Chapter Five
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Henri
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WELL, THAT WAS FUCKING HELL.
I swallowed a despairing groan.
I’d just given an English bastard ten thousand euros—that may or may not be counterfeit—and now had a woman hissing and spitting like a feral kitten, scratching at my wrist and promising ungodly harm to me if I didn’t unhand her that instant.
All of that was bad enough.
Terrible.
Criminal.
But the true crime wasn’t the fact that I’d just bought this girl from a man who wasn’t her keeper and had absolutely no right to sell her to me, but because I’d fucking enjoyed it.
I trembled with lust so black, so thick that I was surprised I still walked on two legs instead of four.
I sweated like a man being burned alive.
Because I was.
Burning with need.
With want.
Burning, burning, burning as I fought the claws of the carnivorous beast within me.
I was close.
Far, far too close to the precipice.
The precipice I’d fallen off once and only once.
The cliff that’d ensured I’d ended up at the bottom, horrified and petrified, coming face to face with what I truly was after a lifetime of hiding. It’d been the catalyst that drove me to seeking out my half-brother and practically dropping to my knees on his doorstep to help me.
“Let go of me!” she screeched, dragging her talons over my wrist for the hundredth time.
I didn’t wince even though it hurt.
My body was over sensitized.
Everything was too sharp, too potent, too tantalising.
If I focused on her scratching and the lacerating stings she granted, then I didn’t have to focus on everything else.
On the blackness.
On the deep, dark desire that snapped and snarled, wanting to be free, needing to snatch her and kiss her again. Kiss her until I tasted her tears and ate up all her screams.
Fuck.
Fuck!
This was bad.
Very, very bad.
I was losing control.
I knew I didn’t have the strength to do this.
“Why did you do that?” she yelled over the pumping music. “Why did you lie to Sam about what I said?”
Her voice cut through the haze in my mind.
I snatched that sliver of light, clinging to it with all my might.
“I overheard your entire argument,” I replied, hating how gruff my voice was. How hard it was to speak around the thorns of lust in my throat.
Locking my fingers tighter around her wrist, I dragged her unceremoniously through slightly drunk, mostly high party-goers. “He seemed like a cunt.”
“No more so than you!” She scratched me again, layering pain with pain. “You goaded him into doing something completely out of character—”
“Out of character?” I spun around and faced her.
She slammed into me, and sweet mother of everything fucking holy, I almost ripped open her top and feasted on her nipples that were hard and saluting me.
I didn’t give a shit people would see. All I cared about was finding a way to rid myself of this curse before I did something utterly unforgivable.
“Let me ask you. How many times has he belittled you? Used your family as a tool of scorn? Put down your job, your hobbies, your life? How many times has he manipulated you into fucking him?”
The girl—Ily—leaped back, stopped short by my hand on her wrist. Her eyebrows shot up to her pink-and-purple-strobe-light-painted hair. “What?” Her nose wrinkled. “That’s...that’s not any of your business.”
“Ah, see. That’s where you’re wrong.” I jerked her close again, our noses almost touching.
“I know guys like him. I know how they feed on another’s confusion as they twist words and circumstances.
I’m surprised you still have your fight.
After the way he tried to keep you under his thumb tonight, I can safely say he’s been doing it for a while.
He’s gotten quite used to making you bend to his wishes, and what’s worse is you let him. ”
She shook her head, her nostrils flaring as fury painted her pretty face. “I never let him—”
“You did. I heard it for myself. You gave him a blowjob when you didn’t want to.”
Her cheeks pinked, highlighting her stunning eyes.
I froze as I fully took in the colour.
I guessed she was like me. A fusion of lineages. An exotic creature blended with culture and authenticity.
But her eyes?
They were as unique as her inky hair.
The lightest hazel. The faintest honey. A golden brown that bordered on inhuman.
She blinked, breaking the spell she’d cast me under.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you eavesdropping is poor form?” She sniffed. “And besides, you don’t know a damn thing about me. Even if you did listen—”
“I learned you like rocks.” I grinned coldly.
“You’re adopted and adore your family, especially your brother.
I know you’re unfulfilled in your work and most likely haven’t figured out what you want to do with your life.
I also know you haven’t been properly fucked since you agreed to date that asshole and probably wanted to end it for far longer than you care to admit. ”
Her mouth fell open. “Who the hell are you?”
I froze for a heartbeat as her question soaked into my skull.
Who was I?
