Chapter 43 BETH
BETH
Tonight, I’ll eat your tears, your screams, and the horror in those pretty eyes.
“Are we there yet?” I asked cautiously, unease settling into my bones.
Zaghan seemed to have suddenly paused in the middle of nowhere. Though his hands were firmly on my shoulders, a reminder that he was still here, fear still held me caged.
I was blindfolded for crying out loud. I felt useless and in danger.
“Yes.” His warm breath tickled my ear and my heart only pounded louder in my chest.
I really didn’t understand what sort of ridiculous wedding night I was having.
All I wanted to do after this unimaginable ordeal was to crawl into a hole and ruminate over my choices.
Why was he dragging me into the cold night, blindfolded, and promising me a great deal of fun?
What was fun about being stuck in my school uniform since morning and about to walk around the dead of the night with cold nipping at my skin?
The scent of damp air and rotten leaves curled in the air, intense enough to taste. What was happening?
“Can I take off my blindfold?” My hand skimmed over the black silk material held over my face.
“Not yet.” A low hum rumbled in his chest as he gently yanked my hand away, pressing it against my side.
He turned me around, his hands still clasped around my shoulders until I was facing him…
I assumed. I shivered gently when his cold fingers brushed against my chin, stroking it with a ghostly pressure.
“Beth.” His breath tickled my face.
“Yes?” My voice was so low I barely heard it myself.
“We’re going have a little fun, alright?”
You have said it a hundred times already. The thought ran through my mind. I was really finding it hard to see the fun in this madness.
I nodded anyway, but what I actually wanted to do was shake my head, open my mouth and protest against this silly, unnecessary game.
“You are going to count to ten, okay?” The pad of his thumb brushed over my lower lip, making it quiver at his electric touch. “On ten, you can take off the blindfolds.”
So we are playing hide and seek? Are you kidding me?
“Okay,” I mumbled, shivering when a cold wind swept across my body, and I could feel the little bumps appearing on my arm. He should have at least warned me to wear a sweater if he was taking me this far and to a place this cold.
“Remember, take off the blindfold on ten.” His voice intermingled with the cold wind. My throat dried up, and my heart began to pound, a weight resting on my chest.
I had played hide and seek before, a really long time ago, with dad. Then dad went to prison and I played it by myself. Friends were really hard to come by if the town had labelled you as the devil’s spawn.
The point was, I wasn’t unfamiliar with the game. It was a normal, harmless game. But this was Zaghan. And nothing about him or his ways were normal. For all we knew, this could turn really bloody.
His fingers skimmed over my wrist, a feather light touch anchoring me in place.
Maybe he wasn’t going to hurt me. At least not today, not now.
He wanted something from me, and that, I had realised.
He was going to keep me around a little longer until he got what he wanted.
So even when his steps receded and fear curled tight in my ribs like a wicked twine, I knew that he wasn’t going to hurt me.
So I counted…
“One.”
Something shifted in the air, a flash of brightness like lightning augmenting the moody cloud.
My hands lifted, the instinct to protect myself causing me to wrap them tightly around my body.
“Two.”
A breath of wind combed fingers through my hair, the harsh and repugnant scent of damp earth and decay causing my nose to crinkle.
“Three.”
I heard a crunch of gravel and distant retreating footsteps.
“Four.”
Something wasn’t right. Something was happening. There was a strange presence.
“Five.”
My breath quickened, my body trembling.
“Six.”
There was silence, the type that felt alive, pressing against my chest.
“Seven.”
Graveyard?
‘This bloody wanker took me to a fucking graveyard!’ The thought echoed in my ears.
“Eight.”
Cold fingers of dread skimmed my spine, whisking hair from my face and brushing against my cheekbone.
“Nine.”
My breath turned shallow as sweat coated my skin, my legs trembling.
“Ten.”
I ripped off the blindfold.
The darkness before me was vast, swallowing everything in its grasp as the graveyard stretched around me, quiet and still, a sea of headstones jutting out of the damp earth like jagged teeth.
Zaghan was nowhere to be found.
I was alone, at a graveyard, surrounded by ghosts.
Ghost. There were ghosts here.
