Chapter 10
BILLY
From the enclosed balcony I stand on at the back of the house, a large windowless arch allowing me to see out, wind slapping my face, little droplets of rain collecting on my skin as I watch Dolly lead Nellie out through a thicket of trees.
Presumably guiding her towards the crypts, a labyrinth of tunnels criss-crossing beneath them.
But it’s not them I really see, even as my gaze follows them in the darkness until they disappear from sight.
It’s her.
Maya Avery.
Thomas Avery’s little sister.
She was the last one.
My last one.
Just one of the many that came before her, but she was the last one before Penelope.
All of them the same, petite, light skin, dark hair, brown eyes, quiet, shy, eager to please, innocent.
That’s where the elders really fucked up.
Trying to offer me a replacement Pair, someone more to their standard, their liking, a girl they chose and approved of, but with the features of Penelope.
They just didn’t understand though, my Nellie is all of those things, except for the last one.
Her innocence is faux, it’s a play, acting, a performance, there is nothing truly innocent about her at all. She’s just very good at showing the world what they think they should see.
And, truly, none of the women they gave me were innocent either, but Maya, she was.
It’s why I hated her even more than the ones that came before her.
Why when I killed her it was more brutal than it needed to be, more mocking.
Because that’s what it was when she was offered to me, a mockery of what Nellie and I had.
It was only after her that The Obsidian decided against trying out any more, and left Gore to deal with me, another one of his tasks, this time not for his Pair, but for his future leadership. It’s why I won’t fuck up, now that I’ve got Penelope here, I’ll be good, for my brother, for his future.
For all of our futures.
“That can’t happen again,” Gore says, coming to stand beside me, his eyes also directed out onto the trees. “Someone could have seen her.”
“I know.”
“She was lucky,” he pauses, taking a slow, deep breath, his hands sliding into his pockets as I turn my head just slightly in his direction, finding his eyes now on mine. “You are not.”
Something else I also know but say nothing in response.
“Milus will assume you had something to do with Thomas’s disappearance when he comes home and finds him gone.
He will assume that it is her that has triggered it.
Your… rebellion. He will poke and prod and leave no stone unturned, she will be his target, to get at you, even more now than before.
” The lump in my throat sticks, keeping me silent, my fingers biting into the ornate stone railing, gargoyles and demons carved into the bars supporting it.
“You need to keep your head. Remember what is important, Billy.” Jaw tight, I nod once, a slow dipping of my chin.
“I take it you have not explained things to her.”
I sigh, dropping my elbows to the stone edge and burying my face in my hands, “Not really, but yes.”
“So, no.”
I smile at that, huffing a half-laugh through my nose.
“Dolly will tell her things,” Gore doesn’t move, doesn't seem to breathe, “that will scare her.” There’s a long pause, and then, “She will traumatise her with all of the things we live and breathe, brother, she will terrify her.” He breathes in deep, sharply, at my exhale, “That’s why you let her go.
” It’s almost a whisper, those final words, then a low dark chuckle, his realisation, “You want her to be frightened.”
“Wouldn’t you?” I snap back, feeling myself tremble. “If you could go back, if you could,” I sniff hard, “prepare Dolly bette-”
Gore’s words are lightning fast, cutting me off, “There is no preparation for the depravity that lives inside our father, you know that.”
It’s the first time in years I’ve heard Gore refer to Milus as our father, Father Black as the congregation refers to him, yes, but Father as in biological, no. It stills me, my every word dying on my tongue, a sourness sharp on my palate. I swallow acid, bile torching my oesophagus.
“Dolly’s memories, her thoughts, they are… different, things are not as they once were inside her head. She is not going to help prepare Penelope, Billy.”
“I want her to obey me!” I find myself screaming in temper.
“I want her to follow me, I want her to listen,” I hiss the last word, pounding my fist to my chest, thumping my heart.
“To tell the fucking truth, Gore! I want her to fucking live!” That last word is roared, my greatest fears spilling out of my mouth in an emotional outburst, not something I am known for, not something I do.
