Chapter 18
Nora
My heart dropped to the floor when the door to the dungeon opened, revealing Dante’s imposing form.
He shot me that maniacally pleased grin as he stepped inside.
I choked on a horrified gasp when I saw who was behind him: two men dragged Luca’s bulky body between them.
His head lolled forward, and his knees skimmed the tiles.
He was naked.
“Luca!” I grabbed the bars on the cage, trying to wrench them apart so I could get to my husband.
He groaned at my sharp cry, and his muscles rippled. He shook his head slightly, but he couldn’t seem to lift it.
“What did you do to him?” I demanded of Dante, my voice too high-pitched.
“He’s fine, darling. He’s just drugged. I don’t intend to kill him.”
My stomach churned. Judging by Dante’s sharp smile, he planned something worse than death for his rival.
The two men heaved Luca’s limp body onto the bed and shackled his wrists and ankles to the bedposts. Nausea stirred in my stomach. My strong husband, my savior, was a captive. He was stripped and powerless, just like me.
“Luca.” This time, his name left my lips on a broken moan.
Somehow, the nightmare had gotten so much worse. Deep in my heart, I’d expected him to save me. There hadn’t been an alternative in my mind; the prospect of remaining trapped with Dante was unbearable.
Luca stirred at the sound of my voice, and Dante slapped him hard across the face.
“My wife wants to talk to you,” he sneered.
Luca blinked slowly, eyes glassy as he struggled back to awareness. His powerful limbs twitched, and chains rattled as the cuffs held him fast. He grunted and blinked again, shaking his head slightly as though to throw off the fog of the drugs.
“Please,” I begged, turning my attention to Dante. “Let us go. You don’t have to hurt him.”
His green eyes were pitiless, spearing my heart with an icy blade. “No. I’ve waited too long for this. It’s his fault that you’re involved now. If he hadn’t stolen you away from me, you would have no part in this. He will suffer for taking what’s mine, and you will help me.”
I wanted to rail at him that I didn’t belong to him, that I never would. He was deranged and unfathomably cruel. He’d demanded my obedience when he’d humiliated me with the whip, but he hadn’t broken me. He’d known that I didn’t mean it when I said I was his wife.
I didn’t dare give voice to my defiance now. Not when Luca was completely vulnerable to Dante’s sadistic whims.
Luca came back to full awareness with a roar of pure rage. The chains rattled against the metal bedframe, and his corded muscles bulged as he fought the restraints. His ochre eyes were fixed on me, wide and wild.
I shrank deeper into the cage and covered my breasts, mortified at my nakedness. Dante had brought me low, and Luca was witnessing my humiliation.
“What have you done to her, you sick fuck?” he bellowed at our captor.
Dante simply smirked at him, watching his fruitless struggles with dark amusement.
Luca twisted in his bonds. “Let her go,” he snarled. “You have what you want. I’m right here.”
“Yes, you are,” Dante purred. “And you’re not in a position to make demands. You don’t understand yet, but Nora does. Shall I show you how obedient my wife is?”
Luca glanced around wildly, searching the room for another woman. I saw the moment he understood what Dante meant.
“She’s mine,” he growled. “Nora is my wife.”
“Not anymore,” Dante retorted. “We’re married, and as of now, you’re no longer her husband. You are no one. You are nothing.”
As Luca struggled and cursed him, he calmly walked toward me and unlocked the cage. He held out a hand, a pretense of gentlemanly assistance. “Come on out, little bird.”
Refusing his mocking help, I crawled out onto the tiles and quickly stood to recover a tiny shred of my dignity. I wouldn’t remain kneeling at his feet for one second longer than he forced me to.
Before I could cover my breasts again, he grasped my hips and turned us, so that I was positioned in front of him. My bruised bottom pressed against him, and I felt his cock stiffen. He was getting off on this, the perverted bastard.
Keeping one arm braced around my middle, he lifted his other hand to my breasts, toying with my nipples until they tightened to firm buds. I was still sensitive from the terrible orgasm he’d forced from me with the whip, and I shuddered as my nerves crackled and danced for him.
“Isn’t my wife beautiful?” he asked Luca, ignoring my true husband’s bellow of rage.
“Stop,” I begged, watching red rings form around Luca’s wrists where the cuffs cut into his skin. “Please, let us go.”
The monster’s low, delighted chuckle rumbled through me. “Oh no, pet. You’re both mine now.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, still pleading with him to stop this insanity and see reason. “You want to be the boss? You don’t have to torment us to take control.”
