Chapter 11 #2
Zira’s tongue zipped between her lips, then she turned slowly toward the Dentist, that beautiful, practiced smile on her lips. She ripped off his blindfold, then kneeled down, meeting him eye to eye. The Dentist’s eyes focused, and for the first time since he woke up, he was silent.
But only for a moment.
“Zira,” he said, tears streaming to the sides of his eyes, dropping onto the carpet below him. “I’m sorry!”
Zira stood, grabbing one of my knives—one with a hook right at the end of the blade, perfect for gutting—then ran her finger across the sharp edge, flinching when it sliced through her skin. A sliver of blood filled the shallow crevice like a paper cut.
“So sharp,” she said with adoration.
I tapped the pliers on her shoulder. “Give him a taste. Show him what it’s like to have all of those teeth pulled out.”
Her lips pursed together. “I just want to watch him die.”
Clutching the pliers, I went back to that chest from the Dentist’s bedroom, then dumped the contents on the floor.
It rained teeth, crashing down like thunder.
Zira stared at the pieces like they were pieces of polished opal, completely stunned at their brilliance.
I picked up a handful, then let them clatter against each other, falling to the ground like pennies.
“It’s only a hobby!” Toben cried. “I didn’t kill anyone! Please!”
He thrashed to the side, flailing like a worm that knew it was about to roast on the sidewalk, but there was no use. It didn’t matter if he technically hadn’t killed anyone; I wanted to give him to my queen, so that she could enjoy technically killing him herself.
Zira locked eyes with me. “One tooth,” she said.
She latched onto his canine with the pliers, then pulled, but the root was so strong that she only snapped off half of the tooth.
He howled like a dog, and a thrill ran through me.
Maybe we could get him to scream so loudly that the motel owner came to check on us!
That would be fun, wouldn’t it? We could kill the owner too!
“This is harder than I thought!” Zira laughed. “Guess you do need those dental tools, don’t you, Toben?”
“Z-z-zira,” the Dentist mumbled, his words slurring together like a snake. “Y-you don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said.
She dug the pliers into his gums, metal crunching against bone and wet flesh as he garbled out his cries.
He snapped his jaw, trying to get Zira to stop, but he bit down on the metal, and he sobbed, shaking from side to side.
She smacked his cheek, and like a humble little bitch, he opened his mouth and she dug out that root, then chucked it and the tool on the floor.
Tears streamed down his temples before he passed out again, all of that blood going to his head.
She grabbed the knife off of the bedside again.
“What do you think?” she asked, inspecting Toben’s ankles wrapped in thick rope. Then she scanned back down to his shiny, round head, a few inches off of the floor. “The belly? Is that a good place to do it?”
Glee spread across my face. The queen wanted my opinion.
“Don’t let me influence your artistry,” I said. “Go for your impulses, love.”
His dick hung like a sad little mole tucked inside of a burrow. Using the knife, she poked the head of his cock, then the balls, then the flaccid shaft—little pinpricks of blood pooling on the surface of his skin—until he finally woke up and stirred.
“How many sets of women’s teeth did you end up taking?” she asked.
“I—” he stammered. “I-I don’t know! Please!”
She stabbed right at his navel, then pulled the blade toward his chest, digging through his belly until blood pooled from his stomach.
He twitched—one last jerk to try and stop the madness—but then he stopped; the last sways of his body like a metal bell finally quiet above a church.
His intestines spilled out, a long string of sausages slopping onto the floor.
Blood smeared Zira’s hands and arms, and she smiled widely, like a demon.
My queen had found her power; all she needed was that crown of rubies and teeth.
After being thrown in the shadows for years upon years, she was finally taking back her throne.
Her hands trembled, her lips parted in excitement. I was right; my queen liked getting her hands dirty. She didn’t play by dearest daddy’s little rules. She played by mine. My chest expanded, pride filling me up.
Zira was mine now.
“How does it feel?” I asked. Lust filled my head, making me tingle and itch for her body in my hands.
I wanted to soak each other in his blood and fuck like rabbits until we both passed out.
Zira’s mouth hung open as she gazed at me.
I kept my distance, wanting her to relish in that first kill, to experience everything it had to give her: power, lust, freedom.
