Chapter 22 Briella
Briella
“I’M RUINING YOU. FEEL FREE TO SCREAM, MY GODDESS.”
Citizen Soldier Playlist
“Words That Don’t Exist”
“Better Off Broken
Iwake to the dim light of morning streaming through windows.
Wait, windows?
Holy godfuckingfuck! My whole body locks up at all the forms around me. Naked. Everyone is naked. Including me.
I shift my arm softly to cup my forehead, my breath coming in too fast. What was so strange and terrible and horrific, I thought must be a dream, but it’s not.
My body screams. My back still burns from the whip.
My vagina and ass still feel hot and swollen.
And I can practically feel the brand like a mini blaze on my flesh.
I have to pee like crazy. I don’t wanna think about how much that will hurt.
Blinking, I take stock of the bodies around me.
Jude is behind me, his black fortress of a chest pressed against my back, his heartbeat thumping a comforting rhythm.
His chin rests on my head. Rory lies between Jude and my left leg with his head propped on my thigh.
Seth mirrors him, but on my other side. Vincent sleeps at the far end of the bed, his hoodie nearby.
I lift my brows, understanding why he doesn’t have a piercing.
His dick is tattooed. Black chains swirling all around to the very tip.
And Raphael. I look up, a gasp lodging in my throat because he’s right in front of me, eyes fixed on me. Deep green eyes like the forest where I first met them. Dark strands of his hair rain down each side of his face. Heat swarms my insides as I wonder how long he’s been awake…staring at me.
When I open my mouth, Raphael shakes his head, warning me not to speak. A flick of his eyes to the others confirms he doesn’t want to wake them. Because this moment, here and now, is for us.
As his knuckles brush my cheek, tingles erupt all over my skin. My stomach flips at the same time that my heartbeat stutters.
“Five days?” I mouth, wanting to make sure he holds up his end of the deal.
He nods. “Five. Five for all of us.”
“All for one and one for all?” I quip.
My breath is ripped away when he covers my mouth with his, searing me, blinding me with the force of the kiss. A depth of intimacy I’ve never experienced. Different than the mine. I find myself surrendering too easily, parting my lips and giving him entrance. Wet heat fills my center.
I chalk it up to Stockholm Syndrome and a coping mechanism, a trauma bond after the hell they put me through. Like Raphael trained my body to welcome all of them.
So, why don’t I want to leave? The last thing I should want is to be right here, cocooned by all these bodies, of these men I’ve only just met. No, not men but monsters who put me through hell.
But it was nothing like the hell I came from.
Right now? That’s all that matters. That and the five days of worship ahead of me. I’ll take whatever I damn well please. Not even sex is off the table.
And I might have plans for every single one of them. Revenge might be served up cold, but for this goddess? It’s gonna be hot as hell.
Raphael pauses and leans closer, brushing his lips along my ear. “Do not wake them, Briella.”
I don’t know what he’s up to…until his fingers find my slick labia. My breath catches as he whispers, “Warm and wet for me already, sweet girl. Take your freedom from me. Here. Now.”
“Oh, fuck please!” I whisper, slowly pushing my hips closer. One-half plea to stop, but the other half to keep going is stronger. “Raphael, I have to use the bathroom.”
“Not until you come for me.”
Oh, God…
He kisses me again, already predicting my moan from his fingers capturing my clit, rubbing the distended flesh with a slow seduction.
He’s scrambling my thoughts. More heat surges through me.
He inserts two fingers into my sore entrance, and I whimper, shifting until he grips my hip with his other hand, forcing me to remain still.
When he tilts his jaw to kiss me deeper and rubs more wetness along my clit, I feel the hot pressure growing, my inner muscles squeezing around those fingers.
For one heartbeat, he pauses from my lips and then whispers in my ear, “Come for me, Briella. Come for me now.” Then he holds my gaze.
I go over the edge, the orgasm ripping through me, flushed heat erupting everywhere, and surging more fluid to my folds. It’s a more intense orgasm as I work to hold back my piss until…
I remember something.
Breaths tangling, I whisper, “Remember what I said in the pit right before you all left?”
One side of his mouth twists into a devilish smirk, confirming he knows what I’m thinking. No, what I’m going to fucking do. I’m basically giving him an out after that orgasm. So, he slowly slips out of the enormous bed and gives me an approving nod.
