Chapter 33
SAGE
Troy moves, predator fast, stalking around the chair.
The hideous music fades.
And all I hear is my pulse thundering as he closes the distance between us.
I shuffle back, but not fast enough. His hand fists in my coat belt, dragging me to my feet like I weigh nothing.
My back slams against the wall, and suddenly he’s all around me—his body caging mine, a hand locked around my throat.
“Who are you and why were you following me?”
My heart beats so fast against my ribs, sucking the air and words from my lungs.
“Tell me.” His red eyes rake over me as he leans over, and I catch his familiar, expensive cologne that he was wearing at dinner, beneath the smell of blood and death. But the Troy at the hotel, and this demon, now, won’t connect in my head.
“You have three seconds to tell me who you are and why you’re sneaking around, or I’ll carve the damn truth from your mouth.”
As his grip tightens, fingers curling around my neck in a way that makes breathing too hard, a razor appears at my throat, cold steel cutting in. He presses it against my racing pulse.
He doesn’t recognize me through the disguise, in the dark.
“It’s me, Sage!”
He hesitates, considering. Then reaches up and pulls the cap off my head so that my hair tumbles free.
“Sage?” He says my name like he’s tasting it. “Why the fuck are you here?”
As he pulls me forward, spinning me until my back hits his chest, I see us both in the dark mirror. His arm bands across my collarbone, razor still at my neck.
“Did you come to enjoy the show?” His breath is hot against the shell of my ear, and the bloody mask presses to my cheek, leaving sticky warmth on my skin. “Or did you come here planning to turn me in, little finch?”
I struggle against him. “No, let me go!”
He drags me toward the barber chair and hauls me into it. I fight him, but he’s stronger. Somehow, I lose the coat, and then his hands are everywhere, gripping my waist, pinning my wrists, binding them to the armrests with wire that bites.
I aim a kick at his ribs.
“Stop, fuck—”
He catches my ankle, his hold on me bruising as he forces my leg down to the footrest and secures it there, and then does the same to the other one, so my legs are spread apart. When I’m finally bound, chest heaving, unable to escape, he steps back to admire his work.
“I knew someone was following me. I should have known it was you.” His voice through the modulator is grating, sending shivers down my spine. “ Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? You’re not exactly subtle, sweetheart.”
The demon mask, the weapon catching the light, his muscled bare chest splattered with blood; he looks like he crawled out of a nightmare.
He doesn’t even sound like my Troy. Even more so when he presses a button and the chair tips back with a mechanical whir, and he looms over me, the edge of the blade pressed to the vulnerable column of my throat.
I should be terrified. And I am.
But this is Troy.
The same man who has tasted me in every way possible, who makes my heart skip beats, and my body crave to be used.
Despite the terror flooding my veins as he drags the razor over my skin in a slow, deliberate caress, one that makes breathing impossible, a dark heat coils low in my stomach, spilling a shameful sound from my lips.
“Why did you follow me?”
“I-I don’t know.” And that’s the truth.
“Did your father send you?”
“N-no.” I force the word past my racing heart. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“So you came here all alone?”
“Troy, please—” I hate how I sound, breathless, trembling as the razor’s edge kisses my collarbone and then between my breasts.
He makes me look at him; his thumb digs in my jaw, smearing something wet and warm (blood?) across my lip. “Why, little finch?”
I can’t answer. How do I explain what drew me here? It sounds insane, whichever way I say it.
“Maybe you’re not afraid enough.” Slowly, torturously, he moves the razor down my dress, slicing the material apart. Heat smolders between my thighs as he skims the blade lightly over my shivering body, like he knows exactly how it affects me.
“Wait.” I pull against the bonds, but it’s no use.
“Oh, I’m not waiting.”
“W-why did you kill Darrow?”
“You’re asking this now?”
I am. Even though there’s no love lost between Darrow and me. In fact, I disliked him immensely. It felt as though his eyes were always on me when I wasn’t looking, making me uncomfortable. And I’ve heard the rumours, nasty ones, about him. I’d be a fool not to believe them. He deserved to die.
But.
“Please, I have to know.” He stops, and it’s torturous; every nerve is on fire, needing more, but I force myself to say it. “Why did you do it?”
“You wanted the person who hurt your sister dead, didn’t you?”
“Darrow hurt Nell?” How? When?
Pain flickers across his face. “He admitted it.”
