Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Alexei
Sage has the opposite reaction than I expect. She deflates in my arms to stop from falling to the floor. Grief is gripping her now.
I recognize it.
I can use it.
I was curious when I saw her pause in front of this room. Even more curious when she helped herself inside to have a look around. Even without the stains on the carpet I can still see the spot where her lover died. Where my brother's body laid dead and mangled.
"You shouldn't be in here," I repeat, because she clearly didn't hear me the first time.
"Couldn't help it," she says. This time she turns away from me, giving me her back as she looks over the room again. "It's so... I don't know."
I frown. Curious once again because now she's talking to me. We could be fighting to our death. She could slash my throat with a knife. I could slash hers. But in this room she is lost.
She still has yet to learn the valuable lesson of turning weaknesses into strengths.
This room held the same weakness for me as it holds for her now.
I, though, cannot afford to break down. And so I had to expose myself to this place, over and over, to the point where I didn't lose my head every time I came in here. Like she is doing right now.
"It's so... what?" I prompt as I circle the edge of the room, keeping her in my sights like prey.
She looks around innocently, the doe eyes of a deer that doesn't know she is being hunted. "It's so normal. Like nothing even happened here."
She shakes her head again. Thoughts trapped inside that she either can't decipher or won't let out in front of me.
"But it feels..." she trails off again. "Like it's empty. Haunted."
I get close to her.
"Things did happen here, princess."
She spins towards me, biting her lip. "I can barely stand to be in here."
"I have to live in it," I remind her. There is strength in overcoming the pain that happened here. She can't yet ignore it.
I tap my foot on the carpet. "This is where I stood when I shot." I move to the center of the room, watching as her eyes well. "This is where your lover died." I pace back to the other side of the room and crouch, my stare harsh. "This is where you killed my brother."
She closes her eyes and tears rush out.
My anger rises like a tidal wave. "This is where you destroyed everything, princess." I grab her by the throat and push her into the wall. Her eyes shut but she has no fight in her, not in here. I push into her face.
"Open your eyes and look at me."
She gulps and I feel it around my palm as she does. I watch as the final tear falls from her eyes. When she opens them again, her walls are back up and her shell has gone hard. The siren behind her doe eyes is who is looking back at me now.
"There you are." I smile, licking at my lips. "You ruined everything here, now stand up and face it."
I push her harder against the wall, slamming her head back again like I want it to crack. My hand tightens on her throat and I'm ready to squeeze harder, cut her off once and for all. I go to do so, but it's then I feel the knife pointed at my thigh and pause. It's right along the artery.
My eyes slowly shift down.
"You wanna do this here?" she says, glinting at me with anger. I slam my hand on the wall beside her, but hers doesn't move from its hostage position on my thigh.
"Not backing down?" I say, raising my brow.
"Never," she says, gritting her teeth as she nearly spits in my face.
My reflexes are sharp and fast as I grab her hand and squeeze. Her mouth opens in pain as I twist her wrist away from my thigh. Ensuring she has no hold over me. That she will never get the upper hand or best me.
I push her harder against the wall with my entire weight until our bodies are connected at every point they could be. "Don't ever think you have the upper hand against me," I whisper, running my lips over her ear.
She breathes heavily but she doesn't move. Not as I pull back. Not even as we make eye contact only a hair away from each other. I feel her breath on my lips and can see up close every minuscule movement of her emerald green eyes as they frantically flip between mine.
I grunt as I hit her hand against the wall, making her drop the knife.
The sound of it clattering to the floor feels as loud as a gun going off.
There's something so curious in the way her body tenses but doesn't move.
The way she holds herself against me and doesn't break away from my stare.
In something that feels like submission and yet somehow a challenge.
"Hmmm," I say, chuckling in her ear. "You like it. Don't you, princess? The violence?" She cringes away from me, cheeks pinking in shame but still her body curls into mine. She knows I'm right. And she seems to hate it.
Calm satisfaction washes over me like a wave. A relief from months of pain.
"You're the one that seems to like it," she says, croaking out the words.
"Violence turns me on," I say, a smile coming through my words as I roll my hips for emphasis. "And if I recall, you wanted it to hurt."
She gasps when I follow through, grabbing her hair and ripping it backward until her neck is exposed for me. I press my lips against her throat, and she pants as I scrape my teeth up and down the racing pulse.