“I need her to survive, Gore.” I swallow, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
Closing my eyes, I breathe out through my nose, nice and slow, “There is nothing else here for me, nothing else out there, nothing but her.”
The floor length velvet drapes block out the slow rise of the early morning sun when she gets back.
Penelope’s long dark hair is matted, hanging in her face, strands tangled across her throat, a smudge of dirt kissing her cheek.
An oversized dark coloured hoodie is pulled overtop of her nightdress, white crew socks wrinkled where they’ve fallen down her claves, and matching white converse unlaced, all of it caked in mud.
And yet, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
And she’s mine.
Nellie closes the door softly, her back resting against it as she turns into the room, chest rising as she pulls in a long deep breath. Those big brown eyes finally lifting unto mine.
“Hello, Little Lamb,” my voice is low, quiet, calm, the exact opposite to what I’m feeling.
“Billy,” she breathes with something like relief, striking my heart like a dagger as she presses forward from the door, her feet moving her closer.
That’s when I see it.
All the dirt.
The dried blood.
The dark hollows beneath her eyes.
All evidence of what she’s done.
But she moves into me, quickly closing all distance between us, the huge room seeming tiny when her small hands delicately find my face, the weight of her petite body sliding boldly onto my lap, her knees coming to rest on either side of my hips.
Her small breasts press against the top of my chest, her arms winding around my neck, the puffs of her breath icy against the side of my warm throat.
She buries her face into me, and I breathe her in, sucking her essence deep into my lungs until I find it, the faintest scent of roses, concealed beneath the stench of death.
I let her sit, I let her catch her breath, calm herself, and it’s as though she falls asleep, going limp in my lap, feeling safe, but I know she isn’t sleeping really. She’s just waiting.
“Billy,” she finally whispers, my silence drowning us both, “Billy,” she presses up, her hands braced over my shoulders, using me to lift herself, arch her back. “Billy?”
I look into her eyes then, staring into them as if I will be able to pluck her soul right out of them and strangle it for her stupidity, but I don’t, I can’t, instead, my words wooden, I say, “Are you completely stupid, or do you just really want to die?”
“What?” Her brow furrows, tired eyes crinkling with confusion, and I think it’s that that really tips me over the edge, her complete and utter lack of self-awareness.
“You are ignorant,” I tell her quietly, my back straightening.
“You were sent here by the devil himself to cause me nothing but nightmares, Penelope. I hope you’ve burnt him and buried the ashes in a million different holes, Nellie.
Do you know what would happen if this little secret were to ever be uncovered? ”
“I-”
“Shut up,” I suck in a breath through gritted teeth, “just stop talking.” My eyes close and my hands fist tighter over the arms of the chair, “Why can you not just do as you’re told.” It’s not a question, exhaustion heavy in my words. “Why must you be s-”
“How dare you,” she seethes, cutting me off, her fingernails gouging my shoulders. “He was going to rape me,” she spits almost silently, “to get to you. And you’re sitting here with your huffing and puffing like you’re the one exhausted by it.”
I stand, Penelope sliding right onto the floor, thunking as she hits the woven rug covering the wood.
“I am exhausted by it!” The words explode out of me, my hands flying up into the air.
“By you, Penelope! And it’s only been days!
” I stop, ten feet between us, she stands as I turn back to face her, pushing herself up, my chest heaving.
“Days, Nells, and you’re already causing me so.
Many. Fucking. Problems. I don’t know what the fuck to do with you! ”
“Send me back!” She screams at the top of her lungs.
“Take me back! I didn’t ask to be here! I don’t want to be here!
Living in this house. With these people.
” She dips her chin, her eyes rolling upwards, coming back to mine, her posture stiff, but trembling, I already know what she’s going to say. “With this fucking cult!”
I’m moving before she even finishes saying the last word, my hands going around her neck.