“But you were—” I stop, catching myself. That bit of information is useless now.
“I was what?”
“You were at the factory with my father when she disappeared.”
His eyes, even behind the red contacts, seem to darken. “I was looking for her.”
The jealousy that rips through me is irrational and completely inappropriate given that Nell is dead, there’s literally a corpse ten feet away, and I’m bound to a barber’s chair with garotte wire. Still, I feel it anyway, sharp and undeniable.
“You didn’t find her?”
“No, I assumed she decided to go it alone, but then you showed up and told me she was dead. I didn’t know what to believe. I had a friend I trust do some digging.”
“Mr. Black?”
“Dante found out Darrow was at Grayfleet the day she vanished.”
“So it was Darrow who killed her?” Tears prick under my eyelids.
But the relief and closure I’ve been needing for so long doesn’t seem to materialise.
Instead, I have to bite down on my lip to stop myself from feeling all the dark things inside me right now, wanting out. “And what about you and…Nell?”
Something flickers in his ruby eyes. “You really want to know?”
“Please, I have to.”
“Every Tuesday night, we’d meet for months. But then one day she stopped coming. I went to all our usual meeting places, hoping—” He cuts himself off. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Every Tuesday night.
Troy and Nell…every Tuesday?
“It matters.” Why am I pushing this? Why do I need to know? Is it to punish myself? “Did you…love her?”
“Sage.”
“Did you?” My voice feels raw, broken.
He stares at me for a long moment. “I admired her. She was fearless, willing to risk everything for what she believed was right. She was…”
“Everything I’m not.” The ugly inside of me comes out. I don’t care if it hurts.
“That’s not what I—“ He exhales sharply. “You’re different. You’re...”
“Obedient?”
“Mine.” His fingers clamp down on my jaw as he leans in, lifting his mask partly. “Now stop asking stupid fucking questions.”
His lips crash against me.
Breath warm and laced with whiskey, his scent is darkness and sin.
But as soon as he penetrates my mouth, I dart my tongue out and taste copper.
Then, I’m kissing him back with equal desperate hunger.
He grips the rest of my cocktail dress, his fist bunching the delicate fabric, and then he rips it right down the middle.
He pulls back to stare at me. “I’ve wanted to rip that dress off you all night.”
I shiver in response, unable to stop him when he slides a hand between my legs, his thick fingers teasing my slit. Not that I’d ever want to, not when soft, eager moans fall from me as he swirls me into submission.
“Fuck, you’re soaking wet,” he whispers.
The demon mask has slipped back in place, and it’s as though I’m being groped by a hellish monster in the dark.
I can feel myself quivering from top to toe as he drags his digits through my drenched folds.
The smell of old leather, mingling with the coppery stench of blood, makes me want things I shouldn’t ever want.
The demon cocks his head. “This turns you on, doesn’t it?”
“Y-yes,” I admit, looking up at the mask under my lashes. I feel like I’m about to get devoured alive by a creature from Hell, and some dark part of me, that comes alive, twisted and hideous in mirrors and dreams, can’t wait. “Please make me come, I need it.”
“You need it, do you?” Troy the demon chuckles.
“I need you.”
He groans. “Fuck, you kill me, you know that?” Then he pushes his fingers inside me, making me squirm in the chair. “Is this what you want?”
I nod my head. “Yes, so much.”
“Good girl. Now let me show you what happens when you chase monsters.”
Slowly, he brings the blade to my bra, slicing off the straps, and then snakes the cold metal down to my lacy pants. Snick-snick. He cuts them off, exposing me to the cool air, and drags his gaze over me like he owns every inch.
“Fuck you’re beautiful. I’m going to enjoy making you scream my name, little finch.”
Cupping my heat, he thrusts into me, and I strain against the wire holding me down.
More so when he pinches my nipples, hard, all the while pumping me with his curved fingers.
Then he teases my slit again, but this time with the razor handle, twisting my nipples with his cruel fingers.
All I can do is clench and pant in the chair.
Finally, he slides the handle into me, all the way, and then slowly fucks me with it, his thumb stroking small circles against the sensitive spot of my clit.
The deeper he pushes, the more I moan and arch my back.
He brings me right to the precipice, my entire body pulsing for release… .and then he stops.
I’m panting, skin on fire, core drenched. Every time he stops, I want to scream.
Everything is crashing down around me: my desire, my world, everything.
I’m so close.