Wicked Hunt (Dark Hearts Book 3)

by Cari Silverwood

  Book 3, Dark Hearts

  every man must face his darkness

  by

  Cari Silverwood

  For mature readers only

  This is a dark erotic series and is written to be disturbing.

  This book contains adult language and extreme sexual situations only suitable for adult readers.

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  About Cari Silverwood

  Acknowledgements & Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Zorie

  It began so wrong.

  I never waltzed straight in anymore. I’d learned from the past mistakes. Fifteen men? Or was it sixteen I’d murdered? All of them mesmers, of course. A-grade assholes. Sadists of the worst variety. Men who needed killing.

  This man had locked his gaze on me, smiled, and crooked his finger. I’d obeyed because he expected me to. He was bulky under his heavy gray coat, and bald, with a worn yet handsome face that could be used as an example of what a man could look like if he took good care of himself despite a misspent youth throwing orgies and doing drugs.

  He held out his gloved hand, his smile fading, and his eyes dark and closed-in with evil, or so I imagined.

  Not one of the people passing us, gave us more than a glance.

  A man with his girlfriend, his wife, his mistress. We were normal.

  We were the epitome of sin.

  As if passing judgment, in the distance loomed the spires of Cologne’s Kölner Dom cathedral. Directly behind the man waited the entrance to a multi-story apartment building: glass and modern architecture, no doorman, and an electronic lock that clicked open at a wave of his key.

  Whenever I caught the hint of an owned and collected woman, I never walked in without checking. Never like this.

  Such women were red flags. I detected them before their mesmers registered, mostly. Questions would pile in. Who were their owners? Were they security conscious? Was there CCTV? Guards? Would anyone hear the noise when I stuck my knife in them, or my hairpin, or put a gun in their earhole and pulled the trigger?

  I’d given up on hairpins, though. The coincidences had been alerting journalists if not the police, who thought they were copycat killers. So many countries...it baffled them. They would’ve caught on eventually, so now I rarely used a hairpin.

  Just the once, I’d found a mesmer’s pile of cocktail sticks – cute ones made of translucent plastic, with little animals on the end, like starfish, squid, and sharks. Six of those sticks sprouting from the dead man’s ear had looked oddly festive.

  So much blood was on my hands. And this man, this very large man in an overcoat, had beckoned me off the street. I’d been walking along, lonely in my surreal, serial killer world looking for a bus stop or an U-bahn subway entry. I had an apartment with an unclaimed, susceptible woman. She’d let me in, not knowing why, just that she had to.

  Commanding others? It got to me. It was immoral, but I had no choice. The end did justify the means, sometimes. Nevertheless, every time I did it, it hurt me inside.

  That tweak at the heart...god it was awful, like one day, you’ll have to pay for this.

  And yet I’d done worse. Much, much worse. I’d done things that polluted my very sense of self. That made me wonder where all this darkness had come from. Every time I killed, my insides, my soul if you would call it that, became stickier, more nauseating, more wrong.

  If I could reach inside my chest with my own limb, worm my fingers between my ribs, and grab a handful of what filled my heart and soul, then pull it out to inspect it, that handful would be black and horrible.

  “Danke.” This bald man regarded me curiously. Why the possessive grip on my arm? I could feel his woman inside his apartment somewhere above us. He wasn’t a novice mesmer. He’d know a thought was enough to make a susceptible woman do anything for him...anything.

  As the elevator ascended, I stared at his big fingers encircling my wrist. His white shirt cuff showed, as did a steel cufflink with a death’s head pattern. Not your average businessman then.

  No cameras? I hadn’t spotted any on the way in, or in this elevator. If I was wrong, today might be the day I tripped up and put the cops on my trail.

  Mistake to be with him. I knew it. But how to avoid the grasp of this clearly lust-affected man? He wanted my body, knew I was a collectible. Maybe he wanted two?

  I’d show him what two could do.

  “Here. You are British? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Then he laughed, not wanting my answer. He kicked open his front door then took my handbag and tossed it aside, so it hit the wall of the hallway and fell to the floor.

  What did it matter if I spoke his language when he could force my acquiescence, make me do anything?

  “Zwei. Eh? I always wanted two. Come.” He dragged me further, leaving behind my bag and the knife in my bag.

  Getting hold of a gun in each new country wasn’t easy and so I made do with a blade, sometimes augmented with a sedative taken from a pharmacy. Not every mesmer was simple to kill. I planned to get them without being detected by them or by the police afterwards. Fast and clean. A struggle would be my undoing.

  An old friend who was a forensic pathologist had once told me that crime scene forensics was rarely as thorough as on the TV shows. The police, the laboratories, they didn’t have the resources. Though if anyone connected my fifteen or sixteen murders, then, for certain, those resources would be found.

  He threw his overcoat and suit jacket over the shiny leather of an immense sofa, dragged off his tie, then unbuttoned his shirt and threw everything aside. All the while he examined me, stepping around me, as if deciding whether I passed some test.