The bastard son of a monster? The orphaned son of a dead mother? The unwanted half-brother of a trafficker-killing vigilante—
I’m dead.
If the Master Jeweler didn’t kill me for seeing through my lies, then my brother would for seeing the truth.
That truth tainted my tongue, and before I could censor or shut down what needed to be shut down, I snarled, “I’m barely clinging to sanity, that’s who I am.
I’m pretty sure my life is already forfeit and you...
” I chuckled low and deep. “You are the worst thing to ever happen to me because every time I look at you, I hurt. And when I hurt, bad things happen.”
She stiffened. “If I hurt you so much, then let me go.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, ‘you can’t’?” She threw up her free arm. “Of course, you can. Just open your stupidly strong fingers and—”
“I paid a tidy sum for you.”
“Paid?” Her eyes cooled, glittering like chips of amber. “You gave my stupid ex money for something he had no right to sell. That transaction wasn’t legal, and you know it. Go chase Sam if you want your money back because I’m not giving you shit.”
The way her shoulders tightened with hate.
The way her skin flushed with anger and sweet, sweet rebellion.
She’d be stunning when she broke.
She’d be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, gasping and kiss-bruised, begging at my feet.
An involuntary groan escaped me.
“Let go of me,” she commanded. “I won’t ask again.”
Breathing hard, I held her rage-violent stare for a moment, then shoved through the crowd, dragging her behind me again.
No one looked our way.
I was just another guy pulling a reluctant girl onto the dance floor. Her protests were probably marked as cute. As coy. Doing her best to play hard to get, all while I buckled beneath sick, despicable urges.
I walked faster.
Yanked harder.
Not to get my task over and done with, but because if I didn’t keep running from the urges in my blood, I’d break.
I’d fall.
I’d become the monster prowling inside me.
Ily continued to squirm while I clung with desperate fingers to the last tatters of my sanity. Every cell commanded I claim her. To march out of this club and keep her for myself. At least she’d be away from the Master Jeweler and his sad, shattered collection.
But then, Q would hunt me—just like he’d done to every bastard who thought they could traffic, rape, and own.
And I really didn’t want to die.
Despite my previous attempt.
“I said stop!” Ily yanked with all her pathetic strength, then darted in front of me, making me crash into her.
I clenched my teeth together, fighting, fighting, fucking fighting not to tear off her top and feast on her braless breasts beneath.
A sharp lance of jealousy cut through me.
What would the Jeweler do to her?
And why did that question make snarling possession raise its ugly head?
Slamming her palm on my chest, she hissed, “Stop dragging me around like a Neanderthal and let me the hell go!”
A dark-skinned girl with sparkly eyeshadow and sweat on her upper lip looked over at us. My arm moved on its own accord, lashing around Ily’s waist and jerking her far, far too close.
We both sucked in a breath as her body moulded perfectly to mine. Her heat kissed the wildfire inside me, drenching us in proverbial gasoline, striking a condemning match and ensuring flames devoured us whole.
The longer I imprisoned her, the brighter we burned. If I never let her go, if I claimed every single piece of her, we’d be nothing more than a pile of ash and pain.
Pain.
Christ, I wanted it.
Hers, mine.
Together.
Hard and ruthless, untamed and primal.
My teeth ached as my eyes locked on her lips.
I want another taste.
She swayed backward, pressing her hips harder against my upper thighs. Her belly brushed my pounding cock, and I was seconds away from wrapping my hand in her hair and forcing her to her knees right there on the crowded dance floor.
She licked her lips.
I froze.
She froze.
Our hearts thundered, in-sync and chaotic.
For the first time in my life, I felt something deeper than darkness, lighter than sin, and a thousand times better than shame.
I looked into her turbulent, golden gaze and flinched as my decaying humanness recognised her. Recognised with a horrifying punch that out of all the girls in all the cities, this one was different.
Why the fuck does she have to be different?
My voice churned with guilt. “I told you this would be a thousand times worse for you if you kept fighting.”
“And I told you I’m not for sale! Let me go and—”
“I already told you. I can’t do that.”
“I’m not going to sleep with you. Not for all the money in all the world.”
“You say that as if you have a choice.”
“I do.” Her chin came up. “Watch me.”
Without any other warning, she sucked in a big breath and screamed.
Loud.
So loud it cut through the music and wrenched far too many eyes in our direction.
I flinched.
Shit.
A big, muscled bouncer left his spot by the wall and shoved his way through the crowd toward us.
Double shit.
My mind raced.