A howl ripped from my throat, loud, raw, and shattering. My breath shuddered out of my lungs, a heavy weight on my chest as I spun, frantic, my pulse hammering against my ribs.
Then I heard it, a crunch of gravel beneath a movement. I gasped, spinning toward the direction the sound came from. And I saw it, a shadow flickering behind a gravestone, so fleeting I could have mistaken it for the trick of the light flashing across the sky. But it was there, I could feel it.
There was a single beat of silence, adrenaline brewing in my blood as my eyes remained pinned on the gravestone, waiting for the shadow.
Another beat.
Another.
Then he stepped out. And my heart dropped.
It was a…ghost. Well, a man with a grotesque ghostly face, hollow-eyed, bone-white in the dim glow of the moonlight.
He tilted his head to the side, studying me, waiting for me to make the next move.
The first drop of rain landed on my left cheek.
Then he lunged at me.
I ran.
Then another drop of rain.
I heard him behind me, the loud staccato of heavy boots against gravel and damp soil.
Then a thousand drops of rain at a time.
My shoes skidded over scattered graves, damp soil, broken branches, adrenaline charging in my veins, my heart pounding in my chest as I ran.
The sky ripped open in anger, unleashing a downpour so violent, so raging, it drowned the world in sounds. The rain hammered against stone, against earth, and my trembling skin. The scent of wet soil and rot thickened, suffocating.
And the harder I ran, the closer he seemed to get. I would take a step, and he would take a thousand leaps right after me.
The harder the rain poured, the slicker the earth beneath my feet, and the more unsteady my ground as I continued to lose my balance and stumble, grabbing onto cracked headstones to hold myself up before I continued again.
Water pooled in the erosion between graves, scooping into my shoes, soaking my white socks that have now taken a dirty shade of brown.
My uniform clung to my body, nearly becoming one with my skin. Water gathered in my lids, some escaping into my mouth as I panted.
I could barely see, barely breathe as wind howled through the graveyard, wailing through jagged iron gates, plastering my fiery hair on my face.
But I couldn’t stop. Not even for a minute. He was behind me. He was so close I could feel his breath on the nape of my neck. I could feel the bony, cold fingers brushing against my wrist.
But I continued to run even when my lungs began to constrict and my chest burned. I ran even when the rain stung my eyes and the sharp water choked me. I ran harder, even when the world became a blur of shadows and headstones.
Then all of a sudden, I could no longer run as my limbs started to go limp. I veered around a tomb that looked newer than most, nameless, except the date of the person’s death. I squatted, my body pressing against the cold concrete, my breath ragged, heart pounding, calves aching.
It seemed I had lost him. No, I prayed I had lost him, blended with the shadow, became one with the night.
For a minute or more, I rested my head against the stone, my eyes closed as I tried to catch my breath. Then suddenly, I sensed it, a shadow hovering over me, a barely audible crunch of boot against sodden soil, and a finger brushing my wrist.
A scream tore out of my throat as the cold fingers tightened around my wrist, yanking me to my feet.
“Please, please, please.” Eyes still sealed shut, I refused to see the dead holding onto me, pressing me against a wet and cold body, clasping a hand over my mouth to silence me.
Then I felt it, cold lips brushing against the lobe of my ear. “Now that was a good run, wasn’t it?”
The voice was distorted over the heavy downpour, though eerily familiar, sending shivers of fear down my spine.
“Open your eyes,” the ghost urged, cold fingers brushing against my chin as he forced my eyes to meet his. “Look at me.”
I shook my head, my body trembling, my heart hammering against my chest.
“I said open your eyes,” he growled, his fingers digging into my chin.
I whimpered, slowly cracking my eyes open. A loud gasp tore from my throat, a gentle stagger backward but he yanked me back until my body was pressing impossibly against the lean muscles.
The mask was still on his face and closer, it looked more grotesque. My heart pounded, blood rushing in my ears.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” he taunted, head tilting as if listening more closely. “I can taste your fear.”
Rain trickled down my temples, cold as ice, mixing with the sweat beading at my nape. My lashes were heavy, soaked, but I forced my eyes to stay open, refusing to blink.
“Little witch.”
