Chapter 1
Azrael
I tightened my grip around her throat, watching as her face turned purple, her lips parted on a silent scream.
I slammed into her over and over again, feeling her pussy clench around my throbbing cock, but it wasn’t enough. The warmth, the wetness.
I needed more.
I released her neck, and she inhaled sharply, coughing, her body slightly limp as her head fell to one side. Her eyes were looking around, out of focus, her lips moving, no words coming out. Her mind was foggy, her thoughts disconnected. Exactly how I wanted.
I reached for the knife in my pocket, grabbing her hip with my other hand to hold her in place.
The ropes kept her from touching me, from trying to escape when she realized she didn’t truly like it as rough as she thought she did, but the bottom half of her was free for me to use as I pleased.
I had put her on my table, the ropes holding her wrists to a hook at one end, her ass hanging off the other where I was connected to her by a cock that wouldn’t release.
I turned back to her, the knife glinting in the low light of the candle. I just needed more.
Her eyes found it, glazed over from lack of oxygen. There was no challenge in her eyes, but there was no safe word on her lips either.
She was trying to prove something to herself. Good for her, too bad her mind wouldn’t be as put together as it had been when she decided to flirt with me in that restaurant.
Everybody liked it rough until they realized it wasn’t like the books or the movies or the porn they watched in the dark. It was so much worse.
At least in my case.
I suppose I admired her will, but it was my job to break it. “I like my women red,” I told her and sliced the knife down the center of her. It was a shallow cut, nothing that could kill her or even leave that much of a scar, but it was enough to give me what I wanted.
She whimpered, tears streaming down her sweat-covered face, her hair matted. “Adam,” she whined, the blood spreading across her spray-tanned covered fake tits, “finish this, please. I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
I didn’t even know if she had cum yet, and I truly didn’t care.
This wasn’t about her this time around. I needed this.
I needed it more than I needed to breathe.
Fucking and killing, it’s the only thing I cared about in this world.
The only thing that would never ruin me, that would never forsake me.
If I needed to push it further to get what I wanted, then fine. Sex and killing were the same thing, in a sense. Both required a certain amount of finesse, of vulnerability, of strength, and power. Blood was an aphrodisiac, and I wanted more.
I sliced the blade down her chest again, watching the line swell with blood, her eyes growing hooded, my cock throbbing in need. I did it again and again, slamming into her as the blood spread over her skin, her tits bouncing in it. Too big for my taste, honestly, but it wasn’t what got me off.
The blood began to pool in the hollow of her throat, in the dip of her stomach.
Fuck, I cut too deep, but I couldn’t stop. An animal had taken over me. A thing I couldn’t control. I wanted more. I needed more.
I groaned, grabbing her hips in both hands, uncaring that the blade sliced into her skin with every thrust. I was so close, I just needed something else, something…
My eyes found hers. Her head had fallen to one side, her body weak. Her eyes were still open, slowly fading as the light left them.
I came instantly. It wasn’t hard and it wasn’t long. It was unfulfilling and dissatisfactory.
With a sneer, I shoved her away and instantly discarded the cum-filled condom on her blood covered chest before turning away and tucking myself back into my pants.
They would certainly hold this against me. Why wouldn’t they? It wasn’t the first time this had happened. But didn’t they understand that the only way to learn how to control this was to keep trying?
I’d get the hang of it eventually, that ‘eventually’ just wasn’t today.
This would hold me over for some time, I suppose, but not long. I would need to find someone else soon. Perhaps someone who had a death wish, who wanted to toy with the lines between life and death. They were always the most fun.
I pushed open the door as I wiped my blade on my handkerchief, only to stop when I found Malachi standing in the hall.
I spared him a bare glance on my way out.
“Do I have another assignment?” That’s what I needed.
A distraction. A reason to hold my knife to another throat.
A reason to spill more blood. We’re nothing if not the justification of death.
I was a living, breathing example of that.
One Malachi liked to deny time after time.
It took him a second to respond, and I assumed it was because he was taking in the carnage I left in my room. “Yes. We’re finding you a partner, Azrael. Someone to help you control these urges.”
“I don’t fuck men.”
“Not a sexual partner, and we’re finding a female counterpart. I want to find a female counterpart for all three of you.”
Meaning not Greyson. Why would he need one? The monster inside of him looked too much like a teddy bear to need a babysitter.
“I think it would do you three well to have someone…maintaining you.”
“And here I thought that’s why you kept our pet around,” I stated chillingly.
“Otherwise, what is the point of dear kind Greyson?” Hadn’t he realized by now that nothing could control us?
The best that would come from these little birds would be either death or our influence shifting them into becoming so much like us that Malachi will have achieved nothing but giving us exactly what we wanted; more Shadows as he called us.
Malachi gave me a look. “He has his own assignments. What I’m talking about is a permanent partner. Someone you might be able to learn from.”
“I respect women, just not when I’m using them to fulfill my needs. I do what they want me to do; it’s not my fault they weren’t aware of their desires and what those desires entailed in order to be truthful with me.”
“I’m sure they didn’t want to die.”
I shrugged, checking my silver pocket watch.
Half past midnight. Hmm. I snapped it shut and slid it away.
“I wouldn’t know, they usually lose consciousness before they tell me.
” Another batch of Initiates would be graduating today.
I wondered how many survived this time around.
Last year, it was a little less than half.
Dearest Malachi stopped coming to me for advice about his little training program, which was a mistake on his part.
Things always needed adapting. The times change, and so do the people.
What worked nine years ago wouldn’t work the same now, which was why I was so much better than the others.
I always continued to adapt. They couldn’t kill a snake that never wore the same scales twice.
“Azrael.”
A muscle in my jaw feathered and turned to face him.
“Is there something important you wish to discuss?” There were far more important things to do than speak to our leader about getting a babysitter.
For instance, where was Greyson? I know how much he loved early morning visits.
I hated disappointing that dear, soft-skinned boy.
He watched on with a quiet rage that not many could see. I could see it though. I could always see it. As the years went by, that rage in his eyes became quieter and quieter, yet more volatile. I hadn’t quite figured out why he was filled with such rage, but I would. Eventually, I would.
“Your next assignment is one we both decided would be for your own good.”
Oh, this did sound interesting.
“We’re putting you away,” he revealed.
My smile began to grow. “That took longer than I expected.” Away? How fun.
His eyes dried. “For the next year, while we search for someone willing enough to be your partner, you will be placed into a high security asylum. One you cannot escape, so please don’t try. It’s for your own good.”
Saying it twice didn’t change the truth. They wanted someone else to break me of all of my less desirable habits. If only they knew that there was a difference between instinct and habitual tendencies.
“It’s in Russia.”
I hated the Russians. Shifty little minxes, all of them, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
“You’ll be there for the entire year. 365 days, no more, no less. I hope that when you return, you will have gained some…sanity.”
I chuckled. “Oh Malachi, my sanity doesn’t come from the mind, that’s why none of you can ever read me. It’s my greatest weapon.”
“And now you can use that weapon in Russia. Go, Beckett is waiting for you in the car.”
I straightened, looking down my nose at the one they called ‘father’. “You’re all rabbits to me, Malachi. Do with me what you will, but that will never change.”
He nodded as if he understood. As if he felt bad about my cracked mind. If only he knew that it was their minds that were cracked. They were the broken ones. Not me.
Never me.
He gestured for the hall. “Please.”
I watched him carefully for half a second more before I turned, not wanting to waste any more of my time looking at the man who claimed to have ‘saved me’. A year was a long time. A long time to think, to wonder, to carve; a long time to build.