59. Thea
59
Thea
M y victims haunted my dreams. Blood-soaked wraiths swirled around me in the darkness, laughing as I fought my fear.
You murdered us.
You’re evil .
Was I evil?
I felt evil.
Killing was wrong, yet I’d never had a choice. From the very first moment my father handed me a gun, I knew what he expected of me.
The gun was too big for my small hand. Too heavy. I could barely lift the damn thing.
The man tied to the metal chair squinted at me with his one remaining eye when I lifted the gun.
“Flick the safety off, like I showed you, principessa.” Dad’s voice was gentle yet firm.
“It’s too heavy,” I whined. My small arms trembled. Why had he pulled me from my nice, warm bed?
I wanted my stuffed bear. Bed was safe. Maria had promised to make cookies with me in the morning. I was excited about that.
“Do it, Thea.” This time, Dad’s voice was much harder, more threatening.
“She’s a kid, you’re sick!” The bloody man tied to the chair struggled against his bindings, but Torrance had used plastic zip ties. He had no chance of breaking them.
Dad ignored the man. His focus was on me and the gun in my hands.
“Flick the safety off and squeeze the trigger.”
I didn’t want to look at the man sitting in the chair. He frightened me. But Dad scared me more, and I knew if I didn’t do what he asked, he’d hurt me again. Like last time.
So I pointed the gun, like he’d taught me. Verity’s face popped into my head. She slept in the attic, far away from my room on the first floor, but when Dad was away, I liked to sneak up there.
When I shared a bed with my sister, we both slept better. The nightmares didn’t come.
She was all alone when I wasn’t with her. If I didn’t do this, Dad might hurt Verity. I had to protect my baby sister. She needed me.
The thought of Dad hurting her was enough to break the paralysis. I closed my eyes and squeezed the trigger. The kick-back sent my small body flying backwards and my head slammed into the concrete floor.
The gunshot had been way louder than I expected. My ears rang, and for a few long moments, I couldn’t hear a thing. Slowly, my hearing returned. Screams bounced off the walls, making my head ache, then came a second gunshot, followed by blissful silence.
When I finally pried my eyes open, the man on the chair was dead with half his head missing.
I sat up and vomited all over the floor.
“Good girl,” Dad said with a broad grin. “You hit him in the jaw. Not quite enough to kill him, but a decent shot. Better than I expected.” He yanked me to my feet. “We can work on that, though.”
My bedroom was cool, but my skin felt overheated. Fear and self-loathing battled for supremacy. The man tied to the chair stared at me, his eyes blank. There was nothing but a gaping hole where his mouth and nose had been. Blood and brain tissue leaked out.
I screamed and flailed, trying desperately to crawl away from him. Then the corpse winked at me and laughed. How could it laugh? It had no mouth.
Pretty bird, it whispered. I’ll find you, pretty bird.
An arm snaked around my waist as I kicked out. A fresh woodsy scent tickled my nose, driving away the vile stench of spilled blood and vomit.
Pine trees after heavy rain. Moss and heather. Snowfall.
I wasn’t in that room. I wasn’t that scared little girl anymore.
“Thea, you’re safe,” a familiar voice whispered in my ear. Milo . “Nobody can hurt you here.”
My body relaxed. This was my college bedroom. The door lock was secure. Torrance couldn’t reach me.
I was safe.
Milo’s arm tightened around my waist, and I melted against him.
I was safe.
If I said it ten times, would that make it true?
My sleep-brain assured me it would, so I muttered the phrase ten times, and on the tenth repetition, I slipped back into a dreamless sleep.
My eyes snapped open. The sky had lightened outside, but I could still feel a large, overly hot male body pressed against me. I frowned. Milo always vanished before dawn, so it couldn’t be him.
I wasn’t dumb. I knew he crept into my room most nights. Sometimes his presence woke me. Other times it didn’t, and the only reason I knew he’d visited me on those nights was an indent in the pillow beside my head, along with a lingering sense of peace.
Shoving the remnants of my nightmare away, my attention focused on the man wrapped around me. I knew it wasn’t Milo. Milo always smelled of damp forests and pine. This man smelled of bergamot and black pepper.
My brain made the connection. Kyril .
When I reached for the knife under my pillow and came up empty, he chuckled.
“Don’t bother, my vicious little kotenok , I moved it.”
