Chapter 12
Twelve
Mina
I shivered at the ice in his voice. “Why are you doing this?”
He lifted my purse and hefted its weight. “Disobeying me and putting yourself in danger would be enough to warrant what’s about to happen, but attempting to manipulate me so you could try to escape? Well, that can’t go unpunished.”
Fear and dread coiled with a twisted heat in my lower belly. “I wasn’t… I would never—”
“Your attempts to lie to me further only fuel my desire to make you scream, Lalka.”
The car pulled over and was immediately engulfed in silence. I couldn’t see anything outside. It was too dark.
Nero leaned forward, curling his fingers around my throat. “Do not ever lie to me again, Mina. Not ever.”
My mouth was bone dry and my pulse sped so fast, I felt weak-limbed and dizzy, but the cool touch of his skin on mine, his warm breath brushing my lips, had the need between my thighs heightening. What the hell was wrong with me?
He came closer still, so close, his lips brushed mine when he spoke. “You wanted to leave so badly, so now’s your chance.” He opened the door beside me, pushing it wide.
I shot a look outside. An old building loomed several yards away, and behind it was Oldwood Forest.
“I wouldn’t venture into the forest, if I were you. The demons in there won’t be as patient with you as I’ve been."
“You want me to…to run away?” I said as my fear and anticipation grew.
His gaze slid over mine, then dipped to my mouth, my throat, then back up. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, Mina?”
It had been, after what happened in the club, after making me feel so much only to lock me away again, like I was nothing. Yes, I’d decided to follow Lucinda’s lead and try, but I’d needed him, his reassurance, and he’d walked away like I was nothing. I’d doubted that I’d ever break through and reach him, so yes, I’d contemplated leaving, running.
But now? After what happened back in that office, the way Nero had reacted? He hadn’t been cold; he’d been furious. I had to hope that meant his emotions were beginning to unravel.
I stared back, locked in place by that ice-cold stare, struggling to form a reply. I couldn’t let him win. I wouldn’t be some meek, unwanted prisoner who eventually Nero grew bored of and forgot about. My resolve was restored. I wanted a mate. I wanted what my parents have. Maybe Nero was already too far gone, maybe anger was all I’d ever get from him, and he’d never fully regain his ability to feel or to love, but I had to try to coax it from him. I couldn’t just give up. I had to at least try.
“Yes,” I rasped, telling him the truth. “That’s what I wanted. You hurt me, and yes, that made me want to leave you, to never see you again.” He wanted honesty, then I’d give it to him. I’d wanted to hurt him or at least affect him the only way I knew how, to make him feel as unwanted as he’d made me feel after he’d touched me, after he’d made me feel more alive than I ever had in my entire life, after giving me hope before ripping it from me and shutting me away like I didn’t exist.
His jaw clenched and the muscle there pulsed several times, the ice in his stare melting away like a fire had just been lit inside him and now burned behind his eyes.
I tried to regulate my breathing, but it was impossible as I stared up into the growing inferno blazing down at me. He released me suddenly, and my blood drained from my body, turning me cold.
He sat back in his seat, not looking at me, looking out the window beside him. His chest rose sharply and released on a low growl.
I didn’t know what was happening, what I should do—
He turned to me again, and his molten stare scorched across my skin. My blood shot back up from my feet in a hot rush.
“All right, then, now’s your chance. Go. Run, little doll,” he quietly ordered.
My limbs were trembling and frozen, but I forced them to move, scrambling, stumbling from the back of the car. His dark, humorless laugh echoed from inside as I kicked off my shoes and did as he said—I ran.
Sprinting across the lot, across pitted and broken asphalt that dug into my bare feet, I frantically searched for a place to hide. The forest loomed up ahead, but Nero was right, I’d be a fool to go beyond the tree line. The demons in Oldwood were always on the lookout for breeders, and I wasn’t stupid enough to put myself in that position.
The only other option was the huge, dark building looming in front of me. It smelled like wet concrete, iron, and oil. Large sections of the walls were missing, and I bit back a cry as my bare feet came down on something sharp, rocks or glass, as I burst through the nearest opening.
He’d never let me get away, and I realized I didn’t want to leave him, not now anyway, but I would keep running because something happened when we played his game. It was twisted and wrong, but somehow it brought us closer together.
I didn’t slow when something else cut my foot—my pounding heart, the adrenaline throbbing through me, wouldn’t allow it. I ran past broken and stripped-down pieces of machinery, slipping on the damp oily ground more than once and barely keeping my feet. I sprinted for an open doorway up ahead but slipped on the oily floor again, and this time I went down hard.
Rough concrete scraped my ankle and thigh, snagging and tearing my dress. I barely felt it as I scrambled back to my feet and took off again. He was coming. He was coming for me.
Pinpricks of electricity danced across my skin. The thrill mixed with fear made my scalp tingle and my limbs weak. I gasped for air as my heart pounded out of my chest, and my adrenaline spiked higher and higher without reprieve.
A scraping sound came from somewhere behind me. I pumped my arms harder, faster, while trying to stay quiet, to control my panted breaths. There was another door ahead of me, the moon shining from beyond it. I ran through, then immediately pressed my back against the wall while I tried to control my desperate breaths.
Silence filled the space. There was a hole in the wall across from me, and part of the roof was gone as well, casting everything in a blue glow. Was he out there? Had he walked around the outside of the building instead?
