Chapter 7

When we enter, nobody is in here, but the candles and incense are lit. Making our way toward the back, we pass through a sheer, sparkling curtain, leading to another chamber.

My eyes take in the sight of a grand vanity that has a large mirror, bright lights bordering it. Neatly arranged racks display an array of colourful costumes and wigs. Along one side are plush lounge couches in rich red and gold.

While I am gawking, Blush's enthusiastic tone breaks my trance. "Okay, let's get started. Madame will be here soon, and she will expect to see you ready."

I eagerly follow her to the racks of costumes, and it feels like being a young kid again, playing dress-up for Halloween. As she selects pieces for me, I can't help but giggle and she starts to dress me in black fishnet tights, pairing them with a short, whimsical tutu and knee-high, laced, platformed boots.

Moving on, she wraps a black and white striped corset around me, tightening the back to pinch my waist and outline my curves. My breasts almost threaten to spill over the frilly trim since they are pushed up so high.

Finally, she settles me in front of the vanity, securing a sleek black bobbed wig atop my head after clipping back my hair. "I wonder if Madame will give you your own set of contacts and if she does, what color they would be." She asks curiously.

I gaze at myself in the mirror as she stands behind me, adjusting the black-fringed wig that enhances my features. It's not until I look at her peachy-colored lenses twinkling in the light that I answer. "Do you all wear contacts?"

She glances at me in the reflection, giving a small head shake. "Only us who work at Dark Night. I think you would suit black eyes since it would match your name perfectly."

"She's not wearing fucking contacts. Her pretty eyes are staying blue," a sudden deep male voice interrupts, startling both of us and prompting a swift glance over our shoulders.

My gaze locks onto Hellion, propped casually against the wall on the other side of the room. I gulp as I take in his shirtless body, the sinister swirls of black tattoos writhing across every inch of his bronzed skin like living shadows. His black, tight jeans hang low on his hips, giving a view of the sculpted contours of his painted abs and the mesmerizing V that leads downward, drawing my eyes with an irresistible pull.

Despite the sheen of sweat glistening on his body from rigorous training, his face still has his usual haunting masterpiece. With his black and white coiled lenses still in place, he turns his head slightly, offering me a glimpse of his chiseled jawline. Now I am seeing him in the light, I find myself wondering what he really looks like beneath his scary act. What color are his real eyes? Light or perhaps dark like his hair.

"Get the fuck out." He demands icily towards Blush while facing aside.

She turns to leave without hesitation, and I swiftly stand from the stool, fighting the urge to grab her wrist to stop her, but I decide against it since I don't want him to see how unnerved I am by the thought of being alone with him. He cannot see me as weak because I'm fucking not. Also, this might be a good opportunity to shut this is down and quickly.

As she hurries out of the room, Hellion's gaze locks onto mine, and I shoot him a glare before turning to face the mirror. Each step he takes behind me sends a tightness of tension through my chest. When I sense his dark presence and heat looming against my back like a deathly shadow, I face aside, unwilling to look at him.

While trying to steady my racing heart, I steal a glance at him from the corner of my eye, only to find his head tilted downward, his lenses carefully tracing an unwelcome path down my collarbone until they settle on the curve of my breasts. I become annoyed and return my gaze forward, cocking my head to the side as his eyes meet mine in the mirror opposite us.

"Do you like looking at things you will never have?" I assert firmly.

He lifts his chin in response, and I counter with a raised eyebrow. "Whatever you're thinking, forget it. You clearly saw the other night when you decided to be a fucking pervert and watch me in the shower that I am seeing someone."

His jaw flexes again, showing his irritation, but he remains wordless. In the heavy silence that follows, he reaches behind me, seizing a handful of my wig and ripping it from my head before tossing it to the side. We hold eye contact as he frees my wavy blonde hair until it's tumbling down my back and framing my face.

"Keep yourself as you are. You're fucking perfect and you don't need all the extra bullshit," he commands, his voice carrying authority.

A strange sensation churns in my gut at his compliment, annoying me further because I don't want to feel it and I know it is all just mind games. Whirling around to confront him, I find my tits pressed against his solid abs. I tilt my head back, meeting his towering figure head-on and stare at him harshly.

"Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Hellion," I retort, my voice tinged with defiance.

"You're not fucking wearing that." He lowers his face towards mine, his words biting, giving me a taste of the monster that lives within him.

