Wicked Weapon (Dark Hearts Book 2)

by Cari Silverwood

  If it was going to be Zorie and me in these guys’ bad books, or just me...then I chose me.

  “I had him killed.”

  They both stiffened and I rechecked what held me. Handcuffs? They could be picked, but I couldn’t break them. So frustrating, to feel the strength of my muscles when I tensed, the way my biceps bulged against the chair timber, and yet to be helpless in the face of that ungiving metal. Only thin steel stood between death and freedom. If I charged at Einar and Kaage, I might take one out, but both was unlikely.

  Einar squatted beside me with that cane poking the floor as a third leg, as if for balance. “You had Reuben killed?”

  I could head butt him easily. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Her.” I twitched my head at the door. “She was being fucked over royally by Reuben. I couldn’t take it anymore. I arranged for him to be killed. Happy now?”

  “You wanted to protect her? To save her?” After staring at me awhile, Einar stood. “I think we might be happy?” he looked to Kaage, who nodded. “Yes, we are. Did you know, Mister Heller, that you are partway to being a mesmer? That must be why she managed to talk to you about us.”

  Oh fuck me sideways. It’d worked? My head whirled. For a few seconds, I only saw potential futures. I didn’t want them to all end here.

  “I see you didn’t. I think we can use you, Mister Heller.”

  Again, Kaage nodded to Einar, then he went on to say, “Yes. We have your confession about the murder recorded. We have leverage. We might have a place for you here, training our collected women. Would you like that? There will be further entry requirements, but as it stands, we can let you in.”

  As what? I didn’t dare ask for details. They weren’t going to kill me?

  So...from what I could gather, being known as a murderer was a tick in my favor.

  They weren’t going to offer this twice.

  I didn’t trust these strangers. Why were they offering me anything? Their reasons had a certain logic, but I didn’t trust them.

  “You don’t mind that I tried to protect her by killing one of you?” I spelled this out slowly, maybe wrecking my chances, but if they were toying with me, it might give me a head start. They might sort of let me go, then fuck me over somehow.

  If at all possible, I wanted to be the one doing the fucking over.

  “Reuben was halfway across the world. We all kill to protect our interests. Real men do.”

  Interesting definition.

  Kaage came up to me then, smiling.

  “We won’t let you free until we’re sure of you. We’ll give you this chance because we know how the mesmer ability will...” He stopped as if to choose a word.

  “It will change you,” Einar finished for him. “You’ll see.”

  Fuck. I blinked at them both. Were they saying I’d become a monster like them? Every mesmer I’d seen, including Mavros, seemed self-serving, and most would sell their mother for a new susceptible girl. ‘Collectors’ was exactly the right word. They collected women and their hobby was vile to normal men.

  “I’m in,” I croaked.

  Better than dead. And this way, I could watch over Zorie, then get us both away ASAP. The monster thing, if that was what they meant, they had no idea who I was inside.

  “Good,” Einar said. “Then let’s see you fuck her. You’re not a mesmer yet. I’ll show you how I can make her come for you.”

  For a few seconds I was stunned.

  I should not want this, but I did. I’d have thrown away a winning lottery ticket for this.

  Chapter 7

  Grimm

  After calling in a couple of armed guards to watch me, they had my handcuffs swapped for shackles that held my hands at the front with a long chain between them, so now I could use my hands. I could strangle with that chain. I guess they knew of the potential for violence, not that I’d have tried anything with so many of them anyway.

  The five of us went through that side door and I found myself in a room big enough for a good old British banquet, with an ornate fireplace, a high ceiling, a timber floor with rugs in a few places, and tall, skinny, stained-glass windows. Very Lord of the Manor in atmosphere. In the middle of the rug at the far end of the room, near a big, solid chair, Zorie kneeled.

  As we approached, I could look nowhere else but at her. The two guards kept to the periphery, while Kaage and Einar went around to her front. She hadn’t looked at me, yet, and I studied her. What must she be thinking? To be caught by these men, these collectors, again?

