36. Ava

AVA

M y head spun.

This wasn’t over.

Dr. Vale was working with someone. Them . And he was our only lead as to whom .

But Scáth just kept hitting him, the sound of bones cracking echoing through the office.

He was going to kill him.

“Stop!” I screamed as I tugged at the rope on my other wrist with my free hand.

To my surprise, Scáth froze, his arm pulled back, blood dripping off his fists.

Panting, Scáth sat back on the heels of his heavy black boots. Then he turned his face toward me like a crazed carnival creature, blood splattering his handsome features, his gaze wild.

“Ava.” His voice came out like an exhale.

A light came on behind his eyes as if he’d just woken up from a deep sleep .

His shoulders relaxed and he lowered his arm. “Are you okay?”

I let out a small cry as I got my left hand free.

“Don’t kill him,” I said as I shook the ropes off me. “He knows something.”

Dr. Vale wasn’t moving, his bloodied swollen face had fallen to one side. But I could see the slight movement of his chest. He was still alive.

Barely.

Thank God.

I scrambled to my feet, my balance still unsteady from the blow to my head.

Scáth leaped to his feet and hurried to me, catching me before I could fall. “I gotcha.”

I couldn’t help but gasp as his arms circled me, pulling me so close I could barely breathe, but I didn’t care.

I buried my face in his chest, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of him—of leather and spice—and I felt something inside me shatter.

Every ounce of fear, every moment of thinking I’d never see him again, melted away, leaving me trembling, breathless, clinging to him like if I let go, I’d disappear.

I couldn’t stop shaking, my heart crashing against my ribs, and I hated how fragile I felt, how close I was to breaking.

But I didn’t need to be afraid anymore.

My shadow was here.

My Scáth.

My monster.

And he was scarier than any faceless them .

His hands roamed my body, gently, tenderly. He tilted my head with his fingers on my chin, frowning at what must be a lump or a bruise on the side of my throbbing head.

I grabbed his hands that were slippery with blood and stilled them. “I’m okay.”

“You hit your head. Did he fucking do that?” Scáth turned as if to attack Dr. Vale again.

But I tugged at his hands, turning him back to me. “I’m okay, Scáth.”

He cursed and crushed me to him, his breath hot on my hair. “I thought he’d… I was so scared that you…”

I leaned into him, inhaling his scent of musk and leather.

How easily he lost control, how quickly his emotions took hold of him. I should be terrified of him.

But I wasn’t.

He stopped at my command. At my single word.

He’d never hurt me. Only hurt to protect me.

I swallowed, hard, as a shiver ran down my spine.

I was safe.

Scáth was here.

He captured my lips with his, his lips and tongue tasting like copper, his mouth frantic and desperate, his hands all over me again, this time hungry to find my skin under my clothes.

Even as desire surged through me, I tried to pull away. “Scáth, this isn’t the right—”

“Please,” he said, his voice cracking.

It was that sound, that broken noise that made me still, that stopped me from trying to push him away.

“I almost lost you,” he breathed against my neck between hot kisses. “Please, don’t take this from me. ”

I nodded, my arms going around his neck.

He pushed my skirt up with his hands to grab my ass. He picked me up, pressing my pussy against his hard cock, our groans filling the silent room.

He stepped over Dr. Vale’s body, over the pool of blood soaking into the rugs, and walked us to the large mahogany desk.

He placed me on the edge as if I were a delicate thing.

So it shocked me when he ripped my panties off me and lifted them to his nose and inhaled deeply.

He let out his breath in a low rumbling growl that I felt all the way down to my toes, then he pocketed them. “No one touches what’s mine… and lives.”

Scáth’s eyes blazed with hunger and madness as he stepped between my legs and his fingers found my pussy, the blood on his hands mixing with my pussy juice into a slippery mess.

Need surged through me and I groaned.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so fucking wet. Do you like it when I fuck up other men for touching you?” He pushed two fingers into me. “Yeah, you’re my dark little queen.”

I moaned, tilting my hips so he could thrust deeper.

He let out a groan. “As much as I want you to come apart on my fingers, I need to feel you.”

I heard the sound of his zipper being lowered.

I let out a gasp, glancing over his shoulder to the doctor prone on the ground. Was Scáth really going to fuck me with my villain bleeding out on the ground?

“Eyes on me.” Scáth tilted my face to his.

His handsome face, dotted with red, filled my vision until he was the only thing I saw .

The only thing that existed.

He was my everything.

My world.

And we’d almost lost each other.

I needed to feel him. Just like he needed to feel me.

He thrust into me without warning.

Pleasure at being filled, at being split open, slammed through me, and I let out a long moan. Instinctively, I hooked my legs around his back to pull him in closer, my fingers curling into his hair.

“Fuck,” he hissed against my mouth. “Ava, I thought I’d fucking lost you.”

“You didn’t lose me. You’ll never lose me,” I promised, even though deep down I wasn’t sure I could keep it.

He fucked me hard, his mouth on mine, his hands slippery with blood, anointing my body, marking my soul.

We ravaged each other, hips thrusting hard, bodies slamming together, hungry and frantic.

Like we’d been apart for too long.

Like we’d almost lost each other.

My pussy clamped down on him as I bucked against him, needing more, as my orgasm rushed desperately through me.

“Yes,” he hissed. “Come around my cock.”

Scáth’s fingers slipped between us to find my clit.

That was all I needed.

