Chapter Two
...............................
Henri
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I’D NEVER FELT THIS WAY before.
Never been so...empty.
Empty of attempts to be better.
Empty of hope that I was good.
Even the night I’d tried to butcher myself and willingly summoned death, I hadn’t reached this level of emptiness. This aching, quaking freedom.
The sharp scent of Ily’s blood shot up my nose. The droplets I’d smeared on my neck infused with my body heat, permeating around me like some deviously bad aftershave.
My cock throbbed to draw more, desperate and painfully insistent.
I’d been inside this girl twice. I’d come four fucking times today and shot back a shit ton of alcohol, yet...her blood was the worst kind of aphrodisiac.
Far more potent than just sexual conquest.
Far more carnal than just a quick fuck.
This new throb ached in every vein and vessel, soaking into my teeth and deep into the empty chambers of my long-dead heart.
I’d always felt less removed from the animal kingdom than my fellow humans. Always felt a scratching in my bones and skin as if I could change shape and grow fur. I’d often imagined my teeth growing into sharp canines and my nails into savage claws.
But that was when the nausea always found me—slapping such stupid ideas away, smothering me in humanness, sending me bolting for a bush or toilet to vomit in.
But now?
I felt...healthy.
Energised.
Reborn.
No sickness. No churning gut. No reprimanding inner voice telling me to be better.
I’d tried to be better.
I’d tried so fucking hard.
But this was better.
Giving in.
Going home.
Becoming who I truly was.
It was motherfucking liberating.
Blinking slightly hazy eyes, I focused on the sparkling jewel bound to a cross before me. Whatever I’d felt for this slave? The overwhelming crush I’d harboured? The nonsense belief I could save her...all faded into a different sort of conquest.
I cringed at my embarrassing past and all my struggles.
I turned my back on the man I could never be.
My past self fucked me off.
His patheticness.
His weakness.
His desperation to be normal.
Fuck that.
Why be normal when I could be this?
This powerful. This free. This whole.
Never again.
Never fucking again would I kill myself trying to be something I wasn’t.
And it’s all thanks to her.
Letting my cock go, I traced the dagger along her pretty cheekbone.
Such flawless skin. Such an angelic colour as if she were borne from sunlight and butterscotch.
“Ah, Ily...” My hand was steadfast and stable as I scribed an H over her cheek—not cutting, merely autographing her with invisible ownership.
“You freed me, little nightmare. Your silly little kick unlocked every part of me.”
She stretched on her tiptoes, tipping her head back as if she could escape my knife.
“This isn’t you. It’s not.” She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, her collar jingling on its hook.
“You don’t have wings. You aren’t some son of darkness.
I’m hallucinating, and this will all be over soon—”
“It’s already over.” I dragged the dagger along her jawline. “The moment you kicked me, it was all over.”
“Don’t.” She strained from my blade, lengthening her neck, revealing the small cut I’d already made and inviting a thousand more. “Please. Stop. Please, please stop.”
Dropping my head, I pressed my mouth to the wound I’d caused. I tongued the cut, my stomach snarling for sustenance. To taste her. Truly taste her in a way I’d never tasted anyone.
I’d never gone that far, despite my dreams and longings.
Never drawn another’s blood and feasted, despite my tastebuds turning every other food to ash.
But only a faint metallic flavour teased me, the wound already sealing and refusing to give me its gift.
Fine.
I still had ninety-eight more droplets to draw.
Pulling away, I studied her fear, her tension, her twitching, jerking terror.
As much as her beauty beguiled me, I saw the truth now.
She was just a girl. A toy. A belonging.
My belonging.
To do with as I please.
Painting her plump pink lips with the sharp tip of my blade, I shivered as she gasped in panic. Her body twisted in the binds, the clink of the buckles around her ankles music to my fucking ears.
“You should really thank me, you know,” I murmured, utterly entranced with the way brutal metal threatened to puncture her fragile skin. “This knife is sharp and clean. Far, far better than those disgusting ones Victor offered.”
A string of words escaped her in a language I wasn’t familiar with. Peter gasped behind me, obviously understanding her.
Breathing hard, she repeated them, over and over. A mantra.
Her pretty voice filled the room, weaving around dead animals, invoking a spell that only freed me further.
I smirked and waited for her to open her eyes.
Her voice slowly drifted off; I grinned the moment her golden gaze met mine. “No amount of prayers or chants can save you, little nightmare.”
Her lips twisted, fighting tears.
My entire body stiffened, transfixed on the glossy-wet glitter in her eyes.
