Chapter 21

It's stitch removal day, and Brynne is antsy on my medical table. With good reason. Even though she's fallen into my lifestyle like she"s always belonged, her disobedience has been eating away at my dark soul. A throbbing awareness that there's a payment owed. The Grim Reaper won't allow a debt to remain unpaid.

"Is it going to hurt?" she asks for the fifth time.

I don't know if she's truly worried about the removal, or if the tools and devices her wandering eyes have found on the wall surrounding her are causing her to panic.

Either way, I'm enjoying having her squirm under my hands.

"I numbed you, remember?"

She nods, biting the plump lip I've kissed senseless the past few days. I'm growing increasingly impatient to do more, but I don't trust myself.

I work the first few stitches out, and she watches me tirelessly. At some point, she looks away.

"You've killed people, haven't you?" she asks, and I don't know where it's come from.

I sigh, getting the last stitches free before removing my gloves. "Yes, bunny. I have. Why?"

I dispose of everything, putting my tools up for later sanitation before I put them away fully.

"I should be afraid of you. It makes little sense. Is something the matter with me?" Her eyes are curious and soft today, likely the liquor I'd given to calm her nerves before I brought her down here.

I shake my head. "No. Something's wrong with me. I haven't let you see the side you should fear. It's unlike me."

She licks her lips, turns on the table, and lets her legs dangle over the side. She's in a sundress I couldn't help but order for her, even though it's freezing beyond the confines of the cabin.

"But you will, right?"

When I step between her legs, she parts them easily to me, opening like I'm meant to be there. I don't like how comfortable she is.

"I have to. You misbehaved. I can't have you thinking that's okay. You could've died, bunny."

My hands come down on her thighs, her answering gasp almost inaudible.

"Lie back," I order, and she does so hesitantly.

Her dress zips up the middle in the front, partly why I'd chosen it. I make quick work of unzipping it and splaying it open.

"Mmm," I groan, running my hands over her stomach.

She lifts her head to watch, panting breathlessly.

"Lift," I tell her, getting the dress from beneath her. "Wouldn't want to get blood on this, now would we?"

Her eyes go wide, but she listens.

Reaching under the table, I grab for the first restraint. I've had all kinds on this table. Men whom I needed answers from for my brother. Men who were ordered to die. And women who I broke into tiny shards of themselves.

None so beautiful as Brynne, however.

I secure her ankle tightly off the edge of the table, and it opens her partially to me. Moving around the opposite side, I do the same with the other ankle. Then, making it to her arms, I secure them above her head to a single restraint boasting two cuffs that connect to one line. Her breasts pull tight.

She's mine to play with from here on out, and she knows it. Her eyes are ablaze with fear.

I move to the wall, running my hands over all kinds of toys, sexual and lethal. Deciding what to do to them is always the hardest part. There is more than one way to remove the flesh, after all.

I grab a small dagger that's curved off the wall. One my father had gotten me when I was a boy. The first thing I'd cut another being with.

My favorite.

Brynne pulls against all her bindings.

I grin, rolling my neck.

"What did you do to make Daddy mad? I need to know you understand. That you realize the gravity of your actions?"

"Don't you think I do? I spent two weeks in pain, Slate."

I grit my teeth at her sass, trying to maintain control. Having her on that table, as I've had many before, is blurring the lines between what she and I have upstairs, and what I need to have down here.

I remain silent as she grows increasingly worried.

"I disobeyed you by breaking out of the house. I injured myself, and I could've died," she admits, defeated.

"And are you going to do it again? Or are you going to let Daddy tell you what's good for you?" I tease the curved tip of the dagger up her newly healed thigh, letting it skim across the purple scar.

She eyes the blade's proximity to her bare pussy, and her eyes flick to me as she shakes her head.

I nick her pussy lip with the blade, blood welling to the surface.

She squeaks in fear.

"No! I'm going to let yo—Daddy tell me what's best," she corrects.

I nod, but the bloodlust has set in. I set the blade down, using two fingers to squeeze her lip, making more blood bubble to the surface. She groans in pain, but I don't miss how her breathing is erratic, or how her body is arching toward me the best it can.

Even if she tries to deny it.

I pant, locked in on the beading crimson streaming down her pussy before bending in the middle and sucking it into my mouth. Her flavor mixed with the metallic taste of her blood coats my tongue as her moan decorates the basement.

"I think you're a brat to your core, Brynne. I think that someone like you is dangerous to someone like me," I tell her, licking the last of her off my lips.

I pick up my blade and move upward.

She panics, shaking her head. She's breathing through heavy emotions right now. The battle in her brain is clear in her blown pupils and racing breaths.

"I'm not. I can behave!" she breathes.

I smirk as I cut the underside of her breast, this time letting the blade sink a little deeper as I slice a half-inch wound into her silky skin.

"Fuck," I moan, losing myself in the image of her bleeding for me. "You're so fucking pretty in red."

Her breathing is edging the line of hyperventilation. As she watches blood trickle down her stomach from under her breast.

I move the blade to my left hand, and she watches the implement attentively. My other hand finds the mess I've made of her body, running through the viscous fluid, and I close my eyes at the feel.