  Take off your clothes. The command was clear in my mind.

  I didn’t hesitate, because hesitation said maybe I wasn’t what he thought I was. I stripped off my plain jane shoes, my tights, my coat and blouse and short skirt, my underwear, my beanie, or as they called it here in Germany, my Mütze. So many layers. This city was far too cold for an Australian.

  I did my best to leave no traces of palm or fingerprints at any of the scenes, no pubic hairs, no hairs...no spit, no sexual residue.

  “Ich mag das. Nice. Short but sexy. Hmm?” He raised his brows at me then ran his hands through my red hair.

  Nothing of me should be left behind, of any sort, if possible – DNA and all that. My pubic hair was nonexistent, but I couldn’t shave my scalp without looking odd. So it was only shorter than I’d ever worn it before.

  “Hände.” He smiled flatly – amusement gone, nothing in hi
s eyes now but concentrated intent.

  He’d want sex, they all did, pain maybe too. Mesmers turned into sadistic sex addicts. Collectable women gave them their fix.

  Hands. Mesmers didn’t need translators. I gave him my left hand, though aware of the danger.

  I didn’t like where this was going, but he didn’t know that his other woman was my accomplice. They all were. I could sink the fangs of my control deeper than his.

  Still, I didn’t like giving him my hands.

  But...careful. Always, careful. Men were stronger. My knife was in my bag.

  I needed him off guard, like in the middle of having sex, or sedated. I needed a weapon, in my hand or hers, whoever she was – this woman whose presence I felt.

  Time was on my side. Patience was on my side. I kept my rage ticking over, deep in the background. Rage freed me to disobey, but too much, too soon, and he would feel it inside me. I’d taught myself to be a good little collectable until it was safe to unleash myself.

  He took my hand then my other, spun me away to face the sofa, then jammed my body down into the cushions while he roped my wrists together.

  My heart sped up. I didn’t like this.

  Then he stepped away, and simply stared down at me. “Pretty. You are very pretty. And perfect. Kommen. Schnell.”

  When I had trouble rising he hooked a hand into the crook of my elbow and pulled me to my feet, then he walked me into the next room, his bedroom.

  Mouth gaping, nipples scrunching in with fear, I studied what lay there.

  The large square bed was empty of anything except a beautiful expanse of white linen sheet. Against the wall beyond though, there was his woman, naked and already chained to the wall by wrist and ankle, facing away, with red, dribbling stripes across her buttocks and back.

  The bed was pure and unmarked.

  Most of the breaths she took shivered across her skin. She was still hurting. Or perhaps it was anticipation. The man had throttled back his aura of control. A small, black whip curled on the floor near her bare feet.

  She wasn’t any use to me, yet. I sucked in my own hard, shaking breath. I’d wait. I had to.

  When he sat me on the bed and tied me up even more thoroughly, until I had my arms rope-wrapped at my back, my legs folded up, though separated, and one push would send me rolling onto my side or back, I let him.

  One of us would be free and unwatched, eventually.

  When he sat on the bed a couple of feet from me, wearing a crooked smile, I eyed him a little nervously, flexing my hands to keep the blood flowing. He wasn’t smothering me with his presence. He meant me to know...

  Wrinkles formed about his eyes. “I have heard stories about a girl who could resist. A girl who killed. The one thing I haven’t done yet is killed anyone...”

  Chapter 2

  Zorie

  “I wish you were her,” the bald man said, as he rose to his feet with a sigh. “Then I would be rid of this myth. Of this woman who kills us.”

  Oh fuck. The bed seemed to drop from under me and I floated on the words he’d said. He didn’t...know. I shut my eyes for a bare second, only to open them again, trying to pretend I hadn’t been overcome by relief. He isn’t going to kill me.

  “You’re not her.” He leaned in to breathe in my ear, then to bite my lobe hard until I gasped and tried to roll away. “I could see you take in air, ahhhh, when I said that you were not her. Like I wasn’t going to have to kill you. Hmmm?”

  His smile was broad, gleeful, as if he’d heard a great joke.

  I made an agreeable noise.

  “The thing is, Mädchen. I need the practice. I never thought of this before. Of killing. Now I have, ja, I think I need to practice, after I fuck you.”

  The madness in mesmers ripened with age. I couldn’t make my eyes close.

  “You watch me hurt Tia, then I hurt and fuck you. Hurt. Fuck. Etcetera. When I get tired of this, I will see how we can end this.”

  I so needed to stick my knife in him.

  And my eyes wouldn’t close because he willed it so.

  My rage boiled but I wrestled it down. Not yet. Tears of both sorrow and anger leaked down my cheeks.

  Sadness that my life might end here, anger that I’d fallen into this trap. What else could I have done?

  Run. Only that. Run before I entered this place, and that I would never have done. He’d been my next victim when I came in those glass doors.

  He still would be.

  Bare-chested, with his cock making an obvious bulge in his pants, he went to Tia and picked up the whip from the floor. The leather slithered in coils across the floor as he raised it, the tip dangling then flicking back.

