Chapter 19 Mackenzie #3
Eric’s face swims before me, his features stretching and contracting like a funhouse mirror. “Whoa,” I mumble, reaching out to steady myself on the armrest. “I think…something’s wrong with me.”
“You’re fine,” Eric says, his voice sounding distant despite him being right beside me. “Just relax.”
I try to stand, but my legs feel disconnected from my body. “No, I’m not—I didn’t drink that much.”
“Shhh,” he soothes, his hand now on my shoulder, pushing me gently back into the couch. “First time with good tequila hits different.”
“No…I…I think I should get back.”His hand is on my shoulder, heavy and insistent. I try to push myself up, but my limbs won’t cooperate. The room spins violently around me, and panic rises in my throat.
“I need to go,” I mumble, my words slurring together. “Tiffany’s waiting for me.”
“Tiffany knows you’re with me,” Eric says, his voice suddenly different. The charm is gone, replaced by something cold and calculating. “Nobody’s expecting you back tonight.”
I reach for my phone in my pocket, but my fingers feel like they’re encased in molasses. Eric watches me struggle, that perfect smile still in place, but it doesn’t reach his eyes anymore.
“What did you…?” I can’t finish the sentence. My tongue feels too big for my mouth.
“Just something to help you relax,” he says, taking my nearly empty glass from me. The room spins, and I try to focus on his face, which seems to shift in and out of clarity. “Help,” I try to say, but it comes out as a pathetic whisper. My father’s necklace feels suddenly heavy against my chest.
“You’re going to be fine,” Eric says, stroking my hair. His touch makes my skin crawl now. “We’re going to have a good time.”
Through the fog in my brain, alarm bells are ringing. This isn’t right. This isn’t normal. I need to get out.
I try to stand again, but my legs buckle. Eric catches me with practiced ease, laying me out on the couch like he’s done this before. The thought sends ice through my weary body.
“Let me go,” I slur, trying to push against his chest.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says, and his mask of charm is completely gone now. “You came up here with me willingly. Don’t you remember?”
“Stop.” I try to fight, but it is no use.
I punch and slap him, but the blows don’t land the way I need them to, and he yanks my hands over my head.
I start to kick, but he forces himself between my legs as his hand moves between us.
“Stop!” I cry, trying to wriggle away when he pulls my panties to the side.
“Shh. Shh, no,” he whispers, the sound of his zipper making my blood run cold. He spits in his palm before forcing himself inside me. “You want this…”He groans.“You want this, shh, baby. Don’t cry,” he whispers. “It’s cold outside, baby. I just want to keep you warm.”
My vision clears slowly like dissipating smoke, and I realize there’s something heavy resting in my palm. My lungs constrict with rage—I can’t think, I can’t breathe.
“If you want me to do this for you, I will. But if you wish for him to die by your hand…” Thane snaps, and his scythe extends, pulsing as if it has a heartbeat of its own, a heartbeat that would yield to my will—different from Thane, but in allegiance, just the same. “Majesty, we are yours to wield.”
Thane drops the full weight of the scythe into my palms, and I close my fingers around the shaft as it shimmers beneath my grip—solid wood and iron.
“Please, Mackenzie…please…” Eric’s voice trembles.
“If I snap, will it close?” I ask softly, turning my head.
Thane’s breath, warm as embers, brushes my neck as he chuckles. “ I think it likes you more than me. Glide your palm along the shaft and see what happens.”
I comply, trailing my fingertips down the handle’s dark grain—to my surprise, it shifts back to the silver butterfly knife.
“How did you know it would do that?” I ask, looking over my shoulder to meet a hellish grin spread across his face.
“Because that’s what I like.” He presses a gentle kiss to my cheek. “And you do it so well, goddess.”
My heart hammers. “Thane—”
“Kenz,” he murmurs, his grin deepening.
“Eric.” I’d almost forgotten the obnoxious asshole was still here. “Now that we are all acquainted—”
The chains tighten around him, and I’m sure that’s Thane’s doing. He throws a look close to hot daggers as he looms behind me. “I don’t fucking want to hear you speak, filthy mortal,” he growls in a way that turns my panties into an ocean deeper than the Atlantic, tightening the chains again.
Eric’s eyes bulge. I’m almost sure I hear the faint sound of cracking bones. “Not until my lady decides your fate.”
