15. There’s No Home For You Here #2
She cries, bringing her fist to her heart and holding it there. “Y-you said I-I could be useful.”
I pull the little knife back, humming while deep in thought. “You’re right!” I exclaim. “Would be a pity to waste such a perfect setting.” I look at Demetri, the smirk on his face telling me he’s already on the same wavelength. “You can marry us!”
I give her the space to stand, gesturing to the podium on the altar.
Helana shakes her head. “I-I don’t know how. I’m not ordained.”
“And we’re not alive—at least, not legally—so I don’t think the details matter.” I point with the scalpel. “Last chance.”
She hesitates, not wanting to turn her back to me, so when she does, I stick my foot out and cause her to her trip. Helana looks back, a look of hurt on her face, the kind that isn’t physical but is supposed to make me feel something.
There’s nothing, though, just a black heart inside my ribcage that beats only for my beloved.
“Quickly,” Demetri orders her.
She stutters, a mishmash of nonsensical words like we are gathered here today to marry these two and then messing up completely when she gets to the part about in sickness and in health. I throw my head back in laughter.
“In sickness, in health, in murder, in mayhem,” I add on.
Demetri squeezes my hand in his, pulling me tighter to his side.
Helana keeps eyeing the exit like she’s going to try to make a break for it.
“I’ll gouge your fucking eyes out if you leave before we say ‘I do.’” She focuses again with the new threat, nodding and shaking all at once from nerves.
She clears her throat. “Do you take Camila…”
“Machado,” I fill in the blanks for her.
“Demetri, do you take Camila Machado—”
“I do,” he interrupts. “I take her any way she’ll have me until she no longer wants me.”
I melt into him. “Aww, you’re so fucking romantic.”
“Then I now pronounce you…” she looks at the door again, “husband and wife. You may—”
I stick my arm out, slicing the front of her throat with the blade.
Helana reaches for her neck, but I lower her hands, kneeling with her while she goes down.
“Shh, shh, it’s alright now.” She keeps trying to hold her throat to slow the bleeding, her face full of fright and despair.
“It’s nothing you did. It wasn’t your foundation, and you certainly didn’t deserve this. ”
There’s an attempt to speak, but only blood drips from her lips.
She chokes on it, the confusion and sadness both so vivid in her expression.
I press my fingers to her lips to stop her, stroking her hair and slapping her hands out of the way again when she tries to prolong her death like she can stop the flow.
“You’re dying because they let a bad woman into a place with vulnerable people. You’re dying because someone thought they could try to fix what’s already rotten inside me. You’re dying because I told your silly little ass to stay in the room and,” I boop her nose, “you didn’t listen.”
At this point, I’m holding her upright, keeping her body from crashing to the floor as she bleeds out completely. It’s cathartic, in a way. They say insanity is the act of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, but from where I am, it’s fucking healing.
When the light goes out of her eyes, I turn to my man, using him to pull myself up to stand. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you didn’t want her touching you.”
“I’d want it if it’s what you wanted,” he corrects me, but I can see it’s not the full truth.
I shake my head. “Don’t do that. We’ve gone too far to lie to each other about things that don’t matter. I don’t want you to become anything you’re not. You are my everything, and you always will be. If the moments in between aren’t fun for you, then I don’t want them either.”
Demetri smiles behind his mask, and this time, it’s genuine and true.
“Let’s go home, Darkling. I want to get out of here before this place is flooded with cops. I don’t want to deal with the oinkers again.” His disdain for authority is loud and clear, though I feel I must have missed something that escalated it in the last few days.
“Did you get the doctor’s cap thing?” I ask, remembering I need my crown souvenir.
He tosses my bag over his shoulder, patting it gently with his bad arm.
I hum in approval. “Good boy.”
Demetri growls, pushing me against the altar, pressing his knee between my legs and hitting the spot that blows sparks inside me. “Say that again.” It sounds like a threat, but from the look on his face, it’s doing something.
“Good boy,” I whisper into his ear.
He pulls me into him, his cock thick and hard and pushing against my belly. “Nurse,” he grunts, “you’re going to get us in trouble…again.”
My smile is devilish, but his warning is just fuel for my insatiable need for him. I’ve missed his touch, his warmth, his sharp edges that only soften for me. And fuck, if I haven’t missed that massive shlong of his tearing me apart from the inside.
“Please, don’t act like you can’t get us out of here, Dr. Harkins. It’s embarrassing when you pretend like you aren’t as powerful as we both know you are.”
His erection grows almost twice in size just from the words. He speaks next through gritted clenched teeth, like he’s fighting to maintain control. “You’re playing with fire, Darkling. Get this mask off me so I can finally kiss you properly.”
He reaches into his pocket, but I laugh, grabbing his hand and doing the same with the other.
“I don’t know. I kinda like you this way, Dr. Bitey.
” I lick my lower lip suggestively, taking the first strap from his straitjacket sleeve and sliding it through one of the securing loops. “Completely at my mercy.”
He’s losing his resolve, forehead coming down to press against mine. “I’ve always been at your mercy. It’s always been you who holds my leash.”
Demetri is right; it’s why he doesn’t fight it or protest when I continue to work the straps of the straitjacket.
It’s why he trusts me when I bring one arm in front of the other, careful with how I position him so there isn’t too much pressure against his stitches.
I crane my neck to look up at him; he’s got that mesmerizing stare, like he can see straight into my soul, and he loves every bit of it.
Like he could devour me whole.
I clench my thighs, sliding my finger into one of the metal rings on his straitjacket and using it as a lead to pull him. He makes it easy for me, letting me guide him down to the altar floor where I sit over his lap.
I whisper into his ear, using my most sultry voice, “You’re such a good boy, Dr. Bitey.”
The praise drives him insane, and I can’t stop doing it.
I push at his chest to lay him down, positioning myself over his hardened cock, my pants still on but nothing else between us.
He groans, closing his eyes when I grind back and forth on his erection.
“Uh-uh.” I bring my hand to his throat and give a gentle squeeze.
“I need you to look at me.” I wet my bottom lip, dehydrated at just the thought of how badly I need to be quenched by him.
“The same way you were looking at me while I was lying on that cold table.” I sway my hips, and he moans louder.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “I thought you were dead.”
I hum amusement, grazing my thumbnail over his throat. “And you still fucked me.”
I feel his Adam’s apple bob with his swallow, as if it’s apprehension or maybe uncertainty in his confession and my acknowledgement. “I’d fuck your corpse too, beloved. I’d wait at the River Styx to usher you to Hell if it was the only way to catch your final breath in my mouth.”