Chapter 18
Beeep. Beeep. Beeeeeeeep.
I woke up in a cold sweat, practically throwing the alarm clock radio off the hotel nightstand.
Blinking, I tried to ground myself, looking around the room. It smelled faintly of bleach and blood. I never changed my damn clothes from last night.
I had been so tired after running back here on foot from the church that I couldn’t handle being in a shower and letting my mind wander.
I swung my legs off the edge of the bed, letting my fingers trace the quilted pattern as if memorizing it could anchor me somewhere solid in the vortex of my mind.
Each creak in the floorboards to the bathroom made my chest tighten.
I ignored the pounding in my head, turning on the shower and forcing myself not to think of the heat of last night.
What the hell was I thinking? I should have seduced him. Why didn’t I seduce him?
Because you like him.
No…I couldn’t like a man as doomed as myself. I couldn’t like a man in general. There was nothing I could give anyone, much less…a white man.
But no matter how much I told myself this, I couldn’t convince my brain to loop Jedidiah with every other white man I had endured. He wasn’t like them. His skin did not define who he was, any more than mine did.
We were just…humans.
My body heated with the steam, and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stop the sigh from escaping when the blood washed down the drain…and his come.
Leaning down, I swiped my finger along the bottom of the shower, watching the milky water drip from my fingertips.
Why does my stomach feel like it’s dropping when I think of this stupid priest?
My hands fell of their own accord as I sat against the tile, mirroring the way his body had been.
I could hear his husky voice in my mind. His sweet words called me beautiful.
He had called me ‘Soul.’ Did that mean he felt the same strange spark?
My fingers slid through the heat of my sex, and I moaned, recalling the way his muscles tightened when he came. His hands were so bloody and cracked from the violence at the club, but when he kissed me, and how he touched my face. It had been so soft.
You are so beautiful, Mortifera. Come for me.
His voice in my mind was so strong, and I couldn’t help but whimper as my fingers pushed into deeper, faster, following the rhythm he had used.
“Yes,” I whispered. “For you.”
Let me hear you moan, Sayuri. Let me feel you succumb to me.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Jedidiah. I am yours.”
I could feel my orgasm surfacing, closer and closer. It was a steady rise as his voice in my mind grew louder, my hands smashing into my cunt faster.
“Well. Well. Well…”
Kaito…?
I froze, my breath stalling in my throat and my hand falling away.
No. How was he here?
Kaito leaned against the bathroom door, and I cursed myself for not hearing him enter.
“Kaito, leave. You have no business in my private hotel space.”
My stomach twisted with dread as I prayed he wasn’t really here. But the shadows moved, silent, and suffocating as he stalked closer, his image not disappearing but swallowing my light.
He closed the door behind him, the click echoing like the click of handcuffs. His eyes were cold, sharp, and assessing. There was a hint of amusement on his face, and I swallowed hard. The air in the room thickened, and the fragile sense of calm I’d built shattered in one second.
“No, No. Don’t stop on my account. Please keep screaming to dear daddy Jed.” His voice was low and taunting. “Never seen you so Mortiferated, Sayuri. Did I need a priest outfit to get you wet like this?”
Panic ignited inside me as I tried to cover my body with my hands, reaching for the towel draped over the edge. Every instinct screamed to run and disappear. He saw me, and his hands yanked the fabric away with a loud snap.
“Don’t be so modest, bitch. I have seen every inch of that banging body. Inside and out. I don’t like this idea of another man getting under your skin. Maybe I need to remind you who you really belong to.”
My fingers clenched the edge of the tub as he approached me. He moved with a predator’s precision, slow and nearly a lethal dance that taunted me with each step. I knew resistance would only make him more dangerous and likely just turn him on.
When he reached the bedroom door, he pulled it open without a second thought.
“Bed. Now.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, feeling like lead had entered my belly. The heat from before was a distant memory. He didn’t bother with pretenses. This wasn’t about sex. It was a lesson.
When I reached the bed, he pressed me into it, using his elbow to anchor me by my back.
I barely felt his knee on my spine. I was used to this.
I stayed still, counting the patterns on the bedspread and trying to ignore the belt rustling above me.
This is what sex was, not warmth and not a fluttering feeling, just… pain.
I watched from the window’s reflection as Kaito claimed me.
The morning rain slid down the glass like the blood on my thighs.
There was no safety here. I was stuck in a daydream before.
