23. Drystan #2
The words echo in my skull like a curse.
I shake my head slightly, pushing the fury aside for now.
Real leather. Money. Influence. I am certain the man from the bakery and Tom were both sent by him.
But why now, after five years? I found her from inside a prison cell.
He should have had no trouble doing the same.
“Are you listening to me?” Her voice pulls me back. She is still sitting beside me, looking up at me with those wide, searching eyes.
“Drystan, you better not be planning anything.” She wipes at her tears and gives me an angry, defiant look that only makes the beast inside me hunger more.
“I’m not,” I lie smoothly. “I promise.” The words fall easily from my tongue. I do not care that they are false. I have killed others for merely touching her. The suffering I have planned for these two will be something the devil himself would envy.
“You should eat,” I say, changing the subject as I see the confusion flicker across her face.
“I’m not really hungry after this conversation.” She stays next to me. “I am curious about you, though.”
Shit.
“Really?” I arch an eyebrow and wrap my arms around her more possessively, pulling her closer against my chest. “What do you want to know?”
“You were torturing Tom with the hellebore,” she says, her eyes burning into mine.
“That’s not a question, my love.” A smirk tugs at my lips.
“Is it some kind of homage to your mother?”
The question strikes me like a blade to the ribs.
“My mother died a long time ago,” I say, the words heavy on my tongue.
“Car accident. The last thing my worthless father did was destroy her hellebore garden. He hated how much she loved them. We spent hours together in the afternoons tending to those flowers. It was our time. Our peace. And he could not stand that anything existed outside of his control.” The old anger simmers low in my gut, dark and familiar.
“I still believe he found a way to kill her.”
“Drystan…” she breathes. Her soft hands rise to cradle each side of my face, and she leans her forehead against mine, her breath warm against my lips. “I think I know why we are drawn to each other—”
I do not let her finish. The truth in her words will hurt too much to acknowledge. I kiss her instead, hard and rough, my hand sliding to the back of her head to grip her hair tightly.
“Don’t say it,” I whisper fiercely against her mouth.
“We are both the darkness,” she breathes.
The words ignite something feral and desperate inside me.
I push her down onto the thick rug, my body covering hers completely, and kiss her with violent, consuming hunger.
My sun. My light. She is not darkness. She has never been darkness.
I will not allow the shadows that live in me to claim her too.
“Drystan—” She turns her face away, pushing gently against my jaw with trembling fingers. “I need to ask you something.”
I force myself to still, though every muscle in my body screams in protest. My cock strains painfully hard against my pants, throbbing with the need to sink back into her heat, to lose myself in her again and drown out the horrors she has just laid bare.
My breathing comes ragged and uneven. I clench my jaw until pain radiates through my skull, fighting the overwhelming urge to rip her clothes off and claim her right here on the floor until nothing else exists.
“What?” I manage, the single word rough and strained.
She looks up at me, eyes still red from crying but now steady with quiet determination. “Did you kill anyone else because of me?”
I take a slow breath and stare into her beautiful blue eyes. “I did.”
Her body shudders violently beneath mine. “Who?”
I swallow once, the taste of truth bitter on my tongue. There is no point in hiding it anymore.
“Luke and Jacke,” I say, voice low and steady.
“Luke?!” she snaps. Her knee slams hard into my stomach. I grunt and push up onto my knees as she scrambles backward across the rug, sliding away from me in panic. “Why did you kill him? He wasn’t doing anything wrong!”
A cold, humorless laugh escapes me. “Nothing wrong? He treated you like something disposable. He never cared about you. He couldn’t even make you come.”
“How did you know—” Her mouth falls open in horror. “Those fucking cameras. How long were they there? And—” Disgust and fury twist across her face. “Luke was nice. He never hurt me. I can’t believe you killed him. And Jacke? The guy from the club?”
“I told him you were mine that night,” I say, rising slowly to my full height. “I was there, Briar. I was the one who caught you when you fell.”
Her breathing turns rapid and shallow. Her hands begin to shake. I watch her legs shift, muscles tensing as she prepares to run. The sight only makes the hunger in me sharper.
“You?” Realization crashes over her features. “Oh my God. You were there—wait. I passed out and Jacke left. Why did you kill him? Nothing happened.”
I smirk, dark and slow, as I tower over her. “Oh, baby. You passed out because I drugged your water and your wine. I was already inside your closet, waiting for you. I was not going to let another piece of shit touch you.”
She gasps, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.
“Briar,” I continue, my voice dropping into something colder, more feral.
“I can make you come harder than anyone ever has. I can be gentle when I choose to be. But this—” I gesture down my body.
“this is who I really am. I’m not your prince charming.
I’m the nightmare that’s been watching you for ten years.
I’m the devil who drugged you, the devil who will kill anyone who ever touches what’s mine. ”
“No—” she whispers into her palm, voice trembling.
“Yes, my love.” The last threads of restraint snap. “After I dragged Jacke to my car, I came back to you. I tasted you for the first time while you were unconscious on your bed.”
Her hand drops. For a split second, pure terror floods her eyes. Then she lunges to the right, snatches the iron poker from beside the fireplace, and surges to her feet. In the same breath she thrusts it forward with desperate strength.
The sharp tip pierces just under my ribs on the left side. White-hot pain explodes through my body. I grunt and lean forward, wrenching the poker from her hands before yanking it out of my flesh with a wet sound.
“Fuck—” A dark, unhinged chuckle rumbles from my chest despite the blood soaking into my shirt. “That hurt, my love.”
She doesn’t hesitate. She bolts, bare feet pounding down the hallway as she runs deeper into the mansion.
I stand there for one heartbeat, blood dripping from the wound, the beast fully unleashed now. Then I smile, slow and terrible, and start after her.
She will never escape me again.