35. Beatrix
35
BEATRIX
A hot breath hits my face.
I can hear Angel Eyes’ soft grunts, and Shannon’s whispers of encouragement as they both hover over me while I lay strapped down to the exam table. No matter how hard I fight, I can’t get loose. I can hear Knox’s faint shouts from across the room, trying to get their attention but failing. Shannon’s words are spoken in whispers, so soft I can’t quite make them out, but I can hear how twisted with hope and excitement they are—for a future I don’t want to be a part of.
“No…” I whimper. “No, no, please…”
I’m ignored. It’s like, for them, I’m not even here. They don’t look at me, just each other. Even when Angel Eyes’ rough hands take my hips in a biting grip—his weight bearing down on me as he leans forward—he doesn’t look at me.
A light flares in Shannon’s eyes and something presses between my legs. A scream wells up as pain ? —
“Beatrix!”
My eyelids fly open as I choke on a gasp. Balled in my fists are starchy, white, unfamiliar sheets. As the room comes into focus, I notice the sterile white walls. My heart lurches at the sight of them, but quickly I realize they’re not tiled. A small, relieved sigh slips past my lips as I piece blurry memories together to make one clear image. I’m in a hospital. That annoying, rapid beeping sound beside my head is the heart rate monitor. It’s attached to my finger, telling the world I’m on the verge of a panic attack. And the pain in my abdomen? Those are from the stitches holding together my flesh.
Fingers wrap around my forearm, and I flinch. Even before my body starts to relax, I know whose hand is on me and that my reaction was unnecessary. Turning my head, I find a striking man with pale skin, black hair that hangs over his eyes, and a mouth pressed into a tight line towering over me. His one green eye and one brown watch me closely, reading me more thoroughly than any monitor could.
“Sagan,” I breathe his name in a sigh of relief.
A deep, smoldering burn in his gaze is the only indication he’s not made from stone
“You dreamed about them again,” he says, not asking, in his low deep voice.
My cheeks heat with shame and my eyes drop away from his face. Since I arrived four days ago, every time I’ve closed my eyes, I've dreamed of Ronald and Shannon Reed. During my waking hours, I don’t think of my time in that basement. I don’t have to. Thanks to my husband , the nurses, doctors, police—they all think I know nothing, so they don’t press me about it. Somehow, Knox managed to convince everyone that he had no idea who our captors were, nor did he know where we had been. Apparently, the two of us were blindfolded for the duration of our kidnapping. And when he’d gotten us out of there, he’d been way too discombobulated to take in our surroundings.
Not that there would be anything for the police to find even if we did give them the exact location of Angel Eyes’ house.
“We burned down his house after they kicked us out of here the first day,” Thatcher had whispered into my ear as he laid on the hospital bed with me. “Whatever he had on us is burnt to a crisp. Any evidence that you or Knox were there is gone.”
I took great comfort in that news.
When the police realized I couldn’t help them with their investigation, they decided to run the samples from the rape kit they’d collected from me. It proved just as fruitless. I can still see the befuddled look in the detective’s eyes as he stood at the end of my hospital bed yesterday when he’d returned with the results.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there must’ve been some sort of mix up at the lab.” His white mustache had twitched, just as perplexed apparently as the man sporting it. “It matched the DNA of a serial killer that died years ago. Clearly that’s not possible, so there must’ve been some sort of cross contamination.”
I couldn’t tell them that he had it right—that Chicago’s infamous serial killer had me in his clutches. That would’ve indicated I knew more than I was letting on. So, I kept my mouth shut.
I should feel at ease now that everything is over.
But I can’t. While no one questions me about my experience and I have one of the guys to keep me occupied during the day while the others tend to Bright Starr, at night Ronald and Shannon are there to haunt me. I hate how much they still affect me.
“Look at me, Little Viper,” Sagan demands in a deep growl that demands my obedience.
I peer up at him through my lashes, even as shame makes me want to just squeeze my eyes shut and curl into a ball.
“They can't touch you anymore.”
My knee-jerk reaction is to agree, so I let my head bob once before I mutter, “I know.”
Nervously, I reach up and play with the end of my braid. Knox had re-braided my hair before he left early this afternoon, which I appreciate since I know I’ve been looking a little rough.
“Do you?” Sagan’s skepticism is near impossible to detect. If I didn’t know him better, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
“I...” I hesitate a moment.
Sagan and Thatcher both know what happened. Knox had given them the details at some point. None of them have discussed what transpired in that basement around me during their visits, though. A part of me is relieved about that. Without speaking about it, I can pretend that nothing's changed. That what brought me here was simply an accident, and I'll be home where I'll be safe and sound soon enough. If we talk about it, about the horrible things I'd endured, that Knox had suffered through… It makes it too real.
It was all real, though. There’s no escaping that truth—whether we ever speak about it or not, that experience will live with me forever.
“I can still feel him, Sagan. In my dreams, he's as real as you are sitting there,” I admit, forcing myself to hold his intense gaze. “He's like an invisible hook that won't let me go. I know he's not really here, but it's hard to wrap my head around that reality when I can feel him.”
