Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
AIDEN
“What are you thinking about?”
Levi glides his lips against mine, not kissing me, but just breathing me in. My body is tired and weak, and I think I might actually die if he fucked me again. He doesn’t seem to mind, though. I stirred when he slinked back in bed over an hour ago, and we’ve just been lying here, staring at each other, always touching but never going any further.
He rubs his forehead against mine, fingers digging into the meat of my bare hips as he pulls me closer. “You.”
“Is that all you think about?” I say, too curious not to ask, still too caught in a lust-drunk haze to think any clearer. “What about me?”
“I don’t know,” he replies. “It’s just always you.”
I don’t know how to take his words, so I ignore the way something pleasant unfurls in my stomach, the same stomach that’s still covered in his marks, and change the subject. “Zeus seems happy.”
He snorts, eyes darting over to where Zeus is lying at our feet, curled up in a small ball as he sleeps. “He’s an animal, and he’s been fed. What’s not to be happy about?”
I shrug, dragging a finger down a thick and raised scar on his peck. “Lots of things. He could miss home.”
“Do you miss home?”
“I thought this was my home now?”
“Answer the question.”
I search in the darkness for any anger in his silver eyes but see none, so I shrug. “I guess.”
I wonder if anyone misses me. If it’s been long enough that someone has come to check in and seen that I’m not home. Has my mom called? Doubtful. Does anyone even care that I’m missing, or has their life just gone on without me?
“What are you thinking about?” he asks, turning my question on me.
“Do people know I’m missing?”
He shakes his head. “You’re not missing, just on an extended vacation that might turn into a full-time move.”
My eyes widen at that. “How?”
“I don’t know. Mammon made one of the conduits set it up for me after I took you,” he says dismissively, as if covering up a kidnapping is no big deal. “It’s not like you had anyone who would miss you.”
It’s the truth, but it hurts. He catches the way I wince and kisses the tip of my nose, trying to placate me and my feelings, but we’re beyond that now. Instead of finding the gesture of affection comforting, it’s condescending. “You made sure of that, didn’t you?”
“You were my bounty to claim,” he explains with no remorse, his eyes cold and hard, but his touch featherlight as it skates up my back. “The moment I pulled your name from the box, what you wanted ceased to matter.”
“So this is some sort of… What? Gang? Mafia?”
He thinks through those words with distaste. “Cult would be a better way of describing it.”
“You’re telling me that there’s been a cult in Juniper Ridge that I didn’t know about? How is that even possible?”
“We hide in the shadows.” He sighs as if finding the conversation tedious, much more interested in trying to count the freckles on my shoulder. “Master has rules they follow. Most of the people on the island are a part of the cult, leaders and policemen included.”
I find that entirely shocking. You would think that if a cult was operating, even under cover, something would have tipped people off. That must be a true marker of power, and I wonder how much they influence the day-to-day lives of the regular people who live here. But that’s not what I’m interested in.
“Conduits?” I ask, sighing when he starts nipping at my neck. “Levi, focus.”
He growls in irritation but pulls away. “They’re Master’s chosen servants. Think of them like aides.”
“And bounties?”
“The people me and my brothers sacrifice each year in preparation for the end of days.”
I eye him warily. “And you actually believe that?”
Levi might be crazy, but he doesn’t seem stupid. To prove my point, he just shrugs. “Doesn’t really matter what I believe.”
“And I’m your bounty for this year? And you’re going to sacrifice me so the world doesn’t end? Doesn’t that seem ridiculous to you?”
“There’s nothing ridiculous about this,” he snaps, dragging his nails down my thigh and making me hiss. “You’re my bounty, Aiden. It’s the most important thing to me.”
Once again, unwarranted affection hits me, but I try to push it away. He only means to say that killing me is important, not actually me . “So you’re going to kill me.”
“I’ve already said it.”
Yes, but I guess I didn’t really believe him, not with the way he’s been acting or the things he’s been doing. He’s fed me, clothed me, fucked me, and despite all the terrible things he’s done, he’s currently looking at me like I’m his everything.
As if he can sense my skepticism, he kisses me. “I’ll kill you, Aiden. When I do, you and I will be together forever.”
I can see in a twisted sense how that could be romantic and the intensity of how fucked-up it is makes me feel… I can’t place it nor do I want to.
“The collar,” I say, changing the subject again. “Why do you wear it?”
He lets out a ragged breath, tensing in my arms, and I feel like I’ve struck a nerve. For some reason, I run my hands up and down his scarred back in an attempt to soothe him. Why? I don’t know. But it’s like a need I can’t deny, especially with how weak I feel right now, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.