  These must be the same ones who had taken Cherie, her student. There surely couldn’t be more than one big, organized, trafficking ring in the UK, with mesmers involved...could there?

  In a way, Mavros would want her here, so she could kill them. She might even want to be here, once she figured out who they were. This might be the best chance for us to free Cherie.

  This was so dangerous.

  If we stayed here when we could escape, the sacrifice could be immense. Though escaping wouldn’t be simple.

  “Here we are, back to see you again, Zorie.” Einar had smug captor down pat. He crouched and put his hand on her, levering up her chin. “Do you know what we want you to do?”

  “No?” She frowned fleetingly before he tsked and her brow smoothed.

  Now I knew what seeing red meant. I clenched my jaw, shuffled my feet, but stayed put. Striding over and smacking him would be bad.

  When Mavros had screwed her but made her see only him, she’d been like this, not looking about or comprehending who else was with her. Then, it’d been me lurking, holding her still for him to fuck. I’d weathered that. I’d let it slide past me, because I’d known, after months of being her bodyguard, that she felt zero passion for me. That she never would.

  “Come here, you.” Einar beckoned to me, pointing to a spot just to Zorie’s left and a little behind her.

  I walked there, my balls already tightening. I guess they figured this was going to cement my loyalty. If she didn’t desire me, this sex would surely be flavorless.

  “Put your forehead to the floor and your pretty bottom in the air, Zorie.”

  Fuck, this was happening.

  I watched her prostrate herself more, with her ass tilting up. Her cunt showed. Such an intimate female place that no man saw unless he was about to fuck her. The increasing arch of her back seemed to say she wanted this. Then I saw how Einar was caressing her breast, and now he slid his hand over her head, and pressed on her with his palm.

  And the unwilling part, my dirty conscience pushed at me. You’re okay with that?

  She would want me to do it. She wanted this because he made her want. That was how Einar would present this. This was what mesmers did.

  My cock agreed. It had been pulsing and rising ever since I figured out what was coming. Was I this immoral? This dirty? Maybe it was some weird, subconscious revenge for her killing Tom? That would almost be better.

  Almost.

  “Stay there, pretty one. We need to show you how this begins. First we get you to be fucked by a man who isn’t a mesmer...or not quite in this one particular circumstance. We will train you to respond to normal men again, by positive association slowly, surely. It happens when you have enough climaxes with a man inside you. Then we sell you, and your new owner will be so happy with you.”

  Damn, that worked?

  I think I heard her whimper but then her ass swayed and, god help me, I watched a creamy wetness well from her pussy and her entrance clench inward. It was hypnotizing.

  “You want...in?” Einar smiled at me. The man was creepy, in spite of his rumbling, assured voice. “Fuck her and I’ll show you how things can be pleasurable for her, and for you. Step forward. Take out that big cock I can see in your pants. Fuck her. Now.”

  Or else?

  “You have ten seconds. I’m counting.”

  Or else die.

  “Nine, eight, seven...”

  I stepped forward. Only took me
two steps. I unzipped and took out my cock, which was supremely happy judging by the huge erection I had. Was this me? Truly? Or was the mesmer bug affecting me already?

  I put my hands on her dress and pushed the edge so it slipped farther down the slope of her back, revealing her sweet waist. The chain between my wrist shackles curled and slid across her skin.

  Then I kneeled behind her, and I held my breath as I put the head of my cock to her cunt and then, I slipped it in. Fuck, the feel of her clamping down on me, and then her moan...that, oh yes that moan, it sent my own pleasure skyrocketing.

  I didn’t say anything; I didn’t dare to. I simply began fucking her. I slid in slowly, all the way until I was embedded to my balls inside that hot tunnel, and Zorie only gasped then moaned some more.

  “Good?” Einar smirked.

  Ignore the bastard. As if I could look at him for more than a split second. I was inside her and she was fucking wanting me. My morality was in tatters but then I had no choice. Did I? I gritted my teeth, holding back, still in deep, as if that’d mean I was good. That I could stop. I dug my fingers into her hips.