“What are you doing in my bed?”
He shuffled closer, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The bastard was naked. Or virtually naked, with nothing but a pair of cotton boxers separating us. Not that they hid much. His cock was rock hard and very much awake.
“You were ignoring me. I was patient, but now I’m not.” His grip around me tightened. “You can’t fight me, kotenok.”
“Fucking try me!”
I tried to headbutt him, but all that did was make him laugh. He had my arms trapped, and lying flat like this meant there was no way to use his bodyweight against him. In other words, I was screwed.
“Why do you think I’ve been ignoring you?” I asked in a deceptively calm voice that belied how angry I was.
“Because you’re mad at me?”
“Yes, Kyril. I’m mad at you.”
“Why?” This fucking man .
“Because…” Why was I mad at him? Was it the whole ‘fucking me without using a condom’? In all fairness, that was 50% my fault. I was still mad, though. I just wasn’t entirely sure why. “Because I am!” I huffed with annoyance, but the grip around my waist didn’t loosen one bit. If anything, it tightened. And his dick got harder the more I struggled.
“I said I was sorry about fucking you bare. I’ve never not used a condom, kotenok. Only with you . I…” He hesitated. “I lost control. And for that, I am sorry. I should have been more careful, knowing it was your first time.”
Something in me settled. I didn’t really know Kyril, but I guessed he wasn’t the kind of guy who apologized. So hearing him say he was sorry meant something.
Maybe I had been too harsh. In truth, the only reason I’d pushed him away was because my feelings scared the shit out of me.
The thought of letting anyone get close terrified me.
I was terrified of what might happen to him - or the others - if my father found out I liked them.
I let his words percolate for a few moments, while trying to ignore his cock. The damn thing was burrowing its way between my butt cheeks like a heat-seeking missile. My pussy didn’t protest. She was firmly in favor of embracing what Kyril offered.
“I wanted it too,” I said eventually, though it pained me to admit I’d treated Kyril unfairly. He’d gone out of his way to fetch me a morning-after pill, even though he could have walked away and never spoken to me again.
It wasn’t as if we were in a relationship. More like a situationship. One that involved murder and mayhem. We both murdered and caused mayhem.
“I know you wanted it,” Kyril agreed. My pussy throbbed with enthusiasm, reminding me she wasn’t averse to another go. Like now.
The smugness in his voice made me regret my admission. Of course he assumed I wanted it. He probably had women throwing themselves onto his dick on the regular. And, not gonna lie, it was a very fine dick.
“You should go now,” I told him.
Unsurprisingly, he ignored me. Instead, his large hand crept under my vest top and cupped my breast.
“It feels like you want me to stay.” He tweaked my hard nipple, and I fought hard not to groan.
“No, you need to leave. I have stuff to do.” I pushed back against his still hard dick while squeezing my thighs together. He was making it really difficult. A girl only had so much willpower.
His hand continued to caress my breast and his dick grew harder against my ass. I wiggled in a half-hearted attempt to get away from him, but both of us knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Kyril…” I groaned when he pinched my nipple again and twisted it, causing sparks of pain to spiral out. Then he released me, but before I could slide off the bed, he had moved me onto my back and pushed up my vest top.
A hot, wet mouth found my breast, soothing my poor, tortured nipple. Desperate need snaked through me. I was wet for him. We both knew it. Hell, if he was a wolf shifter from my latest smutty romance, he’d be able to scent my arousal. The whole college would. That was how turned on I was.
It was pointless denying how much I wanted him. We both knew I wanted him.
He moved down, licking a fiery trail across my stomach. When he reached my sleep shorts, he paused.
What? Did I smell bad or something? A sudden flare of embarrassment acted like a bucket of cold water. Some of my arousal faded as I stared down at him.
“I need to know you want this,” he said in a serious voice. “Last time, I lost control.”
Oh . I relaxed. He was being careful. Asking for consent. Something in me softened. The big bad Russian didn’t want to hurt me.
Underneath thick layers of feral aggression, Kyril was a cute teddy bear. Did he show that side to anyone else, or was it just me?
“I do want this. Now please make me come!”
With a growl, he pulled my shorts off and tossed them to one side. The first flick of his tongue on my clit had me arching my back. Because I was so turned on, the second sent me into the stratosphere, soaring high on a wave of pleasure. It was almost embarrassing just how quickly he had made me come. It typically took me ages to make myself orgasm.