Suddenly, his hands sank into my hips, and he flipped me around to face him. His emerald eyes sparked with fury, and his beautiful features twisted into a mask of pure hatred.
“I’ve been waiting years for this revenge. Luca killed my brother. He will pay, and your pretty pleas won’t save him.”
My mouth went dry at the raw loathing that burned in his fierce gaze. I saw no mercy there. He would make Luca scream. He would break him. And he would somehow involve me in his torture.
“I won’t hurt him.” My assertion came out as a strained whisper. The insane light in Dante’s eyes unnerved me to my core.
His grin cut into my chest, stabbing at my heart. “I don’t intend for you to hurt him, pet. You’re going to suck his cock.”
Horror sucked all the air from my lungs, and for a moment, all I could do was shake my head mutely.
He wanted me to do to Luca what he’d done to me: he intended for me to force Luca to feel pleasure against his will. He wanted to utterly humiliate my strong, domineering husband. Dante would rip away all his control in the most devastating way, and he wanted to use me to do it.
“I won’t.” I managed to force the refusal through my constricted throat. “I won’t torture him like you tortured me.”
“You raped my wife?” Luca roared, blood sliding down his arms from where the cuffs were shredding his wrists.
Dante sneered at him, as though he was something disgusting on the bottom of his shoe. “I haven’t fucked my wife yet. And I won’t until she begs for it. I’m not an animal like you. I can control myself.”
No, Dante wasn’t an animal. He was the Devil himself. I’d been right when I’d first thought of him as a fallen angel. How could someone so beautiful be so cruel?
The Devil returned his attention to me. “You can do as I say and suck his cock, or I can go back to my original plan of slowly flaying him alive. I can make it last for weeks, possibly longer. He’s strong enough to take a lot of pain before his heart gives out.”
He placed a hand on the knife hilt at his belt. “It’s your choice, darling.”
I swallowed against the burn at the back of my throat and peeked at Luca. He’d stopped yanking at the restraints. His big body quivered with the effort of holding still when adrenaline coursed through his system.
I knew the exact, awful sensation he was experiencing. I’d felt it when Dante had caught me and bound me in the woods last night, allowing me to run for my life before snaring me.
His games were perverse and twisted. I didn’t want to play, but he wasn’t giving me a choice. I couldn’t let him hurt Luca.
We would survive this. We would endure.
I straightened my shoulders and ignored the way Dante stroked my spine with satisfaction.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Luca, stepping toward his bound form.
He looked past me, ochre eyes shooting daggers at his enemy. “I will kill you for this.”
“For getting a blowjob from my lovely wife? You should be on your knees, thanking me. Eventually, you will do just that.”
Luca bared his teeth at him, but his expression softened as I approached. “It’s okay, Nora.”
His soothing tone made my eyes burn, and I was too horrified to hold back the tears. Dante had already opened the floodgates when he’d made me come all over the handle of his whip. The tears fell freely now.
I crawled over Luca, kneeling between his spread knees to position myself near his cock. I stared down at it, unsure. We’d never done this before. Luca had always taken my pussy, not my mouth.
Dante’s low laugh caressed my nape like a toxic wave. “You haven’t claimed her mouth yet, Luca?” He placed a hand between my shoulder blades, urging me forward. I bent at the waist, bracing my arms against the mattress at either side of Luca’s hips.
I took a breath and tried to retreat into myself once again, so I could endure what was to come.
“Don’t worry, pet,” he soothed. “I’ll guide you through it. I’ll teach you to love sucking cock. You can practice on Luca until you’re ready for me.”
Luca snarled, and the chains jangled. I looked up at his bleeding arms, my vision wavering through my tears.
“Don’t,” I begged. He was hurting himself, and this was terrible enough without knowing that he was in pain.
His granite jaw was sharp enough to cut as he gritted his teeth and stilled. His dark eyes pierced my soul, and he gave me a tight nod: permission to continue and a promise not to struggle.
“Take him in your hand, Nora,” Dante instructed, so coolly composed while Luca and I were coming apart at the seams. “Stroke him.”
I wrapped trembling fingers around Luca’s shaft. It jerked and stiffened beneath my hesitant touch.
Dante laughed again, the bastard. “I won’t even have to drug you to make you hard. You’re even weaker than I thought, Vitale. Although,” he continued, stroking my hair, “my bride is stunning enough to tempt any man.”
“She’s not yours,” Luca ground out.
“Nora, darling. Squeeze his balls. Hard.”
I jolted. “No!”
Silver flashed in my peripheral vision, and a blade was suddenly pressed to Luca’s rippling abs, scraping down the trail of dark hair that led to his cock.