I start slow, teasing her, like I'm not going to take this very far. But when she's lulled into a false sense of security, I bite down on her neck. Hard. My erection grows further, though I'm not ashamed of it. Nothing turns me on more than the thought of her blood beneath my hands.
My teeth eat at her skin, pulling taut and then snapping back with her neck still stuck between my teeth. I let go, and her skin slams back against her neck in a slap.
I mean it just to taunt her, but the moan that escapes her completely enthralls me. My cock grows harder in my pants, almost straining to burst out of them. Like my dick has a mind of its own and it's begging me to take her. Begging for her to reach out and touch me again.
I run my hand up her thigh, burying my head against her neck where a red welt begins to form. Her leg lifts of its own accord along with me, and my calloused hand caresses the bare skin of her thigh beneath her little skirt.
I run my tongue over the welt, half meaning to soothe her, half meaning to make it hurt a little more.
She gasps, reaching out and grabbing my hair to pull me away from her. She gets a tight grip on my slick black hair, tugging at me uncomfortably until we're back looking in each other's eyes.
"Don't," she warns, although there's something that begs me to do the opposite.
I have her pressed up against the wall, our bodies connected.
Her thigh is wrapped around my waist. My hand is inching up her skirt.
I make no move to listen, so she tugs at my hair again until I bare my teeth. "I said don't."
"You want me to."
I rip my head out of her grasp and go back to her neck, sucking and biting aggressively at the skin, at the same time that I secure her leg around my hip and reach between her legs.
She bucks wildly against me as I push her panties aside, her moan is a breathy mew as I finally feel her flesh.
I am lost now. I am enveloped in a cloud of lust, passion and pleasure. I cannot see even two feet in front of me. All I feel is the desire to touch her, to make her melt underneath me, to fill her up.
I don't know who I am or where I am. But I do know I don't feel the harsh dragging of guilt. Only the warmth of want.
She's so wet.
Fuck.
I push my fingers inside of her in a single movement, pressing against her and moving my thumb over her clit. My cock feels like it's about to bust open my pants just for the chance to be close to this.
She throws her head back against the wall, moaning for me.
With my other hand I lift her until she's halfway up the wall, her legs wrapped around me for support.
Her chest heaves as she pushes her breasts towards me and I rip her shirt down with my teeth, taking her nipple in my mouth and circling around the hardened bud.
I can feel her getting tighter and wetter around my fingers, she's going to come, but I don't want this to stop. She grips onto my shoulders and I feel it as her pussy convulses. She cries out, but right now I'm too drunk on whatever this is to care who can hear us.
"Don't stop coming," I tell her, not slowing down even as she spasms around me.
I keep going until I can feel her second orgasm building.
Even as she fights me like she doesn't believe this is something that can happen.
Her cries get louder the closer she gets, and I can feel she's about to lose herself over me again.
It's not long before she gasps, melting against my hand again.
She's so wet and ready. Primed for me. Impulse takes over me and I can't stop it.
I hold her up and reach for my zipper. I want to fuck her so badly.
I need to get my pants undone so I can have her, take her, make her mine in the way she always has been.
Then she opens her eyes.
And I freeze.
The look in them cuts me to my core.
Disgust.
The warmth rushes away from me as I remember where we are. Who we are. Enemies stuck together in an endless spiral of grief. We hate each other. Only one of us will make it out of this alive.
My breath starts to slow as I take in what we just did. What we were about to do. Shame sinks over me and guilt follows it inside.
I take a step back from her.
What was I thinking? I fucking hate this woman.
I need to take back control, because I feel like I'm losing it.
Her lip curls at me, and I compose myself.
The urge to show her what she really means to me takes over.
She can't know what was going through my head.
That I allowed her to weaken me in this way.
I shove away from her and leave her to sink against the wall in horror.
Though it may not have been running through my mind at the time, I can at least leave this room satisfied that I have damaged her in some way.
I've destroyed part of her today. Not her body, but certainly her mind.
She looks up at me in despair and I bare my teeth. Cutting her down in the way she cuts me. Turns out we don't need knives to hurt each other anymore.
"Pathetic," I say, looking her up and down as I straighten my cuffs. She looks just as broken as I feel when I leave her behind and storm out of the room.