Toben’s blood dripped onto the carpet like the tap-tap-tap like a leaking roof.
You could say the Dentist’s death was premeditated murder, but considering what he had done to her years ago, I personally thought it was self defense. It just took her years to finally get it.
In reality, there was something beautifully fucked up in the gift of it all. A gift I had given to her, just to help her break free of that cocoon once and for all.
“I want to fuck you,” she breathed.
With those words, I raced forward and she jumped up, latching onto me, her legs wrapped around my back as I gripped her ass.
Our mouths pressed together like blazing cinders of a fire, and I tasted every crevice of her mouth.
Those perfect fake teeth. Her soft tongue.
Her smooth cheeks. Her moist insides velvet and melodically smooth, like a siren’s song, calling me down towards the endless depths of the ocean.
The blood was warm on her skin, drowning me in her heat.
Eager to touch her, I peeled her dress away, exposing her in all of her glory, spots of red dotting her skin.
“You killed him, like I knew you would,” I growled. “You’re so hot, Zira. Hotter than anyone in this fucking world.”
“You just like violence,” she teased, a smirk on her lips. But that irritated me. I did like violence. It was one of my favorite indulgences.
But when it came to Zira, it was far more than that.
I ripped off my button-up shirt, letting the buttons fly to the ground, and Zira tilted her head.
Then I shoved down my pants and boxers until I was naked too, blazing down at her like a predator, ready to rip his rival apart.
Grabbing her hips, I lowered us down until she was lying on her back in a carpet-soaked pool of the Dentist’s blood.
Gazing up at me with dreamy blue eyes, she painted my stomach, her hands sliding against me, smearing me in blood.
Lying in that crimson puddle, she looked like a killer queen.
My dick twitched, raging to dive inside of her cunt.
Because she was my killer queen.
“Every day, you live your perfect life,” I growled, my words low and gravelly.
“Strutting around the grounds like a queen in disguise, walking among the commoners. Pulling the puppet strings even when you know your stupid ass father doesn’t see your brilliance.
I don’t know what the fuck it is that you want so badly with his secret society, but I do know that I jerk off every chance I get, leaving my seed in the walls of your father’s house to show him how much of a dumb ass he is for not seeing everything you’re capable of.
” I breathed down her neck, the metallic scent of blood mixing with her sweetness.
My dick ached. “So no, Zira. I don’t ‘just like violence.’ You’re a fucking enigma, and you’ve caught me in your trap. ”
With one quick thrust, I penetrated her to the hilt. Covered in blood, like a true nightmare, Zira cried out, wailing like a monster and I let my desire for her wash away my other emotions, because right then, I only wanted my queen. My fucking queen.
“Tell me what it feels like,” I demanded with each painful thrust, stabbing into her cervix. Headlights shone through the sheer blinds, reflecting like fireflies on the blood-soaked carpet, but we kept going, not caring who heard us. Not even as another set of lights joined the first.
“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she screamed. “And you are the most frustrating, and captivating—”
A fist banged on the front door like thunder.
“Open up,” a loud voice said. “This is Marked Blooms Syndicate’s soldiers. We know you’re in there.”
Soldiers? I flinched, stopping my hips. “The fuck?” I asked.
Zira put a finger to her lips.
“We know you have Toben Astor in there,” the man said. “We know you’ve taken Zira Bloom hostage.”
Zira stifled a giggle. “Hostage?” she whispered.
The soldier pounded on the door again. “Open up, or we’ll have to take immediate action.”
I squinted my eyes, trying to see through any gap in the curtains, but I couldn’t see anything.
“How many?” I asked quietly as I pulled on my clothes.
Zira slipped into her dress. “Looks like there’s at least two cars out there. A handful of men.”
“A handful?”
“Probably between ten and twenty, depending on the vehicles.”
“Shit.”
I motioned toward the back door, then peered through the peephole, seeing nothing but my white truck.
I opened the door, but the hinges creaked loudly, and our jaws dropped.
We raced to get inside of the car. As soon as I started the engine, we peeled out, and an SUV rounded the corner of the back of the motel units. I laughed.
