10. Chapter Ten
Chapter ten
E ven as I walked away from Maddox, I could still feel his eyes on me. I swear, ever since I arrived here, my entire existence had seemed to revolve around this fucking man. My ancestors, my history, and…my body.
“Is he still looking at me?” I asked Teagan, who was walking by my side.
“Yep.” She giggled, finding everything hilarious about this situation.
I wasn’t going to turn around. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. His face was smug enough without adding to his ego.
I sighed. “Take a picture and send it to me because I am not looking at him.”
Teagan continued to laugh at me but finally got her phone out and snapped the picture. I waited to feel my pocket vibrate, but it didn’t. “Uh…Vivvy?”
I ignored her, trying to feel for my phone in the oversized shirt pocket.
“Vivvy,” she said again, and I sighed, finally looking at her. “What?”
She turned her phone toward me, and on her screen was a picture of my number. It was Maddox. The picture was an elicit pose of him leaning against the shrub, his shirt was open, revealing his plastered-on abs, and the fingers he used inside of me were pressed against his lips, breaking them apart just a bit to see the tease of his fucking tongue.
Below the picture was a message.
Is this what my Little Virgin wants? If you prefer less clothing, darling, I am afraid you will have to meet me in person.
I gasped when I saw the three dots pop up again as he actively typed.
That asshole has my phone!
I growled and snatched Teagan’s cell when the dots disappeared, and a message replaced it.
Xo See you tonight, Little Virgin Xo
I was seething, nearly breaking it in my grip.
“Don’t take it out on my technology, babe.”
Sighing, I handed it back to her and glared over at Maddox, who was already talking to others as if nothing had happened. I wanted to walk over and smack the shit out of him. Refraining from violence so openly, I pulled out the stupid paper he had handed me.
It was still coated in his blood.
The words were confusing.
Some hoity-toity-looking diner, most likely. I handed the page to Teagan, who whistled low in her throat. “Damn. Well, that’s certainly an honor.”
Intrigued, I waited for her to continue.
“This is St. Valentine’s place, Vivvy. Your ancestor. It’s the burial grounds. They are off-limits to everyone. I don’t even know how he would get this privilege. Maybe he’s trying to show you your history?”
Our history.
I reminded myself. Realizing that our secret time in the maze was so much worse than the whole professor/student thing…we were related.
I felt absolutely dirty.
“That is a testament to how weird he is. Luring me to a graveyard while holding my phone hostage?”
Teagan snickered. “I mean, you have to appreciate the effort, right?”
I shook my head. “No. I want to hurt him.”
Teagan handed me back the paper. “Well, what better way to hurt a man than to break his plans? You need your phone back. You should go there and show him you own him, not the other way around.”
I thought about that. What could it hurt to go to this creepy date of his? If nothing else, I would get my phone back and maybe learn about my grandmother.
“Think there are any pinecones lying around?” I said with a laugh.
Your desires will be your doom, child…
I sighed, ignoring her warning and nodding my head.
Probably. I thought to myself. But all the same, I have to see this through .
It took some time to get ready. I borrowed a beautiful, gothic black, full-length dress from Teagan. She worked my hair into a spun-up ball of twists on the top of my head. I looked at myself in the dorm mirror, feeling beautiful for once.
“Well…I’m ready, I guess.” It was dark, and I hated going around at night.
I didn’t want to bump into those damn stalking shadows. Some part of me knew that I was heading to so much darker than that.
I hugged Teagan bye and grabbed my coat, hat, and gloves. The weather was generally harsh, but it got so much colder at night. It ripped through my clothing and made my teeth chatter.
I had to walk away from the school. I was so far out now, behind the chapel, past the maze, beyond even the cemetery that lined the church. This was a labyrinth of its own.
A maze of graves…
I found Maddox. His back was turned to me. He was standing beside a building, a large crest adorning the door. It was a doe with multiple horns jutting out of the head. It looked as if it were warped.
Demonic even.
The images of the dead doe and mangled body filtered through my mind like a slideshow, and I cleared my throat.
He lifted my phone above his head.
“Come for this?” he said without even turning.
He knew I was here. This man could hear everything. Tracked me so easily. He was a predator…yet here I was, walking right into the lion’s den.
“Or are you the least bit curious in this?” he gestured to the door.
“This is our crest, Vivian. The Valentini .”
I looked at the doe again. The symbol made me feel extremely uncomfortable. It left a weird hum in my blood. I couldn’t help it. I was curious about my history. I wanted to know what happened. Those news articles. Were they true?
“Fourteen women were murdered. My great-something grandmother was one of those taken that night. Someone killed all the wives.”