I squeeze my thighs shut, as if that could banish the sensation.
The smidgen of warmth in Sagan's eyes is blanketed, snuffed out by a cold breeze that I swear I feel wrapping around me. I shiver. Not in fear. In desolation. He doesn't want to hear this. Of my failure to be the vicious woman he’d taught me to be. I should’ve fought Angel Eyes harder and found a way to free me and Knox sooner. My heart shudders as I finally look away. I can't watch his detachment slide into place after my confession. Needing some comfort, I drag the stiff sheets up my body.
The sheet is abruptly ripped completely off of me. I watch in surprise as it flutters to the floor.
“Look. At. Me ,” Sagan commands, his words bulleted.
I do. As my eyes land on his face, I’m surprised to find a hint of red climbing up his neck and into his cheeks. At his sides, his hands curl into tight balls. His anger is like dark, shadowy tentacles, reaching out and wrapping around the items in the room. Those tentacles find me, enveloping me until I feel like I’m being dragged toward the man who looks ready to murder. I can’t breathe when he looks at me like this. With fire in his eyes and the promise of death crackling around us—he’s painfully attractive.
“We’ve become cocky and complacent—a deadly combination in our line of work. I didn’t even realize it until it was too late. But how could I have seen those flaws in this mess? There were four of us versus one man. A man the world thought was dead. We were playing a game with a ghost. ” Sagan shakes his head. “We should’ve taken the subtle threats he sent us seriously. I should’ve taken them seriously. If I had, none of this would’ve happened.”
His lips snap shut. The tension in his body keeps him rigid and rooted to the spot. The flames from hell that this devil, my devil, dragged up to this world with him from when he ascended to this plane, flare up in his gaze.
I frown, trying to understand. “Sagan, don’t tell me you think this was your fault? How could you have possibly?—”
“Did you not hear me?” he snaps. “I should’ve taken care of the threat to you and the others.”
“How would you have even gone about doing that?” I shake my head slowly. “The only reason you found us was because of that weird tracker in Knox’s butt.”
“Weird or not, don’t think you’re not getting one once you’re out of here.”
Despite the situation and the heavy topic of our conversation, I can’t help but giggle. “Can it not be in my butt?”
Sagan shrugs. “We’ll see.”
For the first time in a while, a real smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. I’ve been so tired and plagued with shame that even when Knox is here, sitting in the bed with me, trying to make me smile, I can only muster up half of one.
Sagan notices. His eyes narrow in on it, and I watch as his shoulders relax ever so slightly.
“I made a vow to myself when I found you, all those months ago, that the only pain you would feel would be the kind that brings pleasure with it and it would be at my hands,” he growls. “I may have failed you in this, but Thatcher and I have come up with a way to set things right. It should help ease the pain of his violations.”
My amusement falls away like a heavy stone falling away from a cliffside.
“Sagan…” I breathe, looking down at my body. It’s covered with a hospital gown. The thin material does nothing to make me feel comfortable. I feel dirty and exposed. “He’s in my head. He’s inside me. I don’t think there’s anything that will make this feeling go away.”
Bile creeps up my throat. A hard shiver works its way through me as I try, and fail, to keep the feeling of Ronald’s hands from squeezing my hips.
Without warning, Sagan’s right hand curls around the front of my neck with a grip tight enough to cause my heart to skip a beat in trepidation. My eyes find his face, only to see a monster. His gaze is twisted with dark depravity and a selfish possessiveness. I know he would rip my soul straight from my body, shred and devour it just so it would always be a part of him if he could.
I wish that was so. I’ve never wanted to belong to someone so much as I do at this very moment. Sagan is the monster that could vanquish all the other ones. He’s the villain who gets what he wants in the end.
Sagan’s grip tightens around my neck. His other hand falls on my chest. The heat from his touch is scalding hot. I flinch at the contact but then lean into it, hoping it will burn away Ronald’s touch. I stare up at Sagan, whose stormy gaze doesn’t leave my face.
“I told you the first night in that house together that I’m no hero.” Sagan’s voice is rough as he speaks. His hand on my chest begins to move downward. “But as the days stretched without you, I wished otherwise. While I was absent from your life, that husk of a man has made you believe that you’re his.”
He slides his hand over my right breast and in its wake, my nipple pebbles in response. The monitor traitorously gives away how my heart longs to leap from my chest and into his arms.
“You’re not his to terrorize, Little Viper. You’re mine .”
I shake my head. He’s not getting it.
“He’s here , Sagan. All around me,” I whisper, my voice wobbling as his hand travels lower. “I can feel him.”
When Sagan cups my mound above the hospital gown, I gasp.
“Whose hand is on you now?” he asks sharply.
“Yours, but…”
My bottom lip trembles hard and my eyes well up with fat tears. Sagan’s upper lip pulls back in a snarl. He leans down, getting into my face with narrowing pupils.