Of course, Eric doesn’t listen. “P-please….wh-whatever you want, it’s yours, Mackenzie,” he chokes out, tears streaming down his cheeks.
That plea ignites something darker in me. I raise the knife and drive it into his lower abdomen.
The blade sinks through skin and muscle with a wet, echoing sound.
Warm blood wells over my knuckles, slick and coppery, already dripping between my fingers.
He gurgles, a strangled, failing scream, as I twist the knife.
I begin tearing through layers of tissue—I feel the tendons snap under the blade’s edge—his body convulses, spasming in futile terror.
I continue to slice through him horizontally, guiding the knife with deliberate brutality until the steel emerges through the other side.
His eyes go wide, rolled back, and blood gushes freely, and warm as it sprays across my forearm.
Eric fights for his life, in the way I fought him that night—incapacitated and losing consciousness by the minute.
Blood bubbles from his lips, falling in thick streaks, mixing with hot tears. “Mackenzie…” he gurgles
“No.” I tsk, stroking his cheek. “Don’t cry.
” His eyes widen as I plunge my hand into the crimson cavity, fingers curling around warm intestines.
They coil like slimy ropes in my grasp as I rip them out of him and wind them around his throat like a grotesque scarf.
“It’s cold outside, baby. I just want to keep you warm. ”
Watching the light leave Eric’s eyes is the sweetest revenge I’ve ever tasted.
I reach back to lace my bloody fingers through Thane’s and feel the earth-shattering satisfaction as Eric’s soul meets its end.
“Seven circles of Tartarus,” Thane groans behind me, his voice thick with heat.
“You’re so fucking perfect like this, goddess. ”
I turn to meet his burning gaze, the knife still in my hand, blood dripping in dark arcs at my feet.
“How did that feel?” Thane asks, his gaze burning into me with an intensity that makes my body hum.
“Like power,” I whisper, licking a drop of blood from my lower lip. The metallic taste floods my mouth, and I savor it like fine wine. “Like justice.”
Thane’s eyes follow the movement, pupils dilating until only a thin ring of icy blue remains. He moves closer, his chest pressing against me as his hands slide down my arms. “And what shall we do now?” he purrs, sending shivers down my spine that have nothing to do with fear.
I tug him to my height and kiss him…hard.
His mouth crushes against mine, tasting of smoke and darkness.
The blood on my lips mingles between us, and he groans into my mouth, hands gripping my waist with bruising force.
I’m drunk on the power coursing through my veins, on the heady sensation of death and vengeance.
He spins me around to look at Eric’s cooling corpse while his expert fingers strip off his leather jacket, unlacing my shirt.
“Look at him, Mackenzie,” he whispers, placing warm kisses along the column of my neck.
“You’ve slain the dragon. Does that, in turn, make you a dragon now?
” I know exactly what he’s getting at. “Have you somehow become a monster? A creature.”
“Thane, I—”
“Shh.” He silences me as the leather hits the ground, cool air making my nipples peak.
He reaches for my thin skirt next, shoving it to the floor and helping me step out of it, before slipping off my thong.
Wrapping it around his wrist, he pulls my hair into a high ponytail and ties it off—his fingers mold a singular braid before coiling it into a bun.
Behind me, material shuffles, and I feel the press of his warm body against mine. His cock, thick and heavy, nestles just under my shoulder blades. His hands slide down my sides, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
“Look at what you’ve done,” he breathes against my ear, his voice a dark caress. “Look at how beautiful destruction can be when wielded by the right hands.”
I stare at Eric’s mutilated body, feeling nothing but satisfaction. The blood pooling beneath him gleams in the dim light, almost black against the floor.
“I don’t feel like a monster,” I whisper, leaning back against Thane’s solid chest. “I feel…cleansed.”
His teeth graze my shoulder, and I shiver as his hands cup my breasts, thumbs brushing over my sensitive nipples. “That’s because you’re not a monster, Mackenzie. You’re divine retribution.”
One of his hands slides lower, over my stomach, tracing the curve of my hip before dipping between my thighs. I gasp as his fingers find me already slick with arousal.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, his voice like velvet against my ear. “Dripping for me after taking a life.”
His fingers circle my clit, and my knees nearly buckle. I reach back to steady myself against him, my hand finding his thigh, digging my nails into his flesh.
“Is that wrong?” I ask, breathless, as he slides one finger inside me, then another.
“Nothing about you could ever be wrong,” Thane says, curling his fingers in a way that makes me cry out. “Death becomes you, Mackenzie.”