With one hand, I adjusted my hard-on, just daring her to cry in my presence.
With monumental effort, she sniffed back every sorrow and trembled in her imprisonment. Bound and subservient, her forced submission seeped into my mind, adding yet another layer of freedom.
Sighing with utter relief and newfound power, I hunted for a new spot to cut.
Ily moaned in utter despair as I drew my knife across her neck, over her shoulder and down, down her arm.
She flinched as I kept going, stopping on the paper-thin skin of the inside of her wrist. The golden cuff keeping her arms spread had already bruised her.
Slight redness from her struggles marred the perfection of her flesh.
“You know...I never intended to use this blade like this, but it’s fitting.
It’s new. A virgin to blood...just like me. ”
Gritting my teeth, I added pressure to the blade right over the web of veins keeping her alive.
Ily’s self-control broke.
She thrashed and fought. Jerked and jangled. The cross didn’t budge. The buckles didn’t unbind. Her collar and cuffs held, trapping her in helpless fury.
Nowhere to run and no way to hide.
I let her tire herself out.
Never lifted the knife point from her wrist.
Only once she panted and her head hung with defeat did I raise an eyebrow and push down. “That was pointless.”
She cried out as my switchblade punctured her.
“Pointless but oh-so-fucking satisfying.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Just a tiny nick but in the perfect spot. “Your heart is pumping; your blood is flowing. See how quickly it pours for me now?”
Blood oozed far faster than the slice on her neck, rolling with shiny, lustrous crimson. It threatened to plop off her arm before I snatched up the pipette and sucked it into the glass tube.
She moaned again as I collected her lifeforce. The wound didn’t give up much. After all, I’d merely scratched her.
I had no intention of rushing this.
No intention of giving up this heady, arousing superpower.
Raising the pipette, I held it to the chandelier.
Light shone through her trapped blood, turning pink and almost translucent. I swear I saw sparks of life within, tiny flecks of her soul that she’d never get back.
Stabbing the knife into my waistband, I held out my already blood-smeared palm and squeezed the black rubber tip of the dropper.
One by one, red droplets fell.
“Five.” The first scarlet splash landed like a tiny starburst. “Six.” It joined its bloody twin.
“Seven.” I shuddered as my voice darkened.
“Eight.” Euphoria opened its pearly gates and let me in.
“Nine.” The alcohol in my system no longer had any hold on me, burning away beneath the flames of sadistic truth.
“Ten.” The final drop settled on top of all the rest—a tiny puddle of copper-tainted wine.
My mouth watered.
I raised my hand to my lips.
The urge to take communion filled me. Not the spirit-forgiving kind where sins were erased by the body and blood of Christ but the spirit-freeing kind where sins stepped fully into the light of night.
My tongue snaked out.
Ily looked away as if she couldn’t watch.
And the tiniest tug in my heart stilled my scarlet drink.
Not yet.
I paused.
I’d ignored every devilish voice my entire life. I’d shut them up and shoved them into the dark.
Willingly listening now was a novelty.
Not yet.
After.
You taste her, and it’s all over.
You’ll snap.
I had a solid point.
Slapping my palm over my wrist, my nostrils flared as her blood stung me. The same wrist where I’d drawn it from Ily—claiming it as mine.
Her eyes widened as she watched me paint her essence against my overheated skin. Sweat rolled down my back. Heat scorched my veins. And the sensation of her energy seeping and tangling with mine made my heart pound a drum of fucking ecstasy.
Giving in to the urgency percolating in my belly, I stepped toward her other outstretched arm.
She flinched as I wrapped my fingers around her wrist, shoving the cuff a little higher to access the spiderweb of red and blue beneath.
“This isn’t real. Not real.” Her head hung low as I fisted my knife from my waistband and pressed it against her skin. “It’s just a bee sting. A thorn. Nothing more than ahhh—”
I pierced her.
Barely there.
A tiny incision.
Blood immediately beaded.
Swapping the blade for the pipette, I repeated the ritual: sucking down hot, metallic vitality.
My hand—that always used to shake as I did my best to trap myself within—was wondrously steady as I squeezed out all the droplets I’d claimed.
“Eleven.” I struggled to breathe as her russet blood seduced me. “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.” I pinched the dropper, releasing a final one. “Sixteen.” Five droplets all congealing into one silken ball of ruby.
My teeth ached to suck down her flavour.
My heart bucked against my ribs.
But I kept enough control to smear Ily’s blood over my matching wrist, joining us in three ways. Three points of energies and souls.