The scent of her blood is permeating the room, and it's driving me wild. As well as feeding the demon I've been fighting for so long.

"I think you're like me, bunny," I finally say when I open my eyes to see her lost in the touch of my hand. Her cut has slowed as her blood clots, but I still have plenty to play with. My coated hand finds her pussy, and she groans gutturally. Making my cock fill painfully behind my jeans.

"I don't think there is anyone like you, baby," she rasps, and my fingers stop as I meet her gaze.

She begs me with vocal cries to resume my machinations, but I'm confused by how my body has just reacted to being called baby.

My heart had skipped a fucking beat.

"Brynne, if you're not careful, I'll fucking ruin you."

She opens her heavy lids as I slip two fingers inside her wet heat, foregoing, easing her into my touch.

"Je suis venu ici pour survivre, mais je découvre que je n"en ai pas envie. Je veux m'abandonner à la damnation et laisser le diable souiller mon ame," she says, her cries breaking up her words. — "I came here to survive, but I find I don"t want to. I want to surrender to damnation and let the devil taint my soul."

I realize it's easier for us to say the hard things, the things that make us feel raw and cut open, in other tongues.

Her words bounce around in my head as I forget the need to cut and maim. I find a new high in making her scream. Dropping my face between her thighs, my tongue licks once, twice, three times. Then I'm lost to the flavor of her dancing on my tongue like the finest wine. There are hints of her blood, and I can't get enough.

"You're going to become a fucking addiction. One I'll kill for, Brynne," I admit, meeting her eyes with a feral need coursing in me.

"I need to be set free." I take a moment to realize she means from the table.

Before my brain even comprehends what I'm doing, I'm letting her go. Doing the opposite of what I'd do for anyone else.

She gets off the table and backs toward the door. She's shaking, and I can tell she's beyond arousal, floating in the space of confusion, where she's too high.

When I step toward her, she lifts a hand, breathing hectically. "I need a moment. I can't…" She grips her chest.

She's panicking, I realize. I recognize the signs of an incoming attack. I've had a million of them.

"Let me hold you. It will make it better. Let Daddy hold you," I beg.

It seems, for a moment, like she might come to me, but she doesn't. She turns and rushes up the stairs.

My heart all but shatters.

I only showed her a sliver of the man within, and she ran from me again, even after she promised not to. Even after what her cries of ecstasy told me.

I know I need to leave her alone, but alone is the last thing she needs to be, so I slowly traipse upstairs. I hear her panicked sobs behind her door as I approach it.

I lean my forehead against the cold wood, listening as my insides quake with fear.

I've never had a reason for my fear before. It's always come on strong and out of nowhere, leaving me confused.

Anxiety, the doctors all tell me.

Now I have a direct fear, and I know what it's stemming from. The beautiful, bloody girl on the other side of the door.

What have I done?

"Brynne?" I knock softly on the door.

She sniffles. "I'll be out in a minute, Slate. I just need a moment."

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

I should've hidden it inside. Should've never let that little crack open for her to look within.

But that's no way to live.

Papa told me there'd be no one for me. Not when I am how I am. I don't think I'd ever believed him as much as I do right this second.

The door opens just as I'm ready to retreat, and her tear-stained eyes meet mine. She backs up and lets me inside her room.

Even when she leaves, this will still be her room.

No one else will step foot here and taint the memory of her.

Ever.

I sit on the edge of her bed, hanging my head and waiting for her words.

When she climbs onto my lap, straddling me and lifting my face to look at me, I'm taken aback by her gentle touch.

"I know I'm a monster. You've only seen a small portion. I should have lied," I tell her.

She leans in, her forehead resting against mine. And for a moment we just are. We're just living in the space of a moment together, not a care in the fucking world.

"You're not a monster, Slate."

My brows furrow as I pull back to look at her. "Then, why?"

She looks up as she seems to search for the words. "It was so much all at once. It was everything and nothing. It was like dropping from a rollercoaster without the buildup. And it made me face my desires head-on sooner than I wanted to face them," she admits.

I hadn't even thought of that. How her eyes lit when she watched her blood spill was magnificent, and I knew I had a foe. I remember the struggle I'd had when I had to come to terms with who I was, though. Who I am.

I still struggle with it.

"I'm so sorry," I tell her.

She leans in, hesitantly kissing me before I take it deeper. The weight of everything melts as two fucked up souls soothe one another within the connection.

"Don't be sorry. I'm thankful. I just had to come back down, Slate. I'm sorry I wasn't ready. I know I owed you…"

"You owe me nothing, bunny. You're the only one I don't need to punish. It's new for me, but I'll get it figured out."

She kisses me again, and I stand with her wrapped around me, turning to place her on the bed. "Get under the covers."

She looks at me as if she's disappointed with the command, but does so anyway.

She turns toward the wall, and I move to shut the light off before climbing in behind her. I softly stroke her hair as she yawns.

"But we didn't finish," she says, going lax against me.

"We have all the time in the world to finish, baby girl."

Do we?

I can't deny I feel like there's a clock ticking away, one counting down the moments until the world creeps in or she runs out.

Both make my chest tighten in anticipation. Brynne feels the shift and reaches her arm back over me, resting her hand on my side, and I smile as the feeling of panic melts away.