I’m squeezing, and she’s clawing my forearms, digging her nails beneath my skin like the phantom ones I feel screwing their way into my skull.
Her eyes are bulging, mouth open, and I slam her down onto the floor, releasing her neck just to rip off her clothes.
Her hoodie flies up and over her head, I toss it away, her back hitting the ground once more, and she’s grasping her throat, heaving in air, weak beneath me, but still fighting, still kicking her feet.
The soles of them slamming into the front of my thighs.
I feel her hands on mine as I unzip my jeans, blood under her nails from where she’s tearing into my flesh, trying to stop me.
But I’m breathing her in, smelling her skin, roses and dirt, and blood that isn’t mine, but some of it is hers, and as I shove down my jeans, staring into her big brown eyes, ashy and warm and dark, panicked.
Her fingers curl into the sides of my neck, her palms over the front of my throat, and it slows me.
Not because I can’t breathe, but because I like it.
This is what I want from her.
Despite everything I just reprimanded her for.
When she’s with me.
When we’re together.
I want her fight.
I need it.
She needs it.
My hand comes to my cock, heavy and hot, my fingers tightening around my length, she squeezes my throat, my free hand tearing up the silk of her nightdress, shoving it high, all the way up over her breasts, under her chin.
I pause, her hands not letting me breathe, my lungs burning, one hand on my cock, the other on her hip, pinning her thrashing body down. I see the gauze covering her brand, our brand, our number, my Pair, and I have to see it.
Even as we hate each other, I am hers and she is mine.
And I need to see it.
Dipping my face into hers, her panting breath stilling, nostrils flared, she parts her lips, her eyes flicking to my own, before coming back to meet my own.
An invisible tether pulls us closer, something dark and sinister, wicked, like skeletal hands and blood sacrifice love spells, our mouths meet.
Mine, hungry and aggressive, hers, something like desperation and longing.
We crash as we come together, a collision of love and hate and longing.
So long we have waited.
Our tongues tangle, teeth clashing, I bite her lip, she squeezes my neck, and then I’m slamming my way inside of her.
Wet silken walls strangle my cock in the same way her fingers do my neck.
And I’m fucking her, one hand beside her head, the other on her thigh, holding her open, pressing down so hard on her leg I swear I can feel her femur crack.
But she doesn’t complain, she doesn’t cry out, she just kisses me harder, biting my mouth, licking my tongue.
I think of my own, the way she bit into it, tore a piece free, swallowed it down, and I feel myself getting harder.
I fuck her slower, harder, more determined.
“I’m going to fill you up so full of my cum, that you’ll drown in it, Little Lamb.”
Penelope moans at that, lips parted, she stares up at me, hands still around my neck, but no pressure now, like she’s forgotten she wanted to kill me only seconds ago.
“Billy,” she gasps, writhing beneath me, neck arching, head craning back, her eyes shut tight.
Another gasp, “Billy,” another squeeze of her cunt around my cock, and I’m so close to coming, to filling her, I don’t want it to end yet, to be over.
But when she speaks again, “Billy,” a moan of my name, a softness in her voice, I know I can’t hold it off.
My knees burn as every thrust shunts us a half-foot across the rug. Nellie’s hands come up into my hair, fingers twisting in the curls, her thumbs on my temples, she drags me down. Our mouths reconnecting, tongues lapping over each other once more.
“Billy,” she breathes into my mouth, the only time I like hearing someone use my name to beg. “Billy, come for me.”
It’s a command I cannot disobey. I thrust into her once, twice, and I’m coming.
Long, hard thrusts have me biting down on her lip as I keep pulsating, keep spilling my seed inside of her.
Making sure I bury myself inside of her as deep as I possibly can.
All in the hopes it might mature into something more.
It has me still pumping myself into her, even as I soften, even as her limbs go limp and she softens beneath me. It’s my one goal; the whole reason she’s here as far as The Obsidian’s concerned.
And although we’re not supposed to conceive before the union, if we did… It might just be enough to keep her safe.
For now.