Page 30 of Cruel Master

Maybe I was wrong. Gabriel is a monster incapable of love. He doesn’t deserve it.

I hate myself for the tears trailing down my cheeks. I hiss at him, “You can overpower me all you like, but I’ll never be yours.”

Gabriel’s face goes red before he growls out menacingly, “Don’t you dare act like you don’t enjoy every fucking thing I do to your body, Nora. Overpower you?” He tsks at me. “The way you throw that soaking wet cunt up at me when I’m balls deep inside you, the way you beg for my cream...”

He shakes his head and leans in close to my ear. His hot breath sends shivers down my spine as he says, “I make you purr like no other man ever could or will, kitten.”

His words infuriate me because I know they’re true whether I want to admit it or not. “All you want is a sex slave,” I toss at him.

His mouth presses into a thin line and his nostrils flare, and even though he doesn’t punch the wall like he did that one night, I can clearly see I’ve made him angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He thrusts his fingers through his hair before he growls and storms out of the room.

Fuck him, though. I'm still vibrating with my own anger.

I alternate between pacing the room and sitting on the bed with my arms crossed as I stew in my own anger.

He doesn't come to me that night, and I hate myself for missing him. I wake up the next day, and he comes in and without a word goes to the closet and pulls out a white dress.

He yanks me up from the bed and rips the nightie off me and starts dressing me like I'm a doll.

“What the hell are you doing?” I try to jerk away from him, but he grabs my chin roughly in his hand.

“Stay still,” his voice is deadly calm. I continue to struggle until he snaps my name. “Nora!”

I immediately still at the steely tone of his voice.

He dresses me and brushes my hair before he grabs my hand and drags me downstairs into his office.

I glance over at him suspiciously when I see a man standing nervously by Gabriel’s desk. He’s holding a thick book, and I squint as I try to get a better look at it.

“Okay, do it,” Gabriel orders.

The tell-tale rustling of thin, scritta paper sets off alarm bells in my head. I yank my hand away from Gabriel just as the man finds a bookmarked passage and starts reading wedding vows.

Gabriel recaptures my hand and pulls me close against his side.

“No, no, no,” I chant as I shake my head and pull against Gabriel with all my might, but he wraps his arm around me and tightens his hand on my shoulder to the point of pain. “Stand still, Nora,” he snaps

“No way! You can't force me to do this!” I’m still fighting him like crazy—what good it does.

“I can do any fucking thing I want,” he hisses at me.

The man whom I can only assume is a priest stops and glances between us nervously.

“Go on!” Gabriel barks at him.

The man jumps and does as he’s told.

My heart is thundering in my ears as Gabriel continues to glare down at me and hold me still.

When the priest asks me if I take this man to be my lawfully wedded husband, I forcefully cry, “No!”

But Gabriel looks at the priest warningly and corrects, “She means ‘yes.’”

The priest swallows and nods before hurrying to the part where he asks Gabriel if he takes me to be his lawfully wedded wife.

“Yes,” Gabriel growls, his eyes glowing down at me with possessiveness, looking like the psychopath he obviously is.

Before the priest ever pronounces us man and wife, Gabriel pulls a solid gold band out of his pocket and slips it onto my finger.

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