I don’t think Xavier plans to keep me for long. How could he when I will eventually bleed out?
“Once I take you home with me,” he pants, “I’m going to drink that fucking blood. Dine on it at all hours of the day.”
My stomach revolts and I nearly gag again. The picture he’s painting in my head is vile and disturbing. He might as well declare himself as a cannibal or an aspiring-vampire.
Noting the abhorrence twisted into my features, he snarls and moves his blade to my throat.
“This vein right here? One little slice, and I could drink from you until you’re nothing more than a wilted corpse. Do you want that?”
Yes. God, please, let me die. Here and now, and I’ll be fucking happy.
“No,” I choke out, my voice tight with pain. I wouldn’t dare tell him to do it because then he won’t. Xavier would never go as far as to give me what I actually fucking want. Especially because he knows it isn’t him.
“Then tell me you want me,” he demands, as if hearing my thoughts.
“I want you,” I immediately echo, though it rings hollow. He wants to claim a place in my heart, but that place is a vacuum of emptiness that he will never be capable of filling.
He snarls, hearing the vacancy in my voice, and buries himself inside me. Though if he thinks he’s deep, I’d hate for him to see the size of Zade.
The only reason his cock will ever cause me pain is purely because it’s attached to him.
Working to swallow, I suck my trembling lip between my teeth. Maliciousness sprouts in his blue eyes, and it’s like watching him pull a black coat over them, the bright color shrouded beneath the darkness.
His hand travels down the planes of my stomach, pausing to dig his thumb into a wound and wring a cry from my throat, before continuing down. He swirls his fingers over my flesh in a taunting manner, an evil smirk curling his lips.
There’s a little sponge in my windpipe, collecting hatred like water and swelling until my throat is hermetically sealed.
Lightly, he brushes across my center, his eyes sparkling as his fingers find that spot that has my muscles tensing.
“Oh, God,” I breathe, more tears burning the backs of my eyes. I hate that spot-yet another thing he’s aware of.
His eyes blaze, excitement radiating from him.
“Tell me again,” he orders, his voice dipped in sin. I close my eyes, imagining a scarred face with devilish yin-yang eyes, grinning at me from beneath his hood.
Working to swallow, I rasp out, “I want you.”
It takes effort not to crack when I hear him groan. It’s all wrong. He sounds wrong, he feels wrong, he’s just… fucking wrong. He smiles when he hears it and rubs harder.
“Say my name, diamond,” he demands.
I set my jaw in response.
I’ll never say it. Never.
He’s been trying since he started visiting, and every effort has been wasted.
When I keep my mouth firmly glued shut, he starts thrusting again while continuing to stimulate me. My body tenses, a traitorous feeling congregating in the pit of my stomach. Still, I keep silent, refusing to relinquish more than I already have.
Xavier thinks I’ve given him nothing, but that’s not true. I’ve given him everything-he just finds no value in what he’s taken from me.
The smooth, unmarked skin he mutilates.
The fragments of my sanity that chip away with every brush of his skin, and every whispered omen of the day I will be his.
My ability to touch and be touched without wanting to slit my throat open.
My dignity, self-esteem, and the comfort within my body.
My fucking worth.
All meaningless.
Because what he really wants is every broken piece of my soul, and for me to cherish every broken piece of his.
But my soul is already spoken for-already claimed by a wicked man with every intention to keep it to himself. And I suppose he’s given me his in return.
I’m just not sure what the fuck to do with it now.
“You’ll say it one day, diamond. You have the rest of your life with me,” he promises.
My legs clench around his hips as he fucks me harder, bending down to drag his tongue across my nipple. I grit my teeth, the bile rising in my throat.
“This is mine,” he groans. “All of this is mine.”
His teeth close over the abused peak, biting until my vision blackens with agony, and a scream is tearing from my throat. Even then, he doesn’t relent. Not until blood leaks through the cracks of his teeth, and I’m begging for the knife instead.
What a tragedy.
Finally, he releases me, a smear of crimson staining his bottom lip. His eyes are dilated as he pumps his hips faster, his ministrations on my clit quickening.
Gradually, it pulls me away from the fire lancing through the peak of my breast. I inhale sharply-a staccato breath full of sorrow.
The orgasm ravages my body, and oh look-there it goes. Another piece of my sanity.
“I’m getting really tired of looking at fucking Neosporin,” Rio says from behind me.
Xavier just left for the night. He was particularly brutal, slicing over the healed scars on my back and all across my breasts and stomach. He pushes it a little farther every time.
They said the Culling is designed to weed out those who have endurance-who can survive anything. But I’m not sure I’ll survive another night with him.
“Sorry,” I mumble, too exhausted to snap at him. My eyes are pinned on the dozens of tally marks carved into the nightstand, and it’s only depressing me more.
“You’re giving up, princesa,” he sighs, dropping the first aid kit on the bed. He started calling me that after the Culling, now sounding more like an endearment than an insult.
Francesca never did relieve him of taking care of me, and neither of us have bothered to stop it. It will never be said aloud, but I think we both find solace in one another.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.