I came hard, my muscles tensing as a wave of white-hot pleasure crashed over me.

He drank my screams with his mouth on mine as he thrust hard, riding out my orgasm with me, until he, too, shuddered .

I sagged against him, our sweaty foreheads pressed together as we breathed the same breath.

“I can’t lose you. Can’t ever lose you.” His voice rumbled against me, soft and hoarse, but I could barely make out the words through the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears.

I just tightened my grip, my fingers digging into his back, as if I could anchor myself to him.

The relief was dizzying, almost too much to bear. My body buzzed with it, my mind racing to catch up with the truth that he was here, in my arms, and I was safe.

All I could think was that I never wanted to let him go.

Dr. Vale let out a low groan, the noise stiffening my spine, slamming me back into reality.

This wasn’t over.

Dr. Vale knew something.

I pulled away from Scáth. “He said ‘them.’”

“What?” Scáth asked, pulling out of me and tucking himself back into his pants. “Hold still.”

He grabbed several tissues from the box on the desk and tenderly cleaned me up.

“Dr. Vale.” I stared past Scáth’s shoulder at my therapist, his swollen eyes fluttering as he struggled to open them. “He said he was going to hand me over to them . We need to find out what he meant by that.”

Scáth scowled at Dr. Vale who moaned, his limbs jerking as he lay in a pool of his own blood. “He deserves to die painfully.”

I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Please, don’t kill him. We need information from him.”

Scáth let out a long breath in what sounded like a growl and cracked his knuckles. “Then I’ll get information from him.”

He turned to me and, with a gentle hand, helped me down from the desk. “You should go.”

“What?” I brushed down my skirt. “Hell no. I’m staying.”

Scáth’s jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth. “This isn’t the place for you, Ava. You shouldn’t see what’s about to happen.”

“I’m not leaving.”

It was clear I’d upset him by disobeying. Annoyance contorted his handsome features. Snarling, he reached for my wrist, but I pulled it away from him.

“You’ll kill him if I leave,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

Scáth boxed me in against the desk. “I won’t kill him.”

“You don’t have the self-control not to kill him.” My jaw tightened, and I squared my shoulders, refusing to back down, even though every instinct told me to submit. “You need me here.”

His jaw clenched, the muscles tensing under his skin, and I could practically feel the frustration radiating off him in waves. “Ava, you don’t need to see my methods of… extracting information.”

I knew exactly what those methods of information extraction were.

“No torture,” I said.

His nostrils flared and his lips pressed into a tight, thin line, his annoyance barely contained.

“It can be over and done in five minutes,” he argued.

“ No torture.”

“I’m quite good at what I do. ”

My lips curled into a smirk, a silent challenge. “ No torture.”

He sighed loudly, shaking his head just enough to let me know I was testing his limits.

“You want answers, don’t you?” Scáth said.

I nodded. “But I don’t want to become like them.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, smiling darkly at me. “Because I already am.”

Scáth stepped in close. So close I could barely breathe.

“What about some light suffering?” he said, eyes flashing, his lips brushing against mine, his chest pressing against mine when he inhaled. “Just a little distress.”

His fingers brushed up the outside of my thigh under my skirt, and need rushed through me.

Was he trying to seduce me into saying yes to torture?

“Some shallow knife play,” he said as his fingers slid between my legs and found my wet slit again. “Just enough to make him bleed, but not enough to bleed out .”

My eyes fluttered closed as I repressed a moan, not wanting a waking Dr. Vale to hear me and realize what Scáth was doing to me.

“That isn’t fair,” I gasped.

I placed my hand on his chest, against his racing heart, his cock swelling against my leg.

He got off on this.

I wanted to be more revolted by Scáth’s true nature. His need for violence and pain. But I wasn’t.

A rush of warmth spread through my chest, making my heart race. A tingling coursed through my arms and legs as goosebumps rose on my skin, and a shiver of anticipation ran down my spine .

“What about a little… choking?” he asked, as he pushed two fingers into my soaked and swollen pussy.

Goddammit. How could he make me so needy for him again so soon?

While he was talking about torture. And while a crazed abusive therapist bled out on the floor behind us.

What was wrong with me?

Scáth thrust his fingers in and out of me as he rubbed my clit with his thumb.

“Come on…” he whispered into my ear, sending goosebumps down my spine, “just a teeny tiny bit of torture? It can be so… effective , no?”

I clung to him, my fingers digging into his shoulder as he curled his fingers around to push at my G-spot.

Pleasure slammed through me.

I didn’t care anymore that we had an audience. That the audience was crawling away from us in a feeble attempt to get away.

I came hard, crying out.

I sagged against Scáth, my breaths coming out in rushes against his chest. “H-he’s getting away.”

The ice of Scáth’s eyes was consumed by his dilated pupils as he held my chin, eyebrow arched expectantly. “There’s no one in the building this late at night. And he won’t get far.”

I sighed.

Maybe Scáth was right. Maybe you had to become a little bit of a monster in order to catch one.

“Fine,” I said, giving in. “Just a little bit of torture.”

A dark smile lit up Scáth’s blood-smeared face.

I pointed a finger at him. “But don’t you dare kill him. ”

His teeth nipped my finger before he kissed the tip of it. “As you wish, my dark queen.”

Then Scáth turned toward Dr. Vale who’d started sobbing.

“This,” he said, his dark gravelly voice sending shivers down my spine, “is going to be so much fun .”