Maddox turned to face me now. He had a knife in his hand. It looked ceremonial-old but taken care of. The jewels glittered on the end, and there were inscriptions on the blade.
“Our blood is written in history,” he said, almost as if he were chanting a spell.
Behind the building in front of us were pillar-like gravestones erected around the mausoleum. I pointed to the strange line of marble. “What is that?”
Maddox followed my gaze and turned to smile at me. “Our grandmother.”
I didn’t know why, but I felt so much fear at that moment. The woman in my head, spouting about her riddles and warnings, was lying dead under one of these masts.
I felt incredibly sad.
She was murdered if the rumors were true. We looked so much alike from the images I found on her. I was a recreation of every aspect of her corporeal form. Maybe that was why I heard her in my mind. However, I can’t decipher her messages.
“I want to see Vivianna’s grave,” I said, my words increasing the strange hum inside my blood. We were connected.
Maddox turned to me and smiled. “You know where it is, Little Virgin. Let your body guide you. She’s always been waiting.”
I didn’t know how I felt about that, but he was right. There was an unseen pull on my soul, a gentle nudge in the direction of the largest marble pillar directly in the center. I followed the sensations and stood across from the name written on the tomb.
“Vivianna Valentini,” Maddox whispered. He was standing behind me. I had heard his footfalls, but he respected my space. I didn’t know what I was meant to find here.
Why did my blood call to this grave?
I didn’t know my ancestor, and my only information was hearsay and rumors. Her picture was carved into the rock, and it was eerie as if I were seeing a photograph of myself from that time. A man stood beside her, looking like his descendant behind me.
“I told you our fate has always been written in our blood. We were born to the present so that we can recreate the past. Aequilibrium in Mundo.”
His words didn’t make sense, and besides the fact that he apparently spoke Latin, the past, according to legend, was St. Valentine killing his beloved wife.
“What could that have to do with us?” I thought aloud, but Maddox was already walking away, heading back to the crest on the stone of the building.
I sighed and followed him. The dagger was in his hand, the blade resting on his palm. Before I could speak, the weapon sliced through his skin, and his blood spilled out onto the snow-covered ground. My eyes widened in horror.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Shhh. Watch.” he brought his hand up to the symbol, his blood coating the doe with many horns.
A mechanical sound whirred behind the door, and the doe spun around to flip completely upside down, revealing a new image. A monster faced me. Spindly legs stretched out where there used to be horns, and the head was a warped…heart.
Maddox looked at me, wrapping his injured hand with a cloth from his coat.
The bloody door clicked and began to open. The stone moved forward, allowing entrance.
Maddox gestured me forward, and my curiosity was too much to deny. I questioned who I was and where I came from so often. This was my chance to find those answers.
I walked through the slab, and Maddox followed. It was dark while I followed the path of a tunnel, but then the room lit up.
Old school cavern lanterns illuminated the way, and one by one, I could see…tombs. The bodies were covered in a glass display, stood upright, and preserved all these years. Their names were carved into the bottom of the coffins.
I gasped, backing up into Maddox. He smiled and continued to walk me forward. The graves were all circling a large table with names written into the stone. We moved around to the center of it all.
A man frozen in time was entombed.
He looked so much like Maddox that I lost my breath, turning to look at his features. His bright blue eyes were the only difference between him and his ancestor. Those eyes in the tomb looked old, cold, and dead. There was no sinister light in them…at least not anymore.
I counted each glass box with a man inside…
Fourteen.
I stared at Maddox in fear. He just smiled in return.
“You are as brilliant as you are beautiful,” he said, running his hand over my jaw and letting his thumb catch on my bottom lip.
“You had it mostly right, Vivian.” he continued while staring at his thumb on my open lips. “There were fourteen women killed that night…but you didn’t know that there have been fourteen more every year since.”
I stayed silent, hoping he would explain. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath for his words. He waited for me to answer my own question. My eyes widened again, looking at each dead, cruel face of the fourteen men.
“It was them that killed their wives,” I whispered in disbelief. “The Elders. The founders…Their husbands.”
“Yes. Good girl, Little Virgin. I knew you would not fall prey to the many stories told. You continued to search until you got your truth. Are you satisfied with your answer?”
I shook my head.
“But…why?”
Maddox came up from behind me, pulling off his coat and unbuttoning his shirt. I blinked, backing up against the cool glass of the tomb in front of me.
“I told you. No matter how many times you ask, the answer will always remain the same. Fate.”
I narrowed my eyes. “No. It was a choice. Murdering the one you loved is a choice.”
His shirt was off his body, and his abs were half-shadowed by the flickering lantern light.