  The snap as it cut across her back was echoed in her thin squeak and the crumple of her knees. She should have screamed but he was willing her silent. His aim was deliberate as he labored with the whip, making Xs out of lines. The heating in here was fine and sweat began to mingle with the blood trickling over the contours of her body. She shone in the down lights, sweating red, it seemed. Every so often he would pause and pace to her to place a hand on her skin and smear the blood, or run his fingers between her legs, or down her flanks, or to reach around and cup her breasts. He cared enough not to make her into mincemeat.

  But he still made her scream inside her head. I felt every moment of that, as tied to her as I was, waiting for my moment.

  Then he came to me and wrapped the whip about my neck, towed me backward and held me to the bed with the coil tight while his fingers plowed the slick trough between the lips of my pussy. I couldn’t help being aroused or arching to meet his touch. It was programmed into collectables and I didn’t dare scorch away that part of myself with rage.

  Not yet, not yet.

  I cried out as he plunged one finger deep inside me, my cunt squeezing onto that digit, and I heard myself whimpering as he shoved in and out. Waves of ecstasy rolled in effortlessly, drowning me.

  “You’re wet. You mädchen are always wet for me. For my cock.” The sound of the zip followed the last sucking withdrawal of fingers.

  Legs forced apart, bound in place, with my arms painfully squashed beneath me, I swear I pulsed at the anticipation of him fucking me, entering me.

  God, yes.

  I hadn’t come for so long. I’d killed them all too soon. I couldn’t do it by myself anymore.

  It had seemed terribly wrong to get off on murd—

  He slid into me and that first cry of penetration was truly joyous. I couldn’t stop myself.

  Wrong. He slapped in deeper, withdrew. The thickness of him halted, nudging my lips open down there, poised...then slammed in again.

  So wrong. But my eyes rolled back and I let myself surf on the roiling lust. A mesmer made a storm of sex so easily. A brush of fingers, a whispered command in the mind, a thrust so deep there was none of one’s self left, only the obliteration of climax.

  I let myself go as he fucked me, and he breathed like a rusty machine, sawing the air. Pulling out of me while I teetered, ripped open and gasping on the very brink of another O.

  I pined for him when he strode over to finish whipping her, the need for cock and sex so bad I lost track of my purpose for several crazy minutes.

  I’d barely recovered when he returned to fuck me again.

  The bed squeaked and rocked, much as the girl did when whipped. The whip left red curls on the sheets and I stared at them with one eye while he whipped and fucked her.

  He came to fuck me again, then stalked back to whip her.

  At last he stood over me, panting hard, with sweat turning his face into a mess. The sheets beneath me were damp and wrecked. I focused on the figure behind him, then watched him hand her a knife. My throat and mouth were dry from the rush of inhalations and exhalations.

  “Cut her,” he whispered. “Cut her deep, between the legs, then her breasts.” He leaned in, with one knee on the bed, and pressed a finger to my mouth. “No sounds. Nothing. You hear me. No matter how it hurts.
Swallow the pain.”

  He made himself comfortable on the bed, lying stretched out beside me, with his elbow propped on the blood-smeared whiteness.

  I blinked through a landscape of blurs, picking at the remnants of distant anger.

  Cherie...remember her death, the video going around and around.

  Tia held the knife point down over me, between my spread-open legs. Her hair was dark and long. Though tied in a plait last I’d noticed, now it was unbound and hanging over her shoulders in beautiful cascading ringlets.

  “Don’t close your legs,” whispered the man to my left. “Let me see.”

  I swallowed and strived to shut my thighs but nothing moved. My muscles quivered from the strain, aching where the ropes dug into them. My arms had been under me so long they’d numbed.

  “Cut her.”

  Tia frowned, her cute eyebrows tensing as she lowered the knife. I’d known a knife there before...from Mavros. The bastard.

  They were all bastards. Curls of fire rose in my mind, sparking ashes, flickering hotter.

  Sadistic bastards.

  Cut her.

  Sadistic asshole fuckwad...bastard cunts. My teeth ground together.

  Bald man glanced up and saw my face. The rage tore in, a hurricane that flung aside all his commands, and let me take her.

  Take control.

  Awareness flashed in both their faces. Too late.

  I grinned as the knife was sent on an arc from low to high and she sliced across his throat, leaving that familiar gaping hole. The blood. Oh now, that, was...pretty.

  As it gouted and poured from him, as he flopped about on the floor writhing, as she stabbed at him over and over, more than I’d commanded, the place turned into a red-raw butcher’s palace.

  This was going to be hard to clean up.

  I managed to sit up as the last of the drama played out, leaving Tia sitting on the floor weeping and him dead and twitching out the last nerve impulses to his dying muscle tissue.

  I could dispose of this sheet elsewhere. Only a small amount of blood was on me. His cock might have my DNA. I grimaced. I’d chance that. What cop would think past her as the murderer, with her fucked-up back and the knife in her hand? None.