I inhale sharply as he takes a slow step forward until the bulge of his dick is pressing firmly against me, his lenses focused, and I place my palms on the vanity behind me, bowing backward to create some distance between us.

"Also, call me Hell, pretty girl, because you haven't met Hellion yet, but believe me, you will soon enough," he adds, his voice laced with a chilling promise. "And when that moment comes, the only time you'll be uttering his fucking name is when you're screaming it."

I lift my brows at his bold assumption, trying to remain calm until he suddenly moves my hair away from my eyes softly with his sharp knife. "Does that scare you, Little Dolly? Are you afraid of us?" he taunts, his tone filled with dark intent.

Adjusting my demeanor, I smirk slightly, allowing my gaze to trail from his strong chest until it meets his once again, ready to engage in his bullshit and I lift my mouth close to his, delving into his swirling depths. "No, Hell. You don't scare me, and neither will Hellion," I whisper seductively with a flutter of my lashes. "You're both big, fluffy bears compared to the men I have dealt with."

He tucks his bottom lip between his teeth, his eyes gliding over my features with a cold detachment as he ponders my brazenness.

"Brave words," he murmurs. "But let's see how brave you really are when my games begin, Noir."

Then, in a sudden move, he quickly thrusts his face unnervingly close to mine, the sharp edge of his blade grazing my throat. The action catches me off guard, and I am forced to tip my head back as he hisses, "Because you will be. I haven't even fucking started playing with you." My eyes frantically scan his, bracing myself for his next vicious words. "Limp dick too."

Anger flares within me, my brows pinching together, and I scowl before unleashing my venomous warning. "The only person who will be in danger here will be you if you hurt E."

I see the amusement dancing on his face as he responds. "Was that a threat?"

My jaw tenses as I stare at him squarely. "Yeah, it was. I'll stab you in the neck. You may scare everyone else here, but not me."

His gaze traces a heated path down my chest once more. "Fuck, I love it when you talk murder to me," he breathes out, a devilish grin tugging at the corners of his lips.

Without warning, he seizes the nape of my neck with a bruising grip, pressing his blade harder against my throat as he growls, "How about I just cut you from ear to ear and fuck your cold dead cunt instead?" My breathing grows erratic. I can no longer hide the fear he instils in me as he continues his terrorization. "My Dolly will be nothing but a stiff fucking corpse while I try to screw the life back into her."

My wide eyes stay fixed on him, panic coursing through my veins at the sight of this absolute maniac before me until he switches again and I start to wonder if I am experiencing Hell or Hellion or, both.

Coercing me to hold his knife, his grip around mine is vice-like as he places the blade on his throat, chin lifted. "Actually, slice my fucking throat since you want to speak of murder like it's nothing, brave girl. It's the only way you're going to stop what I do to you and him."

Still fighting against him, I manage to compose myself, clinging desperately to the shreds of my confidence. "You deranged psycho fuck. You're messing with the wrong girl."

"I know exactly what I'm messing with, Noir. I knew it from the night I first saw you. You're as fucked in the head as me. And every single night after, you allowed me to watch you has only confirmed it." Taking a deep breath, I narrow my eyes and remain silent, but he persists. "He can't even screw you right. He's a fucking embarrassment."

Defensiveness creeps up my throat. "He's a good person, unlike you. You sound jealous," I bite back, my words sharp.

"Yes, yes I am fucking jealous. I'm feeling murderous that he has the luxury of having his fucking hands on what's mine when he doesn't deserve it."

My face screws up with confusion "Yours?" I scoff.

His hand tightens on the back of my neck as he peers deep into my eyes with seriousness. "Yes. Mine," he growls possessively, the way he said "mine" trembling down to my core.

I shake my head once, hardly believing this guy as he continues. "Good, doesn't make girls like you come or feel desired."

I quirk an eyebrow at his accusation. "Girls like me?"

With his knife still positioned on his neck, he brings his face closer to mine, his voice dropping to a menacing murmur.

"Yes, girls like you. The beautiful, yet broken kind that seem to blossom in the darkness of lust. They want to experience a scream ripping from their fucking throat rather than releasing a soft moan. They crave to feel the bite of pain rather than a gentle, loving touch. They possess an insatiable hunger to be violently screwed against the shower wall while being choked the fuck out until they can no longer stand it, rather than having to endure a slow, pathetic fuck."

His words hit me like a punch to the gut, raw and strangely accurate. They echo to the twisted part of myself that I've tried to deny, the part that craves darkness. As much as I want to fight him, to argue that I'm not what he says I am, a part of me knows he's right.