A breath shuddered out of me at the name, the ridiculous, endearing thing he had often called me.
“Tonight, I’ll eat all your tears, all your screams, and the horror in those pretty eyes.”
His knuckles brushed my cheek, ice-cold, sending a tremor through me. The other hand trailed lower, over soaked fabric and trembling flesh, until it cupped my ass.
The mixture of adrenaline and desire turned electric inside me, sizzling beneath my skin as rain beat down in relentless torrents.
A gasp tore from my throat when he flipped me, forcing me down onto my knees over the nameless, barely standing gravestone. The stone dug into my palms as I caught myself, wet soil yielding beneath my fingers.
A tug, firm but measured, guided me forward, my hands sinking into the earth while my hips were raised.
The air shifted behind me, thick with heat and something more dangerous.
I barely breathed as he kneeled, his fingers catching the hem of my skirt, rolling it up my waist in one slow, deliberate motion.
A gust of cold air kissed my exposed skin before my soaked panties were yanked down, the elastic biting at my thighs.
“Don’t make a sound, Mrs. Raskov.” His body pressed flush against mine, his lips at my ear, his voice a ghostly rasp. “They like it quiet around here.”
A fist tangled in my hair, jerking my head back as a sharp whimper caught in my throat.
The night felt alive around us, the trees whispering, the rain murmuring, the graves holding their breath.
Then I felt it; his cock gliding over me, teasing, brushing against my heat before dragging lower.
A violent shiver wracked through my arms as he pushed inside, stretching me in one hard thrust, knocking a moan loose from my lips.
“Oh, my god.”
My fingers clawed at the dirt as he pulled out and slammed back into me, each thrust harder, deeper, more punishing.
The storm inside me built; an intoxicating mixture of fear, arousal, and the forbidden.
Tears clung to my lashes, or maybe it was the rain, maybe it was everything all at once; the weight of the night, the grave beneath me, the ghostly figure behind me claiming me like I belonged to him.
I tightened around him, my body betraying every ounce of sense I once had, every warning I should have heeded.
His voice was a low snarl at my ear, dragging me deeper into the abyss.
“Next time a ghost comes out of the shadows to scare you…” He thrust into me harder, punctuating each word, each sinful promise.
“Remember how you were fucked by one. And remember how you came apart, dripping all over your mother’s grave. ”
What?
My what?
“Yes, Beth Raskov,” he rasped, his voice wrapped in smoke as he slammed into me, his nails digging into my hip. “You’re currently being fucked like a slut on the grave of your dear mother.”
He thrust harder, his breath thick with cruelty, searing the shell of my ears. My heart raced, an itch pressing into my eyes.
“She screamed, you know,” he murmured, voice dripping with something reverent.
“Elodie was her name, right?” he chuckled, darkly, the sound vibrating against me as my pussy clenched around his length.
“Yeah, I made sure she did. She had tested my patience for a long time, you see. So that night, I wasn’t having it. ”
A shiver raced my spine, but it wasn’t fear that tightened around my ribs. It wasn’t revulsion that sent a pulse of heat between my thighs.
“She begged.” He dragged his teeth over the side of my neck, the motion a mockery of tenderness. “Called for you at one point, staring at your door, hoping you would jump in to save her.”
A broken moan stumbled from my lips, my nail digging deeper into the damp soil as pleasure sank its teeth into me.
His hips rolled, measured and punishing, his nails burrowing deep enough into my skin to bruise.
“She sounded like a wounded animal when I took my dagger to her fingers, one by one.” He pulled out, making me whimper at the loss, then he pounded into me again, drawing a loud moan from my throat. “You should have seen the way she gurgled when the last one dropped–”
I clenched, a sharp gasp escaping my lips. The shame, the filth, the sheer obscenity of it all swallowed me whole.
He chuckled darkly. “You like that, don’t you?” He licked the spot below my ear, savoring the tremor in my muscles. “Is this the darkness I have been waiting for?”
Another brutal thrust, another wave of pleasure crashing against the horror of his words. The fear still lingered, a whisper at the edges, but it was drowned by something deeper. Something I couldn’t name.
Something he was pulling from me, one filthy, aching stroke at a time.