His free hand wraps around my throat, applying just enough pressure to make my pulse race. I feel the power of him behind me, around me, inside me—death and desire perfectly intertwined. His mouth finds my neck, sucking hard enough to leave marks, claiming me as his own.
“I want to fuck you, covered in the blood of our enemy,” he growls, his voice thick with desire.
“Our enemy?”
“Your enemies are mine, your pain is mine, your pleasure is mine, you are mine even after your final breath.” He keeps his fingers steady; this alone could make me come. “Let me show you what it means to be free. Would you like that, goddess?"
The depravity of his suggestion should horrify me. Instead, it sends liquid heat pooling between my thighs. “Yes,” I breathe, arching against him. “Fuck me. Cover me in his blood.”
Thane growls, a primal sound that reverberates through his chest and into mine.
He bends me forward slightly, and I grab the armrests of Eric’s chair as he lifts me, positioning himself at my entrance, and my legs curl around him from behind.
With one powerful thrust, he fills me completely, and I cry out, my body stretching to accommodate him.
My hand shifts to Eric’s chest, into a pool of blood as I hold on for dear life—the metallic scent of blood fills my nostrils, mingling with Thane's smoke and brimstone.
“Look at the life you’ve taken,” he commands, his voice rough as he begins to move within me. His hand snakes up my boy to wrap around my throat so I can’t take my eyes off of Eric. “Look at what you’re capable of.”
My eyes stay fixed on Eric’s lifeless form as Thane’s hips snap against my ass, each thrust driving me closer to the edge.
A bloodstained thumb runs along my lower lip, and I suck it into my mouth, tasting copper and salt, my tongue swirling around his thumb as he continues to thrust into me.
His rhythm is punishing, divine—each stroke hitting places inside me that make stars burst just behind my eye.
“That’s it,” he hisses, the hand on my hip gripping hard enough to bruise. “Take what’s yours, goddess. Take your pleasure from the ashes of your vengeance—tell me how it feels to be fucked by Death itself while your enemy’s blood cools on your skin.”
“Like…like nothing I’ve ever known,” I gasp, my words broken by his relentless strokes.
“Fuck me until all I know is our depravity, until all I feel is your pain.” Thane’s fingers move from my neck, tangling in my hair, pulling my head back to expose my throat.
His fangs scrape against the sensitive skin there, not quite breaking the surface but making me acutely aware of how easily he could.
I shudder against him, my body tightening around his length as pleasure coils low in my belly.
“More,” I demand, voice barely recognizable to my own ears. “Harder.”
He complies with a snarl, driving into me with such force that my vision blurs. Each thrust pushes me closer to the edge, my body trembling with the need for release. The violence of his movements matches the violence we’ve wrought together, and something about that symmetry feels right—perfect.
“Look at you,” Thane growls, his breath hot against my ear. “Covered in blood and begging for more. Look into his eyes when you come, become the monster you’ve been running from.”
I gasp, my eyes locking with Eric’s vacant stare as Thane’s words sink into my consciousness. The monster I’ve been running from. The darkness I’ve denied. Yet here, with blood on my skin and Thane filling me so completely I can barely breathe, I feel no shame—only exhilaration.
“That’s it,” Thane praises as I deliberately hold Eric’s dead gaze. “Embrace what you are.”
My orgasm builds like a gathering storm, pressure mounting between my thighs. Thane’s fingers find my clit again when he releases my hair, circling with merciless precision as he drives into me. The sensation is overwhelming, and I feel myself teetering on the precipice of no return.
“Come for me, goddess,” he commands, his voice strained with his own approaching release. “Let death bear witness to your pleasure.”
The tension snaps. I shatter like glass, my body convulsing as waves of pleasure crash through me.
My vision blurs, stars exploding behind my eyelids as I cry out his name, a prayer and a curse mingled into one breathless sound.
My fingers grip Eric’s shirt, desperate not to be swept away by the tides of iniquity.
He follows me over the edge with a guttural groan, his powerful body tensing above mine.
When I can breathe again, I find myself trembling, not entirely from pleasure. The air around us feels charged, as if we’ve torn open some thin veil between worlds. The air around us whistles wildly, though there is no breeze.
“Take me with you, Thane.” I pant as he lifts me, my back flush against his chest, pumping into me slowly. “Take me back to the Underworld with you. I want to be with you, forever and always.”