This was my reality. Kaito’s words were spoken in a smooth tone while his hands marked my skin until it was swollen and bruised.
“This pussy is fucking mine. You seduce that prick without moaning his name, you hear me? You moan my fucking name. Let me hear it, Sayuri! Moan my fucking name.”
I didn’t.
That cost me, and I bit my lip until it bled, letting the metallic tang give me a focal point that wasn’t the burn inside me.
“Say. My. Fucking. Name.”
I coughed, trying to adjust to his death grip.
“N…no.”
Kaito laughed, and that jolted me, the sound so foreign. He flipped me to face him, and I averted my gaze.
“No?” he said, menace and so much poison in his tone. “You are too fucking comfortable with your little vacation.”
He pulled out of me, and I thought it was over, but then I saw him grab his hand into his jean pocket and pull out his knife.
“You belong to us, Sayuri,” he said, wrenching my wrists and locking my arms above my head with his large body on top of my chest. I felt the slice and the feeling of the blood falling made the heat bloom inside me.
No. No. No. I didn’t want this. A moan escaped my lips, and Kaito groaned in approval, leaning his head down to lick the cut.
“Now say my name, bitch. If you want to feel this, you say my fucking name.”
I swallowed, already losing the high of the burn.
“Please…Kaito.”
Another hum, and Kaito pressed the knife deeper until I felt myself going over the edge, grinding my body against his like I was on autopilot.
Shame infused in my veins when my orgasm spilled from me.
Kaito’s laugh was worse.
“That’s right. Let’s see your fucking priest make you come like that. You belong to us—The Crimson Carrion, just like your skin splits under my hands. Don’t forget that, Sayuri. You aren’t the only one who can bleed.”
I gasped and shook my head. No. Not Jujiro.
My body screamed as my mind split in two when he slammed into me again. One half of my brain wanted to fight, but the other half screamed to be still. I had to survive for my son.
When it was over, I was left trembling, raw, and every nerve felt like it was open and exposed. He didn’t look at me with satisfaction. I was ‘property.’ He owned me.
“You’ll learn,” he said quietly afterward. It was not a threat this time, but a statement.
He reached forward, and his hand gripped my arm, pulling me up to my feet, but I immediately fell. My thighs were streaked with blood, and it wasn’t Jed’s. It was my own.
“Get dressed. You need to earn what you are given.”
I didn’t know where he was taking me, and I was too numb and in pain to do anything but silently obey.
The streets blurred past neon signs and pedestrians who didn’t notice us. They couldn’t see the fear coiling in me like a live wire. I was drowning in the shadow of this monster.
“You’ll work. I am getting you a job. You will do what I say, and I will be aware of where you are at all times,” he said casually, like he hadn’t just desecrated another piece of my soul.
I couldn’t handle his abuse.
I needed to keep him from hurting me. I would be no use to Jed if I were broken like this. A ruined female wouldn’t seduce him.
The club from last night appeared ahead, buzzing and alive. Everything I didn’t feel. My legs wanted to give way, while my voice wanted to scream, but nothing came when the car stopped.
Kaito’s grip was an iron tether leading me around like a dog on a leash. Every step was a countdown to my final breath around him. He could snap at the slightest change, and this would all be for nothing.
I should be happy that Kaito was only interested in rape. I could handle the burn, but I couldn’t handle his games.
“Move it,” he barked at me, and I grimaced, moving my feet as best I could, one foot after the other.
The smell of the club hit me first—all the sweat, alcohol, burnt coffee, and cleaning solvents that failed to hide it. Patrons leaned on counters, whispering and laughing. They were all oblivious to the storm I’d been dragged through.
Kaito released me near the counter. My hands shook violently, brushing the cold wood as if it could stabilize my shaking legs.
“You start today,” he said, his dark eyes cold and assessing. “Learn. Obey. And maybe our precious bundle will survive.”
“His name is Jujiro. Please. Let him know his name.”
Kaito rolled his eyes. “He knows his name. It ain’t some stupid Jap name either.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. My voice wouldn’t work right, even if I had a reply he would listen to. My letters had to be enough. He would know his true self. He was still so young. There was time. Kaito threw open the bar top and walked into the back.
I could hear the shuffling and crashing of something in the back before the man from last night was dragged toward me.
“She works here now. There gonna be a problem?”
The bartender recognized me and started to shake his head. “Nah, man, she is not the—”