  “Keep going,” Einar grated out.

  No choice.

  I extracted my cock almost to the tip, grunting as the swell of lust hit me – how incredibly hot she was kneeling for me like this with the sweetness of her curves undulating in my grasp. I let my reluctance fall away. Rocking in and out, thrusting in and out, I slipped into her, took her, fascinated by the increasing wetness moistening that pathway inside her.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  I halted, saying nothing. Excruciating, but I was lost in a place halfway between ecstasy and betrayal. Little more than a few ticks of the clock went past before she writhed under me then her cunt muscles pulsed around my cock like she never wanted it out of her. She lay there breathing erratically with her mouth open and her eyes shut.

  “No more talking. No asking,” Einar growled his words, sounding like an annoyed bear.

  I couldn’t stop by then, well, I could have. I didn’t want to, but still...

  “Let her say. Let her say...if, she likes this.” My sentences had come out in a low, grunted staccato. She couldn’t know that strangled voice.

  Then I jammed in full depth and ground myself on her, while sneaking a hand beneath to play with her clit. My fingers V’d about it then slid her wetness all over her pussy and her thighs, even wetting around my dick where it went into her.

  Yeah, that’s me in you. I’d stopped myself from fucking Zorie so many times, for so many months. I pinched her clit then massaged it rhythmically, slowly.

  Her intake of breath was sharp. Her body tensed under me.

  Einar put his mouth to her ear. “Answer him. The truth.”

  “Fuck.” She buried her face in the rug, then twisted her lower body, swayed her ass away from me, but I followed her, never letting my cock be moved from that deep buried place inside her.

  Then...she swayed back and I felt her move against me inside her cunt also. She became so tight that it was agony not to plow her.

  “Oh fuck.” She half-sighed, half-moaned, a noise I’d not heard from her before. “Yes. I like it.” Her butt thrust back toward me, asking for more.

  I fucked her hard then and rough. Rough enough to bunch up the rug and make her squeal a few times. When she cried out and shuddered in orgasm, it took my breath away. I would never forget the moment I’d first felt her come, though a million years went by.

  I licked the sweat on her back and smelled the scent of her skin, memorized the movements of her ribs and the softness of her ass cheeks under my hands...watched the stir of the red curls of hair at her nape after Einar let her go. The little raven tattoo that Mavros had put on her stood out starkly.

  She was beautiful.

  I’d come inside her though I had no condom.

  Mesmers didn’t often get girls pregnant, so Mavros had said.

  With her face still that blotchy pink from the exertion of being fucked and coming, I couldn’t resist her nakedness, I bit her back in a few places, leaving marks. They’d fade but they were my marks. Then I leaned over her and whispered. “It was me. Grimm.”

  Her eyes scrunched closed.

  As a guard led me to a room to clean up, I watched his heels.

  Was that a good thing, or a bad thing that I’d done? Not the fucking, that was something I needed quiet to figure out. Those last words, they’d spilled without me thinking.

  I decided it was neither. The words were those of triumph only, that I’d finally taken her, and made her like it. Not good, not bad. Just right.

  Chapter 8

  Grimm

  The room they locked me into was windowless and probably underground, judging by the damp on the brick walls and the two flights of stairs we’d descended. The guard shut the heavy door behind me. With the shackles attached to a wall point via a long chain, I could sleep on the small bed or use the bathroom I glimpsed through the doorless opening to my right, but I was trapped. The one plus was the two walls covered in bookshelves and books, along with boxes stacked before it. More books inside those. Musty and mold-covered, but still books. Maybe they knew I was a librarian.

  To get out of here, either they would have to unlock me, or I’d have to break the chain or the wall point. The wrist part looked as solid as a wide handcuff.

  I wasn’t planning on going anywhere yet, anyway. I needed to find out what Zorie wanted to do. Possibly she’d want to kill me.

