  Website: http://www.lanaskybooks.com

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  Twitter: @lanasky101

 

 

 
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