Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
DAMIEN
M y lungs screamed, my muscles seized, and my eyes squeezed shut as a cyclone of glowing blue bubbles poked and stabbed at me with the force of a thousand accusing fingertips. But the physical pain, the powerlessness, the overwhelming need to breathe—it all faded away as a new attack began.
From within.
The sensation was just like the vision I’d had on the ship. That feeling of coming up for air, of breaking through the surface of a dark, murky lake to find myself somewhere I’d never been with a girl I’d never met. Only this time, the redhead wasn’t perched in a tree or running through a graveyard or being raped in a kitchen. This time, she was curled up in my lap.
This time, she was mine.
And she was dying.
I knew it before the room finished coming into focus. I could feel it in my chest, in the heart that was breaking just beneath her cheek. It was a crushing, piercing, panicked kind of pain, like the slow closing of an iron maiden’s door. I wanted to run, to claw my way out of that vision and back into the lake. I would gladly drown rather than feel that eviscerating pain for another second, but my movements were beyond my control.
I’d been reduced to a helpless bystander within my own body—forced to watch, but powerless to act.
My eyes traveled down the length of the girl’s long copper hair and found the bottom of her thick, wavy strands stained red. An unfastened belt snaked between her legs and draped over her upper thigh, but I could hardly see it through all the blood. I’d killed more men than I could count, but I’d never seen that much blood in my life. It gushed from her open wound in spurts, timed with the rhythm of her fading heartbeat.
Darby.
I saw her as a child, bright eyes gleaming as she gazed at me with wonder—the feral boy who didn’t speak was never a monster to her, never Satan’s son . I saw her as an adolescent, felt her lips on mine, and heard a voice in my head tell me that our love was true. Then, I saw her as a woman, funeral dress hiked up to her hips as she sprinted barefoot into the woods to find me.
And she did. She always knew where to find me.
But now, my freckle-faced girl, my sunshine in the dark, my only fucking reason for living … was leaving me.
And it was all my fault.
I couldn’t outrun what I was. What I’d done. I’d dragged an angel into hell because I couldn’t live without her, and now, God had come to take her back.
Searing hot tears blurred my vision as I watched the movement behind her eyelids go still, felt her final breaths warm my lips. I clutched her sagging body to my chest as the soul inside of it slipped away. And as it did, my pain went with it.
Because I had made up my mind.
If God wanted to take my girl, he was going to have to go through me.
“I’m comin’ with ya, angel. Ya understand? I’m not lettin’ you go. I’ll never fuckin’ let go.”
I wasn’t in control of my words—I was merely listening to them being spoken—but I agreed with every fucking one of them. The pain was unbearable. I couldn’t live without her. I wouldn’t even try.
Kissing the freckles on her cold left hand—the ones that matched my own—I whispered the blessing I’d heard the day they appeared. According to legend, it meant that she and I had been bonded for eternity. I hoped that was true, but it didn’t fucking matter.
Darby had been my eternity since the moment we’d met.
As I slid the knife from my boot, my awareness shifted to something behind me. We weren’t alone.
Darby’s killer was in the room.
Turning toward him as I lifted the blade into the air, my final breath came rushing in on a startled gasp. Because when I plunged that knife into my own bleeding heart, I was staring into the eyes of a man who’d been born without one.
My own fucking father.
Alexi Abramov.
The woodshop began to flicker and wave as that life slipped away, and the watery hell I’d been submerged in came seeping back into my consciousness.
Falling to the sawdust-covered floor, I watched in horror as Darby’s body rolled out of my limp arms. As she landed on her side and stared back at me with vacant green eyes.
As the room dissolved around us, Darby’s features began to change as well—the angle of her jaw, the slope of her nose, the shape of her lips, and the placement of her freckles. Her copper hair darkened to auburn, and when my own eyes lost focus and went still—like hers, like my ma’s—the last image they saw was a collection of Russian patches blanketing her cold, dead heart.
Clo.
A feral growl clawed its way out of my throat as a blinding burst of rage surged through my bloodstream. Lunging for her, I grabbed the lapels of my blazer and ripped the jacket off over her shoulders. It was like he’d marked her with those patches, marked every woman I’d ever loved, doomed me to watch them all die at his command.