“You say choice, but do you really believe that?”
I frowned, confusion lacing my addled brain as he pulled off my hat and gloves. I couldn’t concentrate with his body so close to mine. He was shirtless and beautiful.
“Of course I…do,” I said again, but it sounded like a question.
“You can see how destiny has worked, Little Virgin. Just open your eyes.”
I blinked over and over, trying to understand, but he was pulling off my jacket from my body, and I couldn’t think of anything.
“A female virgin, descendant of the very women who lost their lives all those years ago, returns to the resting place of where she was killed? You look exactly like Vivianna, and I look exactly like Saint.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe this. “There’s no such thing as fate!”
Maddox chuckled as he slipped my dress off my shoulders and leaned down to place kisses on my neck and collarbone. I couldn’t comprehend anything but his mouth. This was wrong.
“Says the woman who followed me to her own history.”
I shook my head, letting my hands trail down his abs on their own accord.
“I can’t believe in fate,” I said, shaking my head and biting my lip.
“This is fate, Vivian Valentine. This moment.”
I watched his lips as he spoke, the flickering light flashing on his body. I gasped when my hands ran over rough, raised scars on his skin.
“What’s wrong with your back? Why is it scarred?”
He laughed in a menacing growl. “They are names, Parva Virgo . Our history brands my skin the same as our blood. I was always their slave.”
I couldn’t comprehend that at all.
He would mark his back with the names of our family. Why?
“Fate has always been the leading factor in everything in my life—the driver to my hands. I want to take this time to be in control. I want to create this moment for myself.”
My lips parted with his meaning. He wanted to…
My dress was yanked down my torso, my breasts bouncing out of the fabric. I scrambled, trying to pull it back up, but Maddox gripped my wrists and pushed me against that cold glass of the tombs, jerking my head back and taking my mouth in his own.
I had never been kissed, but how his mouth warred with mine made it feel so right. I panted, trying to catch my breath, but he wouldn’t let me. He was overwhelming my system, making me short-circuit.
“No. Maddox, stop,” I said, trying to pull free of this haze.
“Let this happen, Little Virgin. Take me. Like you have always been destined to.”
His pants fell down his legs and his boxers with it. I gasped and stared at the terrifyingly large dick poking at my chest.
“Bend over, Vivian Valentine.”
I whimpered, terrified and so damn hot I couldn’t help but listen with shaky movements. I didn’t get a warm-up or a warning. He moved behind me so fast I could barely register the feeling of him as he lined up his cock and slammed into my entrance.
I screamed.
The pain engulfed me, the feeling of being ripped apart overwhelming. This wasn’t like his fingers. No, this was painful, and it made me sweat instantly. I struggled to get away from him, feeling the warm blood coat my thighs.
“Be still. I can barely control myself as it is.”
His warning felt dark. There was no sweetness to it.
I stared up at the glass containing his doppelganger, those dead eyes staring back at me as Maddox thrusted in and out of my core.
I cried, tears streaming down my face. Maddox was so big. His hand reached down to my clit, and the agonizing burn started to turn into something warmer. I was still on fire, but now, with each stroke and pump, I felt this need fill my belly.
“Holy fuck, you are so tight. You will bring me to my grave, Vivian Valentine. You feel like heaven, but surely you are nothing but pure sin.”
I panted, taking the brunt of his thrusts. My body was being smashed against the glass of the tomb, my tears smearing the clear material as I held onto that smooth surface for balance as best as I could. I could see my reflection. I could see him. He looked possessed as he marked my body in bloody handprints.
I was going to come. Somehow, some way, my body was gearing up to explode on his member. I couldn’t help myself. I turned my head to stare at his face. He linked his tattooed hands into my hair, angling me more. I could feel him inside my stomach.
“I-I…I can’t stop myself,” I said, mindlessly grinding onto him. I could see and smell the blood. I couldn’t tell what was from him or myself.
It coated his pelvis and my legs. I felt my insides ripping to accept him. His thickness was way more than his fingers, and I had two seconds to adjust to him before he fucked me so hard I couldn’t even see straight.
“Vivian! Holy fuck-My Little Virgin. Fuck, you’re gonna feel my come. I am going to fucking fill you up for days to come where you can only think of me when it drips down these silky thighs.”
I screamed, and his own growl joined mine. We came together. The slippery liquid of his semen truly did fill me to the brim. It spurted out from where we connected, leaking down the sides of his cock, and the dam bursting from my own orgasm created a sticky pool below us.
I couldn’t look at him.
I just couldn’t.
All I could do was stare at the blood and my ancestors in front of me…wondering how much this truly was fate.