Ohmyfuckinggod, it feels so good to let it out. Whatever pain bows to the adrenaline and utter relief. The warm stream hits Rory and Seth first since they are on my thighs, wetting their hair and sides of their faces.
Seth jerks up first. “What the hell?”
As soon as he blinks and looks down and then back up at me, his eyes go wider than ever. I hold back more, but then, Seth shoves Rory off to the side.
Rory rolls over, the right side of his face and hair soaked in my urine, and as soon as he wakes up…
“The fuck? Why am I so wet?”
Seth tips his head back and laughs, but I’m already rising, pissing, and dancing all around them.
Jude shoots his head up as my piss splashes all of them, and Rory scrambles off the bed, belting out a string of thick Gaelic curses.
Not even Vincent is safe at the end of the bed when I pounce and finish letting the rest out right on the side of his body.
“Jesus, fuck!” he wakes, jerking up straight, only to see me naked and crouching with the remaining pee dripping down my thighs.
“Just following the golden rule, boys.” I blow them all a kiss and hop down from the bed, winching while they watch me in a stunned, jaw-dropping silence.
Raphael stands against the nearby wall. Naked and unashamed, I waltz right up to him and give him a feminine glare before scurrying toward the bathroom to wash up.
“Golden rule?!” Rory growls, glaring right at me with drops of my piss rolling down his cheek. “I swear to Christ, I’m gonna wring you out like a fucking bar rag!”
I set my hands on my hips, grinning at him. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Well, buckle up, boys. Because even hell will fall to its knees because of this woman. You wanted me to join you, Gods? I’m your Goddess now. And I’m coming for you.”
The second he charges for me, Seth and Vincent both take him down, wrestling him to the floor. Spinning around, I give my welted ass a little smack of a taunt, open the bathroom door, and disappear inside, fully intending to use all the hot water.
I smell him before I see him, before I feel him. A dark masculine musk, gentleman’s cologne of wood and copper…well, beneath the urine.
A gasp leaves my throat when Jude slips into the shower behind me, cupping my shoulders, caressing them.
“Need to check your stitches, Babydoll,” he murmurs, lowering his head and touching his full lips to the side of my head.
At first, I want to tell him to fuck off. Not to touch me. I shouldn’t want any of their hands on me. But Jude is…different. Deep inside, I know he means well. Hippocratic oath and all that.
“Thank you for the plastic wrap,” I gesture to the wrapping around my back he must have done while I was asleep.
“My pleasure.” His voice is the deepest, followed by Raphael, and it surges liquid flames in my belly.
When he touches the brand on my ass, I hiss, hips jerking away, but he wraps a strong hand around me, anchoring his palm beneath my breasts.
Slowly, softly, he lures me closer until my back hits his lower chest. That’s how short I am compared to him.
He still scares the hell out of me, but I still feel safer with him.
“I’ll need to put some salve on the brand after you get out. And I can give you something for the pa—”
“No.”
My tone was sharper than I meant, so I lean back against him and softly add, “Do you have any essential oils?”
“A few.”
“Helichrysum?” I chew on my lower lip, not getting my hopes up.
“No. The basics. Lavender, peppermint, frankincense.”
“I can work with that.”
I have more of what I need back at my cottage.
Literally a cottage I bought on the edge of the nearest small town.
I was in the middle of redecorating my plant room when Joah found me at the Halloween festival.
Sadness strains my chest when I remember how hard I worked on my costume.
God, something must be wrong with me when I’m more upset by that than everything they did to me.
Fuck, I have to get out of here. Stockholm Syndrome must be setting in. A voice in the corner of my mind nags me. Because if Joah found me, it means Alden must know. And if Alden knows…
They can protect you, the voice says. They will protect you—with everything they are.
The twisted part of me wants to believe it.
But the rational side knows they could discard me any time they want to.
If I don’t play their games, if I rebel too much, my bones could easily join the others in the pit.
They’ll eventually get tired, fed up with me.
And the real me is too fucked up for them to handle, much less want.
I’ll figure it out. Like I always do.
Jude touches my hair. I flinch as his hands comb through my wet curls, lathering shampoo into the strands.
“What are you—I don’t—oh, good god almighty!” I forget my protests when he softly rakes his fingers into my scalp. I’m convinced he must have been a massage therapist in another life. Or maybe before the whole army medic.
A soft snort of amusement hums in his throat. “Raphael is the hunter. Rory is the cook. Seth is the fix-it guy and the builder. Vincent is the livestock caretaker. And I’m—”