As I gather myself, I draw a deep breath. "So, this is a regular thing for you, is it? You do this to other girls?" I ask, my suspicions raised.

He shakes his head once in response, his spiraling orbs locked on mine. "No, Noir. I've been trying to find you my entire life."

Fuck, this needs to stop. He is saying all the right things. His way of words are stirring things inside me that I thought were long gone, things I didn't even know could surface.

Confusion.

Fear.

Arousal?

How can I feel this way about someone so fucked? He is everything I have tried to escape. Yet, unfortunately, there is definitely something about Hell that lures me in, and it's clear he feels it too. It's like a dangerous, fucked-up magnetic pull between us that I'm trying to resist with everything I have.

Maybe it's the pills; yeah, it has to be. I'm not feeling myself. I am not in control.

I decide to switch tactics, changing my demeanor and smiling widely. "Awe, Hell has found love at first sight. How sweet," I mock, trying not to show the effect he has on me.

He slides his hand up into the back of my hair, gripping a fistful and yanking it back forcefully, inflicting a teasing pain that entices a hiss from my lips. As his knife digs into my windpipe, asserting his dominance, a tremor of both agony and sick pleasure courses through me.

Seemingly reveling in my pain, he lowers his face, carefully running his nose up my jaw as he growls his response. "Love? No, Noir. What I possess for you is far more intense and deeply disturbing. Something that eclipses any form of love, leaving behind only a haunting stain of darkness in its wake."

Lifting his head, his lips touch mine, sending a jolt of electricity through me, and he clenches his teeth viciously against them. "Obsession."

We pause, the tension thick in the air as I pant through my nose. His lips lightly brush over mine, igniting a twisted longing within me. Surrendering to the weight of it, my heavy eyelids close involuntarily, "But you don't even know me." I whisper in a haze.

His smoky breath mingles with mine as he responds, "I don't need to know who the fuck you were, Noir. Once I set eyes on you, I knew everything about your past would be lost. Your future, your fate—they're all mine now," his voice is hushed, yet full of promise. "They belong to me. That's the only Noir I will ever know—the one we shape. And in the process, she will become my obedient little slut."

Jesus fucking Christ.

His words are carving through me like a sharp knife, stripping away my defiance. I feel exposed, and vulnerable, as if he's peeling back layers of my identity with each syllable just because he knows he can. There's a dangerous edge to his tone, a vow of dominance and control that both frightens and intrigues me. Part of me wants to fight back at the thought of being reduced to nothing more than his obedient plaything, yet another part is disturbingly aroused by the thought of surrendering to his power.

He moves his blade slowly down the front of my throat, aiming toward the curve of my breasts and each passing moment becomes a threat, the possibility of its cut hanging in the air. The sexual tension solidifies, suffocating me in its toxicity. Feeling my heart smashing against my chest, we move our lips teasingly over one another's, almost as if they are toying with the possibility of giving in to our desires.

"I'm going to slice your beautiful body to pieces, Little Dolly, making every scar you own as mine. And you're going to come hard while I fucking do it," he vows.

Fuck.

Just as he leans in to kiss me, a woman's throat clears behind him, shattering the charged atmosphere. We both pause, lips still touching and my eyes snap open, locking onto his. His spiralling orbs search mine before he growls aggressively, showing his frustration. "Get the fuck out, Ma."

Just as he is about to lean in again, she suddenly raises her voice toward him. "Hell!"

Snapping back to reality and realizing what I have done, my teeth clench with annoyance, but he merely offers me the faintest evil sneer, knowing he almost had me before reluctantly stepping back and releasing my hair.

Withdrawing his knife from my breast, he grants me much-needed breathing space and I straighten myself, adjusting my outfit. He calmly turns away, giving me a view of his strong, tattooed back.

My gaze then meets Madame's, finding her observing with a curious expression, her eyes darting between us both. As Hell rests against the wall, staring at me, but Madame's approach captures my attention.

"Look at you. Amazing!" she gasps out.

She scans me from head to toe, a broad smile lighting up her face, causing me to peer down at myself. "It's not too much?" I ask, feeling self-conscious.

"Oh, darling. Nothing is ever too much here." She inclines her head toward the door, signalling for me to leave the chamber. "Now let's see if you can dance in it."

I offer an awkward nod before passing her, stealing a quick glance at Hell before exiting the chamber and making my way towards the main tent.