  I couldn’t blame her. My dick still remembered what it’d felt like inside her when she came.

  I sank onto the bed, sitting there listening to the last creak of the bed before silence settled.

  I had no choice. I was made to. Those might cut it in a court of law. I wasn’t sure, but they might. But Zorie? Fucking her while she was under the influence of a mesmer would seem the worst betrayal possible, when she could think straight again. That might be now. From what she’d said, her body’s needs would overcome her. She would’ve felt pleasure but once away from the mesmer, she unleashed hate. She’d always known what was happening even if other women succumbed more fully.

  Yeah, she’d be confused and hating me right now.

  I put my head in my hands and breathed through them a while. I had to set this right somehow. If I’d stopped, Einar and Kaage would’ve gotten rid of me.

  That I’d enjoyed it? Natural to feel pleasure when you came. Though I wasn’t sure it was natural to even get an erection under those circumstances. Fear nibbled at me, and I never admitted fear. Everyone got scared sometime in their life, but most times I pushed it away, did what I had to.

  What if my pleasure was me becoming this monster they’d suggested all mesmers became? Their exact words were lost to my memory, but they’d said something like that to me.

  I feared myself altering when I couldn’t control it.

  Loss of control to the point where I hurt those I’d once loved? Shit. I swallowed then rose to my feet. Maybe a hot shower would help me shed this doom.

  The water soon steamed up the glass of the cubicle. My saturated shirt stuck to me and I watched the water run in rivers down it to the muscles of my stomach. The shackles meant I couldn’t undress fully. I’d given up on giving a fuck about wearing clothes in the shower. Their heating system worked well enough. If the bed got soaked pfft.

  I had worse worries. I’d fucked Zorie when she’d said yes, but not really said yes. With my forehead leaning on the glass I worried at my thoughts some more. This was the woman I’d spent ages protecting from harm, as much as I could. The one I’d stalked for a year at the university library before I figured I may as well ask her for a date. Her love of teaching and of helping her students learn, it had reached in and squeezed my hardened heart.

  I remembered how she sat on park benches, with her legs folded up. How she laughed on the beach when we were sunbathing. The way the sunlight sculpted her curves and left a gold halo as it reflected through the
tiny hairs on her arms and neck. How small her hand had felt in mine on those rare occasions when she’d let me hold it.

  She’d liked me too, I was sure, but now... I’d messed up. I’d done the equivalent of screwing up the paper on which our relationship was written and tossing it in the bin.

  The water roared past my ears. “Shit,” I whispered.

  I’d wanted her by my side, in my bed. I think I was actually more afraid that what I’d done to her back there in the fireplace room was simply the real me and not the mesmer bug.

  I needed to redeem myself in her eyes before they got me to do worse, because they might easily have worse in their plans. It wasn’t as if I had the curriculum on training slave women on hand. Next time I saw Zorie, I would ask her about escape. The alternative, if I said nothing, she’d see me as the enemy.

  Mesmer bug, not mesmer bug, which had it been?

  Maybe I was already her enemy or maybe I eventually would become one. We were in fathoms-deep trouble here and the way out was going to be so fucked up that neither of us would be the same if...when we emerged.

  And where the hell was Mavros? Was he even alive?

  Chapter 9

  Zorie

  The guard left me standing in the middle of what must be a pretty room. I’d glimpsed curtains, barred windows, antique dresser and cupboards, and vaguely knew a bed was before me. I barely looked. The floor, my shaking hands, and the recent past had my attention.

  That’d been Grimm.

  Reconciling that with his role as my protector ever since this mesmer nightmare had wrecked my life? It seemed impossible.

  How could he have done that?

  He’d not told me until he’d come. Where his cum had leaked from me, I could feel it sticking to my inner thighs. At the least he should’ve warned me, before. What had stopped him?

  Einar had stopped me talking, not him. I’d heard no threats to Grimm. He should’ve warned me even if they made him do it. Could I trust him anymore? Should I draw a line through his name on my friends list?