But Zira scoffed, wiping her bloody hands on her lacy dress. “They would have killed you and you’re laughing?”
“I don’t give a fuck, Bloomy,” I said. “Live. Die. It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
She furrowed her brows together. “You can’t do anything for your sister, or me, if you’re a dead man.”
A sliver of frustration wormed its way into my brain, sinking down my neck. I popped my jaw, then leveled myself. My sister was already dead. It wasn’t like I could do anything for her, besides try to avenge her. Zira had a lot more at stake than me.
“Now, who does that affect more?” I asked. “Me, or you?”
She stared vacantly at the road. The highway passed beneath us.
“Go back to the Bloom Estate,” she said.
“Why?” I asked. “You just got done saying they were going to kill me.”
“Trust me,” she said, annoyance simmering in her tone.
Three SUVs followed us, tailgating with their noses up my ass as we curved along the driveway.
But as soon as we parked, Zira jumped out of the truck with her hands up and spoke to them, shouting something that I couldn’t quite hear inside of the cab.
Under the night sky, everyone was washed in a hint of blue, making Zira’s blood stained skin and dress purple, like a rare flower.
Her father burst out of the estate, stomping toward her, and it made me sick to even think of him in her presence.
If Zira didn’t need him alive, the bastard would be dead, because I wanted to see a man like him fall to his knees, blubbering like a coward.
I jumped out of the car, racing toward them.
“What have you done this time?” Bloom stammered. “You little—”
I wrapped an arm around Zira, baring my teeth. I wasn’t going to let him get near her without me standing in front of her like a human shield.
“I killed him,” Zira said, confidence oozing from her words. My jaw dropped, and both me and her daddy gawked at her. She was owning up to it. I hadn’t expected that.
“What?” her father asked. He reached to brush her shoulder with his fingertips, but before I could block him, Zira snapped her jaw at him, baring her teeth too.
“Don’t touch me,” she growled. My queen was even standing up to her father now.
A wave of heat and pride filled me. “I killed Toben,” she repeated.
“And you know what? I liked it. I killed him with a knife. I even took out one of his teeth, and it felt so damn good, father. Like heaven. Like paradise. Like eating a gift from the gods.” She chuckled to herself.
“Like fucking someone and not caring whether or not they get any pleasure, only that you get off.”
His eyes shifted between us as he tried to decipher the missing clues. He pulled at his collar, his cheeks redder than before.
“I’m not going to stop killing until I’m on the board,” she said emphatically.
Her daddy pointed at me. “And you?” he said. “Who are you? What’s your part in this?”
“Hazard caught him for me. He’s more dedicated to our family than I’ve ever seen in a member. He knew Toben was stealing from the Syndicate, and so he captured him for me. Hazard even sacrificed his sister. I saw it at the last Masquerade. So did Logan.”
Toben stealing. Sacrificing my sister. Saying Logan saw it. Zira was lying out of her ass, simply to get what she wanted. To make her father fall deeper into her trap.
And she was protecting me.
Bloom looked at me, then turned back to Zira. “He’s loyal?”
“To the core,” she said, punctuating each word.
His brow arched at me. “What do you think about this?”
“‘Bout what?” I asked.
“Zira killing Toben, obviously.”
I ran a hand through my hair. It was damp with sweat and sour adrenaline.
I wasn’t like anyone her father had interacted with before, and honestly, I didn’t give a fuck what Zira did, so long as we got to enjoy it together.
She was like my other half, giving me goals to focus on when I had nothing to aim for. And I gave her a true taste of chaos.
“I stand by my queen,” I said.
“All right,” Bloom said, as if that was enough. He signaled to the soldiers, who retreated to their SUVs. “What did you say your name was?”
Zira nodded at me, telling me it was fine to say my real name.
Her daddy was so absorbed in his own world that he had no idea that I had been working on his estate this entire time.
Before Spiky endured death by castration.
Even before Bloom’s son-in-law disappeared.
Long before the most recent Masquerade, when I set my sights on Bloom’s daughter.
“Hazard Boucher,” I said.
Bloom shook my hand. “Let’s get you started on your membership, then. Welcome to the Marked Blooms Syndicate, Hazard.”