But as I shoved the jacket down Clover’s arms, my lungs burning and soul on fire, I realized that she wasn’t lying down anymore, and she wasn’t dead. Not yet. Her smiling face was bathed in blue light, hair swirling around her anchored body as I stripped the blazer off of it and shoved it into the darkness of the lake.
I expected it to disappear into the abyss, but as I reached for my girl’s hand and fought again to push off from the gold- and silver-littered ground, the blue glow darted away from us, diving into the jacket and radiating out through every opening and bullet hole. It was like watching a balloon being inflated. The blazer expanded and smoothed. The arms straightened and bent at the elbows. Beams of light streaked from the cuffs like fingers, fastening each shiny brass button until the fitting was complete. And the moment it was, the moment that shapeless creature stood at attention, proud in its bloodied, bullet-riddled finery, the light went out, the weight was lifted, and I bolted for the surface with my girl in my arms.
I couldn’t get out of that water fast enough. As soon as I found my footing, I stood, chest deep in the lake, and clung to Clover’s gasping body as I carried her the rest of the way out. The sound of her breathing was almost as beautiful as the sight of her face when I finally dropped to my knees on the bank and drank her in. Where I’d seen death and emptiness only seconds before, Clo’s smiling eyes were now brimming with life, overflowing with it. Tears of joy sparkled in the corners as she reached up and cupped my tortured face.
Closing my eyes and leaning into her touch, I tried to convince myself that this was real. That the twisted nightmare I’d just crawled out of was nothing more than a near-death experience—some sick subconscious hallucination triggered by oxygen deprivation. But when Clo pressed her still-grinning mouth against mine, I knew there was more truth to it than I wanted to believe. Because the way she made me feel, the way she looked at me like I was invincible, but loved me like I was already broken, the way she accepted my darkness and trusted me with her light—it killed me. My heart belonged to her now, and the moment hers stopped beating, mine would have no choice but to do the same.
“Clo.” Her name was a broken prayer as I dived for her lips—a confession of fear, a plea for reassurance. And she responded with a plea of her own—for more. Clover’s soft, needful moans vibrated through my shattered soul as she shifted in my lap and thrust her fingers into my hair.
“It’s you,” she whispered, grinning against my plundering mouth. “It’s always been you.”
She was so fucking happy, so alive in my arms , but how was that possible when her blood was still warm on my hands?
Tightening my arm around Clo’s body and splaying a hand below her jaw, I focused on the swell of her lungs, relished the rapid pounding I felt against my palm.
But it wasn’t enough.
I needed to feel that pulse from the inside. Needed to bury myself in her living, breathing, writhing body until I could no longer remember what it had felt like to hold her corpse.
Until I could no longer smell the scent of blood, mixed with sawdust.
Until I could no longer feel the blade jutting out of my own heart.
Tearing my mouth away from hers, I peeled Clo’s dress off over her head and dived for her throat. My teeth grazed her pulsing flesh as she reached for my shirt, unfastening a button for every savage, sucking kiss I trailed down the side of her neck.
Without lifting my head, I shrugged off the wet fabric and wet bandages as Clover quickly unclasped her bra. Arching her back to meet my hungry mouth, she whimpered as I dragged my hands over her soft, round tits, biting the swells like a man possessed before soothing the sting with the flick of my tongue. I didn’t want to hurt her; I wanted to devour her—feed from her, drink from her, fill the gaping hole in my chest with her until the bleeding finally fucking stopped.
Clo’s whimpers turned to moans that went straight to my cock as I sucked each straining pink nipple from base to tip. My fingertips dug into her hips as I pulled them against me, ground them against me, and the subtle scent of her arousal drove me even closer to the brink of madness.
Blinding need exploded through every nerve ending as Clo braced her weight on one hand and grabbed the back of my neck with the other.
“Kiss me,” she pleaded, guiding my face toward her waiting lips.
Sealing my mouth over hers, I gripped her full, round arse and stood. Clo’s yelp of surprise echoed through the darkening woods as I carried her to a nearby bench and set her down, impatient and desperate and dying inside.
Kneeling before her, I yanked her soaked underwear down her legs and pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. The image of spurting blood and an open tourniquet instantly turned my stomach and twisted the phantom knife in my heart. Hot, angry tears filled my eyes as I sank my teeth into that very spot, needing to taste it, touch it, feel the artery inside, whole and healthy, pulsing against my sucking lips.
