Chapter 9
BILLY
Ifeel it.
Every eye in the room turning to look at her, all of them before I do, my eyes still on Gore, but his expression is unreadable. Something so well practised, I wonder if he ever shows emotion, if he even can, even if it’s only ever in the quiet, in the dark, with his wife.
It’s Tolly who gives it away.
The look of surprise on his face when I finally blink my gaze from Gore, his silver eyes wide like saucers. Rune is the first to smile, like he, on the other hand, is very unsurprised by whatever it is he’s seeing.
But it’s Bram that has me finally turning towards her, his formally spoken words, “You’re dripping blood on the hardwood,” he pauses dramatically, too long passing before he finishes, “it’s antique.”
Her pale skin is painted in streaks of red, long dark hair in wet mattes sticking to her neck and shoulders, and just as Bram said, claret drips from her fingers, pooling on the floor at her wet feet.
“Penelope,” Rune sing-songs, clear glee in his tone, “you look simply striking in red.” He chuckles darkly at his own words causing the skin on the nape of my neck to prickle, but I don’t bother telling him to shut the fuck up.
Instead, I’m moving without conscious thought, and all too quickly my fingers are closing around her long neck, my thumb digging into the bone at the corner of her jaw, her breath sucking in sharply as I crane her head back.
Leaning in, the tip of my nose sweeping through the sticky blood on hers, I squeeze gently on her windpipe, her hands staying by her sides as she looks up at me with big charcoal brown eyes.
“Why are you up?” my words come out a low whisper, my teeth gnashing together at the thought of her being alone inside this house.
Penelope stares into my eyes, our breaths mingling, noses grazing, and it takes everything in me not to crush our mouths together, to ram my cock into her tight little cunt. I don’t care where we are or who’s watching.
She swallows beneath my palm, plump lips parting, “You were gone.”
So simple.
So pure.
So innocent.
A smile threatens to curl my mouth, but I bite it back, keeping my expression blank. Instead, lifting one eyebrow slowly, I glare at her in silence, waiting for something more, something true.
Penelope Hart is a beautiful liar.
“And?” I finally question, too many long seconds stretching between us, too much silence in the room around us.
She looks up at me, those big eyes wide, lashes fluttering before she swallows beneath my palm, hard.
“A man-”
“Who?”
“I don't know,” she snaps back, curling her top lip, and for the first time since I found her again, I feel that angry fire she tries to bury deep down inside flare to life.
I see blood smeared on her canine, before her tongue quickly licks it off, and my cock grows even harder as she glares up at me, heated irritation boiling both her temper and mine.
“You killed him, I presume.” My eyebrow still raised, my fingers tightening, pressing indentations into her pale skin. “This unknown man.”
Penelope scoffs, and I hear Rune snort behind me, but I don't turn, keeping my sole attention on Nellie.
“You think I brought you into this house, my home, so you could get up in the night and murder innocent passers-by?”
“He wasn't innocent,” she seethes in a whisper, baring her teeth.
“And he wasn't a passer-by, he was hiding in the shadows,” she pauses, heaving in a deep breath, filling her lungs.
“He attacked me,” she hisses, “because of you.” Her hand comes up, nails cutting into the back of my hand as she grabs hold of my wrist, both of our hands on her neck.
“You brought me into this… home and left me for dead. Is that how this fucking cult works?”
I grab her tighter, slamming her into the wall at her back, the air knocking from her lungs with the force.
“My family is not a cult.” I gnash my teeth at her, nipping the skin of her cheek.
I press my face into the side of hers, my nose digging into her cheekbone, her pupil dilating as she looks at me from the corner of her eye.
My vision blurring with our closeness, I breathe her in, her rose scent filling my lungs, and I exhale hard, her body shivering as my breath washes over her bare shoulder.
“Watch your language, Penelope,” I kiss the words into her skin, my lips almost sucking as I draw just slightly back, enough to see her more clearly.
“Now,” I lick my lips, grazing my teeth over my bottom lip before letting it pop free, her eyes flicking down briefly to watch, “tell me what you did, Little Lamb.”
It’s not what I expect.
The scene before me.
Thomas Avery, one of my father's most trusted potentials carved up on the floor of an empty parlour, statues covered with large white dust sheets dotted around the room, revealed only by the torchlight each of us carries.
“Is my presence here really necessary?” Bram drawls, boredom dripping from every word.
Bram’s blue eyes barely flick over the butchered body lying before us, each of us from the kitchen spread out around it, Penelope tucked tightly into my side, before he turns his attention up to the ceiling instead.
Nobody speaks, everyone slowly turning their attention to Gore.
But it’s not Gore that whispered words come from, despite the parting of his lips, instead, it’s Dolly’s voice that emerges from the shadows, “We dispose of him, and say nothing.” It haunts the room, the way her words, both strong and frail, echo through the space, her pale face illuminated as simultaneously each torch beam finds her.
Her tall, curvy body draped in white silk fabric, ruching and pleats pulling it in at the waist, she moves like a phantom, feet whispering along the floor, drawing her in closer and closer.
“Us girls can clean this up,” she says quietly, lucidly, without looking at her husband, her eyes come to mine briefly, quickly dropping to the woman at my side. “Can’t we, Penelope?”
My grip tightens on Nellie, crushing her harder against me, all the while my gaze stays on Dolly, her face perfectly pleasant as she continues to stare at Nellie.
And my girl, her eyes on Dolly, untrusting, because Nellie doesn’t trust anyone.
She straightens, pulling her shoulders up, as though Dolly’s laying out a challenge that she just can’t say no to, as if she thinks, if it came down to it, between the two of them, she could hold her own.
Before I can even begin to object, already knowing what I want to do, how I want to deal with the situation, Penelope steps forward.
Forcing her way out from my grip, my teeth grinding with irritation, she moves in closer to the pool of blood, looking down at it, “Yes,” she replies to Dolly, slowly turning her head over her shoulder towards me, she smiles, something shy and sinister all rolled into one. “We can.”