“I’m… hard to control,” he says through a clenched jaw, his hold on me almost painful now. “I need to be reminded that I’m on a leash. I can’t let the monster come out.”
I cock my head in confusion. “What monster?”
Silver eyes meet mine, so bright in the dark, and I fall into them. “All I’m good for is death. It’s in my blood. Sometimes, when I want it too much, the collar keeps me calm.”
“You call everything that’s happened calm?”
He laughs. I’m so shocked by it, the way it claws up his throat, how his face transforms into something resembling human. I find my lips twitching up involuntarily, drawn to his happiness. And I wonder if he even knows what happiness feels like?
“You make me crazy,” he chuckles, snuggling up to my side. “My perfect obsession. My bounty. My soul to take. My Aiden.”
Again, those fluttering butterflies sprout in my chest, but I can’t forget that they’re actually moths.
Hesitantly, I bring my fingers up to his collar, feeling the leather under my skin. It’s both rough and smooth, almost like him, and a look of bliss coats his face as I touch it.
“Tell me about your darkness,” I dare say, tugging lightly on his collar which causes him to moan. “Levi.”
He rolls his hips against me, his hard cock dripping precum against my skin. “I’ll tell you anything.”
And, surprisingly, I want to know. I want to know how he turned into this. I want to know what’s happened in life to make him so completely psychotic. I want to know all these things so I can justify my hatred for him when it’s becoming harder and harder to differentiate the monster from the man. “Start from the beginning.”
“I killed my parents when I was ten.” I gasp, but he just smiles, and if it’s possible, his dick grows harder. “I did it because I wanted to. They were good people, I think. Master found me after it happened and took me in.”
It’s hard to picture Levi as a child, especially a knife-wielding, blood-thirsty killer child. Still, I need to know. “And what happened after that?”
“In the beginning it was just Mammon, Asi, and I. Mammon raised us to Master’s specifications. Then Master gave us Bel and Gore,” he explains. “Once we got old enough and didn’t need Mammon to raise us, he still kept us in line.”
I cock my head. “How?”
“Mammon’s the oldest, so Master put him in charge of all of us. He wanted us to be the embodiment of the Seven Princes of Hell, but he only got five. Mammon, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Beelzebub, and Belphegor.”
So, I was right. The other men I’ve met are just like him, especially Mammon with his uneasy presence and deadly authority. It makes sense now why Levi was so insistent I stay in his room when he left. “Those can’t be your real names.”
“You’re talking about my birth name.” He huffs as if he finds it funny. “I haven’t been him in a very long time.”
“What was his name?”
He smiles against my lips, finding it all so amusing. “Michael.”
I snort. Oh, sweet irony. When he raises his scarred brow, I laugh at how adorably clueless he looks. “You know who Michael is, right?” He shakes his head. “He’s God’s favorite archangel.”
He scoffs. “There’s nothing holy about me.”
And how true that is. He seems to be done talking, wanting my lips and my body more, because he rolls on top of me and reaches for the lotion on the nightstand. Even though I have so many more questions, I take this moment for what it is. A moment of reprieve because my mind is all sorts of messed up right now and, in Levi’s presence, it’s always been hard to think straight.
As he opens me up, I replay what happened earlier today. When Mammon took my glasses and broke them in front of me, something within me snapped. It’s by far not the worst that’s ever been done to me but that little action was triggering. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to bash his fucking brain in and feed it to him. I wanted to unleash every single horrid instinct I’ve been trying to hide.
But then what happened after is the most concerning of it all.
I didn’t just give in to the vile thoughts in my head, I gave in to Levi, just like I’m giving into him now. I willingly let him use my body, I cried out for more as he fucked me, and I turned into some depraved slut for him. For fuck’s sake, I pissed myself and nearly thanked him for it.
I don’t know which scares me more.
Wanting to hurt someone…
Or wanting to be hurt by somebody.
“My beautiful little lamb,” he coos in my ear as he enters me, long, languid strokes making my toes curl. “Do you like my darkness?”
I swallow, thoughts mixing between desire and fear, because— fuck —I think I do. It calls to a part of me I’ve tried to keep buried. It terrifies me to think of what I’ll become the longer I’m with him. Scared to death because…
Why does dying by his hand not sound like the worst thing?
He’s fucked with my head. He’s fucked with my heart. He’ll continue fucking with me until I’m just like him.
Until the darkness wins.