Page 6 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

“Your place?” I gasped between ragged breaths. No way in hell did I want him in my dingy flat, with its paper-thin walls and nosy housemates.

He sighed as if something deeply pained him. “No need. This won’t take long at all.”

My hands froze against his shoulders. The bar for my first time wasn’t particularly high, but getting fucked in this dirty alley was possibly a step too far.

Before I could respond, Damien’s fingers curled into the front of my jumper. With one sharp movement, he ripped it straight down the middle. The wool tore with a sickening sound, exposing my bare chest to the cold night air.

“What the fuck?” I shoved against his chest, rage flooding through me. “Dude, that was expensive!”

He didn’t budge an inch. His smile had transformed into something predatory—sharp edges and dark promise. The security light above us flickered, casting strange shadows across his face. Andfuck,his eyes! The black of his irises bled outward, swallowing the whites whole.

My pulse skyrocketed. Every instinct screamed that something was deeply, terribly wrong. The brick wall scraped against my back as I tried to push him away, but his grip was like iron.

Damien’s palm pressed flat against my chest, right over my thundering heart. The touch burned ice-cold through my skin, and I gasped. It felt like he was stabbing me with an icicle.

“Hold still, sweet thing,” he murmured, almost soothingly. “This will only hurt for a moment.”

All those nights I’d lain awake back home, dreaming of escape—and now here I was, about to become another statistic, another cautionary tale. Katie would never forgive me. Mum would blame herself somehow.

Dread constricted my throat, and a horrible whimper escaped me before I could swallow it back. That burning cold spread through my chest like frost across a window, almost like something inside me was beginning to crack.

“Stop!”

The shout echoed off the brick walls. My head snapped towards the sound—it was that guy again. The man from the pillar. He stood at the entrance to the alley, holding something that glinted in the security light.

My brain struggled to process what I was seeing. Was that… agun?!I’d never seen one in real life before.

“Get away from him.Now.” The man’s voice carried deadly intent, his aim unwavering.

Damien’s hand remained pressed against my chest, that bone-deep cold spreading further across my skin. He turned his head towards the newcomer, that horrible smile still fixed in place.

“Ah. Right on schedule.” Damien’s voice dripped with amusement. “No matter. I’m finished here anyway.”

Damien pushed away from me, sending the back of my head cracking against the brick. One moment he was in front of me, the next he was halfway up the wall, climbing it like some sort of demented spider creature.

With a gurgled yelp of shock, I scrambled away from the wall just as a softpfftsound cut through the air—the muffled cough of a gun. Brick dust exploded beside Damien’s shoulder. The man cursed and re-aimed, but Damien had already reached the roof, disappearing over the edge with a mocking salute.

I am going mad.

I am going certifiably insane.

Wait.The drink. The whiskey sour. Damien must have done something to it—spiked it—and now I was experiencing a very real-seeming hallucination.

Hysterical giggles erupted out of me, and my knees nearly gave out. I slumped against the wall, clutching the ruins of my jumper.

The stranger in his skinny tie and brass-buttoned long coat strode towards me, weapon lowered. I stared at him. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of a vintage magazine from the mod era—all smart, sharp lines and careful precision.

Time suspended as we locked gazes, my breath hitching in my throat. His eyes were incredibly dark brown, a swirl of burnt caramel, deep enough to drown in.

Shadows played across his warm golden-olive skin as his eyebrows knitted together, his face hardening into a harsh frown. “Let me see your chest,” he practically barked at me.

“Stay back!” I scrambled sideways, holding my hands up, my eyes unable to leave his gun. “Don’t come any closer.”

I’d already been violated once in this hallucination. I didn’t need a repeat.

He stopped, those dark eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. “I need to see your chest. Show it to me.”

“Why?” My voice cracked, and I threw my arms around myself protectively. “What the hell are you talking about? Just leave me alone.”

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