“He’s not here,” he snarls. “He never will be again. I will be the only one that possesses you from here on out. Do you understand me?”
I don’t. The tears leak from the corner of my eyes and slide down my cheeks. “What about… Thatcher? And Knox?”
“They are me,” Sagan growls. “They’re an extension of me. Just like you are. Combined is a living and breathing entity. A force no one can fucking destroy.”
I open my mouth to speak, but then Sagan yanks up the gown and shoves two fingers deep inside me. There’s no preamble, no pretty words, no sweet kisses from this Hunt twin. My cry of pain is cut off as Sagan tightens his grip around my throat.
“Do you feel him there now, Little Viper?” Sagan asks, lowering his voice. “Or do you feel me ?”
His breath hits my face as he pumps his fingers in and out of me. I squirm under his touch, hating and loving it. He’s touching me where Ronald did. Doesn’t he feel dirty? Can’t he tell I'm ruined? That his toy is broken? I start to fight him, my hands reaching up to claw at Sagan’s arm that’s holding me down, but he only grips my throat tighter. The move cuts off all oxygen then. Fear causes me to thrash. The monitor beside the bed begins to go wild. Neither deter Sagan as he applies more pressure around my throat and continues to thrust his fingers deep inside of me. Just before panic begins to consume all my rationality, I look up into his eyes. There, I find my perfect villain staring back at me. There’s so much heat and avariciousness in his gaze that I begin to understand what he’s been saying and what he’s doing now.
Sagan is holding my life in his hands, because it belongs to him. At some point, before we met, he saw something in me and wanted it for himself. I gave him everything that I could because I wanted to be owned by this devil. Sagan Hunt was the first person who ever saw any real worth in me. And right now, he’s proving just how much he sees and knows me. With just his fingers, he’s forcing my body to come to life. To shake off the chill that’s frozen me from the inside since my time with Ronald.
My pussy grows wet around his fingers. I try to groan but can’t. Not with Sagan’s hand wrapped around my throat. My hips instinctually thrust upward in time with his punishing strokes. A small mew slipping past my lips when his thumb presses down and starts to circle my clit.
“I don’t feel anyone here, Little Viper,” Sagan muses, a hard smile curling his lips. “It’s just you and me. And I think you like that. I think you enjoy me owning you, of me reminding you just how much you crave this fucked up life I allow you to live.”
Yes , I breathe in my head as the pleasure begins to grow, and tension grows taut between my legs.
Sagan shoves a third finger inside me. This digit slides in much more smoothly than the first two had. My chest arches as my body clenches around this new invader. Blackness begins to tease the edges of my vision. My lungs burn from the lack of oxygen.
“Who possesses you, Little Viper?” Sagan asks with a sneer. “Who owns this pretty body, covered in shiny scales and full of venom? Is it Ronald?”
I shake my head as best I can. My thoughts start to short circuit and my fighting becomes weaker. I’m going to pass out. But, before I do, Sagan needs to know, through his brutal reclaiming of my body, that it is him that owns me. Sagan isn’t kind, isn’t sweet, but he is perfect, nonetheless. I need his depravity to ground me, and he knows this. He knows me . And he’s giving me exactly what I need to overcome the shit I’ve gone through. In his own fucked up way, Sagan loves me and he’s showing me this in the only way he knows how.
That thought, with the peace that it brings and the relief that follows, is enough to send me careening over the edge and finding my release. Sagan lets my neck go at the same time. With a gasp, I cum hard. White-hot pleasure streaks through me, melting away the wretched chill in my veins. The heart monitor is going off like crazy, audibly telling Sagan what he’s doing to me.
“It’s you! You own me,” I whimper through the wave of pleasure. I fight the urge to close my eyes so that I can continue to stare into Sagan’s face. I want him to see the peace that he’s brought me. As my body releases Sagan’s fingers and the orgasm begins to subside, I add in a whisper, “You possess me, Sagan, sir .”
Sagan lets out a content hum as he pulls his fingers free. The sound of footsteps outside the hallway warns us that we’re about to have company.
“That’s right, I do ,” he confirms with a nod, straightening slowly. He shoves his fingers into his mouth, a flash of my arousal catching in the light before it’s devoured.
I smile. “Hey, Sagan?”
My stepbrother, my devil , steps away from the side of my bed as the door is flung open and nurses come bustling in. He raises a brow at me as he finishes cleaning his fingers.
“Hm?”
“I love you.”
Given the spotty memories of the conversation I had with Knox after I told him how I felt about him, I know my admission could earn me a punishment. It’s worth the risk. I’d rather Sagan know how important he is to me than go another day without him aware of it.
A hard, visible shiver works down Sagan’s body. His head turns once to the left, then the right in a strange jerky movement. He sucks in an unsteady breath, which is strange for this immovable man. Then, his lips pull apart slowly into a smile. It’s a small one, but so full of warmth that I know it was created solely for me.
“Every beat of this cold, dead thing inside me belongs to you and Knox, Little Viper,” he promises.