But then, maybe it shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Like Landon, Kyril knew exactly what he was doing. The guy probably had a PhD in Cunnilingus. Or so it felt to my inexperienced self.
Experiencing this much pleasure was intoxicating. He measured my response to every lick and suck and reacted accordingly. Ramping it up and backing off when he knew I was close.
Since it was early and I didn’t feel like waking everyone up with my screams, I shoved my fist into my mouth to smother my cries when he pushed first one, then two fingers inside me.
From the way his hips ground into the mattress, he was just as turned on as me, but he didn’t seem in a rush to fuck me. Was that a good thing?
No. I wanted him to fuck me. I was desperate to feel him inside me. Kyril had talented fingers, sure, but they weren’t thick enough to satisfy my slutty pussy. But he seemed determined to make me come as many times as possible first.
He sucked my clit while scissoring his fingers, and I came again, sobbing like an idiot.
“I can’t take any more!” I cried, my body wrung out with pleasure.
The bastard laughed. “One more,” he cooed as he pulled back and wiped his face on my sheet. It should have been gross, but because I was, apparently, fucked in the head, I found it a turn on. “This time, I want to feel you coming around my cock, kotenok.”
He grabbed my thighs and pulled me toward him before leaning down to suck my nipple. With one last flick of his tongue, he moved up and kissed me.
I could taste my arousal on his mouth. It should have given me the ick, but I didn’t care. The last time we kissed, Kyril acted like a feral beast let loose from a long stint in captivity. This time, he treated me like a priceless work of art. Something so precious he couldn’t bear the idea of damaging it.
“I need you inside me,” I moaned in a voice I no longer recognized. Who was this girl and what had she done to Thea? Maybe handing Kyril my V-card had somehow turned me into a slut. I’d have to ask Eden for advice. She seemed a lot more worldly-wise on these things.
Kyril jumped off the bed, and for a moment, I thought he was leaving. Panic sent my heart rate soaring. But then he pulled his boxers off and stood looking at me, lust written all over his face.
My gaze slid down to his cock. Jesus. Did I really fit that inside me? He caught me staring and smirked.
“Like what you see?” he asked, fisting it slowly.
“I’d like it more with a condom on,” I replied in a snippy voice, and his smirk faded.
“Of course, kotenok. I wouldn’t make that mistake twice.”
He knelt down and pulled a small foil square from his pants’ pocket. The thought that he carried around a condom at all times made me second-guess what I was doing here. It was bad enough I’d gotten carried away once. The temporary insanity clause was a possible defense in that instance. Now, though, I was lucid and knew exactly what I was doing.
Maybe this was a bad idea. I pulled the sheet up and shifted sideways, one eye on the bathroom door. Would the lock keep Kyril out if I dived in there? I had a gun stashed under the vanity unit. Kyril wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t fight me if I pulled a gun on him.
“Where did you go, kotenok?” The sound of his voice made me look up. In the time it took my brain to spiral, he’d rolled the condom over his cock.
“I’m right here.”
He frowned. “In your head, I mean.”
“Nowhere,” I lied. Unconvincingly, it had to be said. Kyril noted my leg half out of the bed and the angle of my body. He stepped back.
“It’s OK, kotenok. I can tell you’re having second thoughts. I can go .” His erection wilted, and he reached down for his pants.
The raging mass of panic and insecurity in my head coalesced into a hard ball of anger. What was wrong with me? Was I that screwed up that I couldn’t tell when a guy was into me as opposed to wanting nothing more than a fast and furious fuck?
“Kyril…” I began, feeling stupid and embarrassed. He paused and looked up. Considering my unhinged behavior, he seemed remarkably calm. Nothing like the man I thought he was when we first met. Or the psychotic lunatic who’d chased me through the woods a week ago.
Maybe I’d misjudged him.
“You don’t need to explain, kotenok.” He pulled his pants back on and sat down on the side of the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. Then he took my hand. “I am happy to wait.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “But don’t ignore me, kotenok. I don’t like it when you ignore me .”
The edge to his voice underlined the fact he wasn’t happy about being ghosted. Seeing how it upset him settled something inside me. Maybe I’d overreacted?
OK, so there was no maybe about it. I definitely had overreacted.