Page 108 of The King of Hearts

“We do,” I tell her. “Shall I get it for you?”

“Yes, please.” She goes back to looking at Joseph’s passed-out form. “And can you grab the torch for me? I need to cauterize the wound. I don’t want him bleeding out before I’m finished with him.”

I go to the table and unzip the pouch that has several syringes of epinephrine. Plucking one out, I take it and the yellow torch over to Savina, dropping them both onto Joseph’s bare chest. I’m facing her, but she’s still facing Joseph. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, I turn her head and tilt it back. Her pretty, chocolatey eyes meet mine. She’s so goddamn beautiful with her face dotted with blood, and what makes it so appealing is that she’s the one who drew that blood.

I drop my head and steal a kiss. Our lips smash together, and I thrust my tongue inside her mouth. She matches my passion with her own, moaning into our kiss like she can’t get enough. Fuck knows, I never will. This woman has made me into an addict, and my drug of choice is her. There will never be a time in a thousand lifetimes where I’ve reached my limit of her.

I yank my mouth away from hers before I do something rash, like fuck her before she’s done with her task. She pants and her eyes are glazed over as she dazedly stares up at me.

“Finish up, Vicious.”

She blinks a couple of times before the lust-clouded look fades away, and she comes back to reality. Her pink tongue dartsout and touches her lips, like she’s licking that last little bit of me on her mouth.

I go back to my position against the wall. A smug smirk tips up my lips when her hand fumbles with the syringe at first. I like knowing I affect her enough that I distract her.

Instead of cauterizing the wound in Joseph’s groin while he’s passed out to save him from the pain, she chooses to shoot him up with adrenaline first. I would have done the same. I mean, torture is the reason we’re here, after all.

Savina jabs the syringe in the meaty part of Joseph’s thigh and pushes the plunger. The effect of the shot is immediate. His eyes pop open wide, the white in the orbs almost glowing. They dart around and within seconds lock on Savina. The thrashing begins again, along with the muffled yells against the ball gag.

“It’s bad form to pass out before the fun is over, Joseph,” she states over his smothered yells.

She picks up the torch. It takes her a minute to figure out how to turn it on. The flame that comes out of the burn tip is blue, then turns a purplish-pink.

The thrashing and screaming get worse. And the best part?

Joseph will feel every second as Savina burns his flesh to seal the leaking arteries. The adrenaline pumping through his body won’t allow him to pass out. And it won’t allow his heart to stop.

It’s fucking glorious.

Joseph’smuted screams still echo in my ears over an hour later. He held on longer than I thought he would. Even after the second dose of adrenaline wore off, he lasted another ten minutes before he passed out from blood loss, and his heart stopped beating. That was five minutes ago. Savina was in theprocess of using a cigar cutter on one of his last remaining fingers when he died. His death didn’t stop her though. She slammed her hand down on the cigar cutter, and the detached digit rolled from the table to the floor. Meeting the same fate as the others. As Savina moved around the table, those fingers were kicked around by her bare feet. It didn’t even faze her when she stepped on one.

Her dress is more red than white. Not once did she falter in her torture. She stayed the course and inflicted as much pain as she could.

Joseph’s lifeless body is missing eight of his ten fingers, has strips of flesh missing along his torso, has one eye removed, both ankles have been crushed and are at awkward angles, and there are deep lacerations over eighty percent of his body.

On the floor below the table, strips of flesh and fingers swim in a pool of blood.

Savina’s bloody arms hang loose at her sides, and her expression is composed when she turns to face me. “Take his heart,” she says. “I want it.”

“Whatever you wish, baby.”

I go to the table and get the items I need. I’ve perfected the art of removing a heart from a human body, so the process doesn’t take very long. The only thing I’m missing is the sounds of Joseph’s screams. Most often, my victims are always alive when I begin the process, and I kind of miss the symbolic sounds.

My arms, up to my elbows, and the front of my dress shirt are covered in blood when I hold out the heart to Savina over Joseph’s dead body. Her eyes light up with pleasure as she takes it into her small hands.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll give you any man’s heart. You only have to ask.”

Her eyes hold mine for a beat before she drops them to the bloody heart. She turns it this way and that, head cocked to the side, inspecting the organ. She flicks one of the severed arteries with the tip of a finger.

I drop the tool in my hand, and it falls inside the empty cavity of Joseph’s chest. I stalk around the table, my thoughts moving from blood and torture to something more lascivious. I’ve kept a lid on my desire while my Vicious played with her victim, but that type of playtime is over. It’s my turn to have some fun.

Savina’s head lifts from admiring her newly acquired heart, and her eyes meet mine. They turn to pools of melted chocolate when she sees the salacious intent on my face. Her arm lifts out away from her body, and her fingers let go of the heart. It thunks on Joseph’s body and rolls somewhere.

The moment I reach her, my fingers latch around her delicate throat. Using my thumb, I apply pressure to the underside of her jaw so she’s forced to tip her head back. Streaks of blood smear across her cheeks and forehead, and her hair is a sticky mess, half down and half still up from the pretty hairdo. She’s never looked more fucking beautiful.

I drop my head, slanting it slightly to the side, and slam my mouth against hers. I force my tongue past her lips, desperate to taste her, to conquer her, to fucking devour her.

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