Maybe I should go back the way I came, where it was darker. I was a sitting duck here—
A hand snapped around my throat from behind. I screamed and struggled against Nero’s hold. His arm had come around the doorframe; he’d been right behind me. Right there. I’d never lost him, not once.
He was in shadow as he rounded the doorway, and I squirmed and struggled against his hold, clawing at his wrist while he held me against the rough concrete wall.
And gods, the more I struggled, the damper my panties got. He looked down at me and his nostrils flared, scenting me. My face heated because I knew he could smell me. He could smell exactly how this game of cat and mouse we were playing affected me.
Grabbing my wrists, he shoved them over my head. “Got you.”
“Did you even give me a head start?” I gasped.
“Oh yes.” He leaned in and dragged his nose along my jaw. “Watching you run, your fear so vibrant and wild pouring off you, it does something to me, little doll.” He nipped my ear, making me whimper, then lifted his head. “But catching you, the way that makes you so hot and slick, the way you squirm to escape while silently asking me to make you scream my name has frayed the edges of my control to a point I’m not sure I can stop it from breaking.”
My panted breaths had turned to gasping sobs of need. What he did to me, what he made me want, need , had to be wrong, twisted, but when he held me captive like this, taking from me whatever he wanted, I didn’t care. I snapped my fangs at him, egging him on like the wild creature he made me.
I wanted him to break for me, so badly. I wanted him to lose control.
He gathered up my dress, his violet eyes glowing in the moonlight. “Tell me to stop, Mina.”
I licked my lips, trembling hard. “Stop,” I said, trying to twist from his hold, but there was no escape. I didn’t want to escape. “Stop,” I said again more forcefully as I held his gaze, silently asking him to take whatever it was he wanted, pleading with him to make me feel as good as he had the last time he’d held me down and touched me.
“Fight harder,” he said huskily. “Fight me.”
I slammed my legs together and struggled as if my life depended on it, not holding back, crying and pleading, and, oh gods, what was wrong with me that the harder I fought and the tighter he held me, the hungrier I got for his touch, his blood.
I ached so bad, even more than I had all those times he came to my room on my birthdays. He made me feel this way. He’d turned me into this wanton creature who craved fear and pain.
“Give me a word.”
“What? What word?”
“I know what you need, but if it gets too much, saying your word will make me stop, will let me know you truly want to.”
He could see into the depraved heart of me, and he was going to feed it with his own, but he was giving me a safety net, because Nero would take and take until there was nothing left of me. I could see it in his eyes.
That thought should scare me—instead it made my inner muscles clench. “Pink.” It seemed fitting somehow.
The sound of tearing fabric came as soon as the word left my lips. Cool night air hit the damp and swollen flesh between my thighs. Nero forced my legs wide with his body as he covered me there with his hand.
“Scream, little doll,” he said, then shoved two long, thick fingers inside me.
I did, I screamed, crying and fighting as he thrust them deep inside me. “Oh gods.” I moaned, even as I struggled harder, and the more I struggled, the tighter the tension coiled inside, the deeper and wilder the pleasure rushing up on me grew, and the harder I shook.
“You want to be stuffed full of my cock, don’t you, Mina?” he muttered, thrusting faster. The wet sounds coming from between my thighs were lewd, and my begging for him to stop sounded more like what they truly were—pleas for more, like the dirty, brazen creature he made me. “Like you saw in the club. But you want me to hold you down, to force your thighs apart and fuck you into the floor, don’t you, Mina?”
I sobbed, shaking harder. “Y-yes.” I wanted that so badly. I wanted him to take me, to take it from me.
Nero snarled, then sunk his fangs into my throat. I screamed again, coming around his thrusting fingers as a gush of liquid slid down my thighs. He swiped his tongue over his bite and dropped to his knees in front of me, shoving my dress up to my waist, then buried his face against my swollen flesh, licking and sucking. My knees gave out, but he held me up while he feasted on me in a different way.
I couldn’t explain what it was that he did to me, but this was what I wanted, this was what I needed. I didn’t want to be someone’s princess. I wanted to be held down and used by Nero, by my mate. I wanted him to take pleasure from me, crave me, want only me.
“Please,” I begged, wanting all the things he’d said.
His fingers dug deeper into my hips, and he lapped at me in a way that had me fisting his hair and grinding against him. I screamed a second time, holding him to me while he drew out my pleasure, until the deep pulsing convulsions inside me finally stopped and I collapsed.
He scooped me up before I could hit the floor, holding me to his chest. His grip wasn’t forceful anymore, it was gentle, almost tender as he carried me through the opening in the wall across from us and around to the lot and his waiting car.
He pressed his mouth against the top of my head. “You did so well, Lalka.”
My heart rushed at his words, pleasure of a different kind filling me.
“You pleased me.”
I looked up at the chiseled silhouette of his handsome face. “I—I want to please you.”
His violet eyes locked on mine. “When I touch you, you like to feel helpless, don’t you?” he asked roughly, not a trace of ice in his voice, not anymore.
I nodded, giving him the truth.
His gaze dipped to my lips, then returned to my eyes. “You want your male to use you, to hold you down and take what he wants, don’t you, Mina?”
My lips quivered and my eyes stung when I nodded a second time. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?” I whispered.
He leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead in a sweet kiss, then looked down at me again and shook his head. “No, my little doll, there is nothing wrong with you. Those desires are what they should be, the antithesis of mine. You run, I chase. You are this way because of me, because you were unlucky enough to be fated to a monster.”