Ink Bleed (Divine Villains #1)

PROLOGUE

Poppy

“Karma is a cold-hearted bitch, Doc,” I say as I flick the rainbow butterfly knife inches from Sebastian’s nose. “Isn’t she?”

His curses can’t quite make it past the wad of black lace panties stuffed in his throat. But I can imagine their flavor—the curses, not the panties—to be dark, bitter. I’m betting he’s a café noir kind of man.

My lip curls in disgust. Never, ever trust someone who takes their coffee black.

“Oh, hush.” I slide the spray-painted blade down his blood-stained shirt, hooking it into the G of his Gucci belt. “There’s no need to shout, Doc. I hear you, loud and clear. But no means yes in your book, right? Well, here’s a taste of your own diction.”

My wrist flicks, slicing both the belt and the crotch of his tweed trousers. Out springs his flimsy cock, uncut and half-hard.

Gag.

The free-balling bastard manages to spit out the panties, barking, “Fuck you!”

“Oh, I kindly thank you for the offer.” The tip of my blade flirts with Sebastian’s navel. He stills as if he’s looking straight into Medusa’s stony gaze. “Sadly, you’re not my type. Stalkers are romanticized and all. But, in reality, it's actually a sign of psychosis.”

A flash of rainbow slices through skin and sinew. Scarlet spurts from Sebastian’s femoral artery in his left thigh. Splashes across my gleeful smile. Paints my leather pants and biker jacket with death’s favorite color.

He blinks.

And then he screams.

A bit delayed, but understandable. He was expecting me to cut off his dick.

I have something much more appetizing planned.

I always follow in Papa’s carefully placed footsteps: maim my prey, let them suffer long enough to feel the grim reaper’s breath on their necks.

To feel the same fear of inevitability their own victims felt.

People like Sebastian don’t deserve swift ends.

Neither do they deserve the solace of a crawling stop.

“Kill them too quickly, Poppyseed, they’ll have no time to fear death,” Papa warned me when I was old enough to wield a knife, using my childhood nickname while teaching his nine-year-old daughter a lesson on torture.

“Kill them too slowly, they’ll beg for death’s embrace.

Kill them somewhere in between, dearest daughter.

Give them a reason to shit themselves in terror before their undignified ends. ”

Sebastian is nearly there. He just needs a little…nudge.

“Go fuck yourself, you psychotic bitch!”

“I kind of already did that today, sooo joke’s on you.”

I open up his other thigh from hip to kneecap in a crimson arc.

“So pretty,” I croon over his deafening howls. “Red is definitely your color, Doc.”

Sebastian’s screams reach a fever pitch. No one can hear him but me. The fool chose to build his house in the forest outside the city, far away from civilization. Probably so no one would hear his victims scream for help that never came.

Such kismet, isn’t it? Poor bastard probably didn’t ever stop to think about if he’d be the one screaming.

Idly adjusting the skull mask over my face, I twirl a strand of pastel-pink hair around my forefinger.

The tread of my combat boots sticks to the bloody planks as I pace back and forth across the floor of his living room.

It’s a habit I’ve had since I was little, to keep my mind grounded during chaos.

It stems from the days Papa would come home soaked in death, murder’s adrenaline gleaming in his arctic blue eyes.

Mama would lock me in my room with my books.

At the time, I didn’t know why. It took me years and miles of wearing down the floorboards to understand what he does for a living, why he’s always caked in blood after particularly long days at work.

My father is the king of Salem’s underworld, a Nosferatu of corruption.

And I’m the apple sulking in the shade of his dark and twisted tree.

“Go to hell, you fucking cunt!”

Slowly, I turn toward Sebastian’s lightless glare. “You first.”

His attention slips over my shoulder. He immediately pisses himself.

“Doc”—I grin as an enormous black panther materializes from the shadows, prowling to my side—“I’d like you to meet Jezebel. Jezebel, meet Dr. Sebastian Bonaparte, a board certified piece of shit that does vile, unspeakable things to his students and keeps getting away with it. Well, until now.”

I offer my bloody fingers to the big black cat. She licks them clean and I giggle, patting her pumpkin-sized head.

“Jezebel is a retired circus rescue. They were going to euthanize her when she refused to jump through flaming hoops after a bad stunt nearly burned her alive.” I shake my head, throat scorching with a sudden, simmering wrath. “Since when is trauma punishable by death?”

Undying love radiates from her azure eyes to mine. Already, I feel my fury fading, leaving behind a cold, calculating calm.

“For years, she’s been my emotional support animal. But for you?” I jab my knife at Sebastian and wink. “This sweet girl will be your personal guide to Lucifer’s suite.”

My fingers snap and Jezebel slinks forward.

Sebastian shrieks, scraping my senses. I shove the panties back into his throat to stifle them. He kicks his legs as if flailing like a fish out of water will save him.

It won’t.

“I’d say strap in, but I think we already took care of that part,” I muse as he screams and sobs in the face of death. “So, I guess all that’s left is to just”—I grin, rubbing two sticky-red fingers together—“enjoy the ride.”

The viridian veins in his neck and cock bulge in tandem, threatening to burst like a pinata. I’m tempted to see if he’ll spontaneously combust into a confetti cloud, but it’s late and I’m still tired from the last kill. Not to mention, I have a café to open in—I check my phone—two very short hours.

Snap!

Jezebel pounces with all one-hundred-and-fifty-one pounds of feline grace. Her fangs tear into Sebastian’s favorite bits, staining her black muzzle red.

I wipe a tear from the corner of my lashes. I taught her that trick myself.

Of course, with those major arteries sliced, Sebastian will bleed out to a lifeless husk before he can watch Jezebel chew on his ballsack. What a shame.

“Have a safe trip south!” I wave with jubilance, flicking the butterfly wings shut around the blade and tasting iron on my lips. “Give the big man downstairs a kiss for me, would you? I’m a huge fan of bad boys with bat wings.”

His delightfully fear-stricken gaze rips from the panther tearing out his manhood. He has the audacity to look at me like I’m the villain.

The funny thing is: he’s not wrong.

Sebastian’s eyes widen as I lift my fingers and snap!

Jezebel lunges for his jugular, wrenching his esophagus free. He dies instantly, and so does my smile.

Satisfaction should be coursing through my veins. Except, it’s not. No matter how many of these predators die, there will always be more prowling in the dark.

“Unfortunately, Doc”—I sigh as I toe his piss-ridden blood into my personal trademark on the floor—“I’m no exception.”