Page 18 of Worse Than Wicked
“If you want it to be,” I say. “A promise, a threat, our fate… It’s all of those things. You’ve always been mine, even before you existed. If you try to take yourself away from me, I’ll follow you down. If you try to get rid of me, I’ll take you to the grave with me. I’ll follow you to the end of the world, through space and time, through death and every lifetime, through all eternity. No matter what you do, I will never let you go. I promise you that, my monster.”
“Promise you won’t make me think I’m crazy again,” she says, her breathing rapid, her bare belly pressing to mine with each inhale.
I run my knuckles along her jawline, tipping her chin up before wrapping my fingers around her bruised throat just to watch her flinch. I smirk down at her, loving how she just revealed her greatest fear, her deepest insecurity to me, making herself vulnerable in a way that usually only her body is. Leaning in, I graze my nose against hers, watching her nostrils flare when she feels my cock throb inside her, stiffening again just when she thought I’d take mercy on her.
“I promise.”
Then I fuck her again because I can and because I want her to know it, to never forget that she’s mine as much as I’m hers. She ensnared me, trapped me like the spider she is, and this is the consequence. She wanted me, so she got me. She shouldn’t have woven me into her web if she didn’t want every part of this—the hand around her throat, allowing her tobreathe; the cock inside her deeper than anything is meant to go, then in her ass when her cunt’s too wet; the smile on my face when she finally cracks and begs me to stop. I do, but only after I’ve gotten rough enough to draw the sweet scream that rises out of her like a siren’s call, making my orgasm erupt inside her.
I step out of the shower, letting her crumple to the floor, sobbing and shaking. I leave her there, the water beating down on her, mingling with the blood trailing toward the drain in rivulets. She asked for it. She wanted to the love of a monster, and she got it.
five
Duke Dolce
I squeeze my eyes shut and pull the pillow over my head, trying to block out the sound of her screams. I can’t save her, so I don’t try. That probably makes me a pussy, or just as bad as him. That’s what I always did, ever since I figured out that my brothers were more ruthless than I’d ever be. I never had the stomach for it, not since we were five years old and we saw my uncle kill a man. They had to cover for me, make our dad think I was tough like them. That’s when I started to learn. I’m not quick like Baron, so it took a while, but eventually I figured it out. How to fake it. How to look tough, act tough, so everyone thought I was. The only thing I never figured out was how tobetough.
Substances help with that. Alcohol, molly, pills, and then, finally, the pearl lady. With enough of anything in me, it didn’t feel like I was walking around flayed while everyone else had a skin suit to protect them. I was always raw, every grain of sand stinging, every word or look or rejection, a hot match to an exposed nerve.
I sit up, reaching for my jeans. I need one now, need Lady Alice to take me by the hand and lead me to Wonderland.
The door swings open, and Baron strolls in, dick swinging, water droplets still shimmering on his shoulders in the light from the hallway behind him. He stops when he sees me sitting up.
“I thought you went back to sleep,” he says, lifting the blankets and sliding in on his side.
“Kinda hard when it sounds like you’re killing her,” I mutter.
“I wasn’t killing her,” Baron says, turning away and setting his glasses on the bedside table, which gives me a chance to swallow the pearls. “I was fucking her.”
“You tried to kill her like an hour ago,” I say. “You can see how I’d be on alert.”
“She’s fine,” he says, adjusting his pillow. “You can hear her crying, can’t you?”
He’s right. Mabel’s soft sobs echo in the bathroom, which means she’s alive.
“You can’t go off on her like that,” I say quietly. “What if I hadn’t been here?”
“I know,” he says, serious now. “I shouldn’t have done that. It won’t happen again.”
“What if it does?”
“It won’t,” he says firmly.
I turn to face him, resting my face on my hand and gazing into the mirror of my twin, visible in the dim light coming through the open bedroom door.
“Was it because it was her?” I ask.
“No,” Baron says, scowling. “You think I care about that dumb runaway?”
“I guess not.” I don’t correct him, tell him that she’s not a runaway. Maybe she is. Just because she has a sister, that doesn’t mean she didn’t run away.
“No one cares about her,” he says. “She was garbage, so we threw her out.”
He’s wrong about that. Olive loves her. Olive is waiting for her, even now.
“Did you really kill her?” I ask. “After I left. You didn’t let her go?”
“Of course I fucking killed her,” he snaps. “I tried, anyway.”