Threading her fingers through my hair, Clo spread her legs wider and watched me with trusting, hooded eyes. The sight of her naked body—beautiful and bared to me before the bruises inflicted by other men had even healed—hit me like a match tossed into a can of petrol.
The feral need to consume her flared beneath my skin, and in an instant, I was on her.
Her scent, her taste, her breathy moans, her soft, slick flesh, swelling and quivering beneath my ravenous mouth—all of my senses were suddenly immersed in Clo’s pleasure, and for a moment, I was free. Grief rolled off my shoulders in tingling waves as I lost myself between her thighs. With every swirl and flick of my hungry tongue, every thrust of her hips and scrape of her nails over my scalp, the horrors I’d just experienced drifted farther and farther away.
But as Clo’s breathing quickened and her body tensed, I found myself right back in the woodshop, listening to her breaths go shallow as she slipped away from me, panicked and desperate to follow her into the dark. Jerking my belt and trousers open, I fisted my cock as I drank from her desire, needing to chase her over the edge, needing to follow, wherever she went.
You jump, I jump.
Tearing my mouth away, I lunged for hers, clasping her jaw as I funneled all of my fucked-up emotions into that singular kiss.
“Wait for me,” I begged, tasting her need on both of our lips.
And even through her panting state of arousal, Clo smiled when she kissed me, shattering what was left of my heart. “Always.”
Pulling her into a standing position, I took her place on the bench and ran my hands over the swell of her arse.
“C’mere, angel,” I growled, guiding her hips down onto me as she held my gaze over her shoulder.
Clo’s big green eyes slammed closed the moment I pressed against her slick, warm seam, her body tensing in anticipation.
“Shh … I’ve got you,” I rasped, my voice breaking at the sensation of her sweet body sucking the head of my cock. “Relax onto me, darlin’. That’s it. Take what you want. Take everything I have.”
With her eyes still closed and her lip between her teeth, Clo sank onto me slowly, enveloping me in a bliss I didn’t deserve but couldn’t live without. Once she reached her limit, my gorgeous girl spread her legs wider, leaned back against my chest, and gazed at the gathering mist on Glenshire Lough with a deep, contented sigh. It was the sound of coming home. I knew because I felt it in my chest every time she fucking looked at me.
Sweeping the wet hair off her shoulder, I sank my teeth into Clo’s exposed neck and finally felt myself relax.
I could feel her heartbeat everywhere —fluttering beneath my sucking lips, pounding against my ribs, pulsing against my fingertips where they cupped her pussy and clutched her throat, throbbing around my swollen cock. Every surge of blood beneath her warm, flushed skin was proof of life. Proof that I hadn’t lost her.
Proof that I would do anything not to.
Every move I made was guided by that heartbeat—my slow, deep thrusts; my exploring hands, skimming her breasts, massaging her clit; my tongue circling hers when she turned her head and captured my mouth with her panting lips. There wasn’t a single part of me that wasn’t attuned to the life pumping through her veins.
And there never would be again.
“Damien,” Clo rasped, biting my bottom lip as her muscles began to quiver and her legs began to shake. “Oh God. Ah …”
I thrust into her harder, worked her faster. “That’s it, angel. That’s my girl. Come. Come for me.”
Shaking her head, Clover squeezed her legs shut, trapping my hand between her thighs.
“You can take it, baby,” I promised, rubbing her throbbing clit as my cock swelled inside her.
“Oh God …” Clo pulled her knees up to her chest as my arms circled her body, holding her tight. “Damien …”
Turning her sideways so that she was cradled in my arms, I thrust into her from underneath, the slapping of our bodies echoing through the misty woods. I claimed her mouth as her swollen, throbbing pussy began to contract around me violently.
“Oh fuck. That’s it, darlin’. That’s my girl. Let go. I’ve got ya. Let go.”
Capturing my bottom lip between her teeth, Clo clutched my face and came on a cry that I felt in the depths of my fucking soul. It was the exact same frequency of pleasure and pain that I felt for her—a terrifying, overwhelming, all-consuming force of nature that had the potential to lay waste to us both.
A flood of emotion tore through me like a hurricane, exploding in hot rivers of agony and ecstasy that Clover’s body drank with abandon.
I filled her with my darkness until it spilled down her thighs, until I was so blinded by her light that the images I’d just seen could no longer haunt me.
It hadn’t been real. I was sure of it.
And I was going to do everything in my power to fucking keep it that way.