24. Briar
Chapter Twenty-Four
brIAR
Irun down the long hallway, bare feet slapping against the cold stone floor. When I reach the front door, I wrench at the handle with both hands, but it refuses to budge. Locked. Of course it is locked.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
My heart hammers violently against my ribs as I spin away and race toward the nearest window.
I shove at the frame with desperate strength, but it doesn’t even rattle.
Sealed shut. The back door, there was a back door in the kitchen.
I try to remember the layout of this maze-like mansion while thunder cracks violently outside, the sound so loud it rattles the glass in the windows.
The storm has turned the middle of the afternoon into something closer to twilight.
Shadows stretch long and heavy across the dark wood paneling and stone walls.
I’m trapped in here. With him. With a man who just admitted he murdered people because of me.
Another deafening roll of thunder shakes the mansion. I flinch hard, the blood draining from my face as panic claws up my throat.
“Briar—” Drystan’s voice echoes through the halls, low and disturbingly sing-song. “My love, I told you. There is no way out.”
A broken sob escapes me. I keep running, legs burning, lungs struggling for air.
Every muscle in my body aches from earlier, but I cannot stop.
I will not stop. He killed them. Tom I can almost understand—that monster was going to hurt me—but Luke?
Luke had done nothing. He was kind. He was safe.
And Drystan had ended his life like it meant nothing.
Tears blur my vision as I finally burst into the kitchen. I sprint for the back door, hope flaring wildly in my chest for one painful second.
It is locked too.
No. Please, God, no.
“Oh, my love.”
His voice comes from the entrance of the kitchen, smooth and terrifyingly calm.
I whip around. He stands there, blood slowly soaking through the side of his black shirt where I stabbed him, yet his expression is almost peaceful.
A faint, terrifying smirk plays on his lips, as if this is all some dark game he is enjoying.
“You done running?” he asks.
I lunge for the counter, my hand closing around the largest knife. The steel feels cold and heavy in my grip.
“Guess not,” he murmurs, sounding almost amused.
“Let me leave, Drystan. Please.” My voice cracks, raw with terror.
“Never.” The word falls from his mouth like a death sentence. He steps forward, slow and deliberate. “But I will let you try.”
He gestures toward his own chest, right over his heart. “The only way you are leaving Hellebore is if you cut my heart out.”
The image of that bloody painting flashes through my mind—the one made with our blood—and my pulse spikes so violently I can feel it throbbing in my throat. My hand shakes around the knife.
I can’t kill him.
I can’t.
The realization crashes over me like another thunderclap. I turn and run again, bolting out of the kitchen and up the massive staircase. My legs scream in protest as I reach the top and sprint down the opposite hallway, away from the bedrooms, deeper into the shadowed heart of this gothic prison.
Behind me, I hear his unhurried footsteps.
He is coming.
I run frantically down the corridor, throwing open every door I pass, only to find each one locked or leading nowhere.
My lungs burn. One door has a glowing keypad—why the hell is there a door with a code in this cursed place?
I don’t stop. At the far end, a door stands half-open.
I burst through it and slam it shut behind me, but there is no lock.
Just an old, heavy latch that feels useless.
This is another bedroom, ancient and forgotten.
Dust hangs in the air, and it smells of stale musk.
Dark wood furniture looms like silent watchers.
I rush to the window and shove it open with shaking hands.
Cold wind and rain slap against my face.
I step out onto a stone balcony just as thunder cracks overhead, illuminating the gothic carvings and the heavy rain now pouring down.
Below me, sharp bushes and a stone path wait far too many feet down. Jumping would kill me. Or shatter my legs. I would be helpless. Trapped even more.
“There you are.”
Drystan’s voice slides down my spine like ice.
I whip around. He stands in the doorway, blood still dripping steadily from the wound I gave him, soaking his shirt and leaving dark trails on the stone floor.
He looks completely unfazed, as if the pain means nothing to him.
His eyes burn with something terrifying—fury, hunger, and absolute possession.
“No way out, my love,” he says, that awful smirk curving his lips.
I glance at the edge again. Fuck it.
I turn and lift my leg to jump, heart exploding in my chest, but Drystan is faster. His massive arm wraps around my waist like iron and yanks me back hard against his chest.
“Your tendency to hurt yourself is really starting to piss me off,” he growls low in my ear, forcing my leg back down onto the wet stone.
“If it’s pain you want, Briar, I can deliver far worse than a fall.”
He bends me brutally over the stone railing, my upper body hanging dangerously over the edge. Blood rushes to my head as I stare down at the deadly drop below. Rain lashes my face and soaks my hair.
“Drystan!” I scream, gripping the slick railing with white-knuckled fingers.
“Didn’t you want to jump?” He yanks my pants and underwear down in one vicious motion, exposing me to the cold storm air. “You like danger, don’t you?”
“No! I just want to get away from you!” I shout, thrashing wildly, trying to push him off.
His hand presses between my shoulder blades, pinning me harder against the railing while the other slides between my legs. “I will never let you get away from me.”
One thick finger pushes inside me without warning. I scream as he curls it deep, stroking that spot that makes my traitorous body flood with unwanted heat. My mind spirals—there is no escape, he’s going to kill me, or keep me forever, or both—but my hips still push back against his hand.
“Do you know what the fuck I did for you all these years?” he snarls, voice rough and feral as thunder rolls overhead. “Every night you went out. Every bastard who tried to touch you. Why do you think they suddenly stopped?”
“I never asked you to!” I cry out, still fighting even as pleasure coils viciously inside me. “I didn’t even know you existed!”
He pulls his finger out only for me to feel him lowering his pants. The thick, pierced head of his cock presses against my entrance for one terrifying second, and then he buries himself to the hilt in one savage thrust.
Pain and blinding pleasure explode through me at once. The stretch is brutal. The height makes my head spin. The fear of being dropped mixes with the overwhelming fullness of him, and a broken moan tears from my throat despite everything.
He starts thrusting, slow, deep, and punishing, each powerful stroke slamming my hips against the stone railing. Rain pours over us both. His blood mixes with the water dripping down his body onto mine.
“No—” I choke out, even as my body arches back into him, chasing more.
My mind screams that I should be terrified. That this man is a murderer. That I am dangling over the edge of death while he fucks me, but my body… my body is burning for him.
“You are drenching me, Briar,” he laughs darkly, the sound low and unhinged as his thrusts grow faster, more punishing.
He pushes me further over the balcony until half my body dangles dangerously over the edge.
I scream louder, the rough stone digging painfully into my ribs, crushing the air from my lungs.
Thunder crashes overhead while cold rain lashes my skin.
“Oh fuck, you are clenching so hard around my cock, baby.”
The dizziness in my head intensifies with every brutal snap of his hips, blood rushing violently to my skull, but the burning coil in my lower belly only tightens.
I hate myself for it, yet I cannot stop pressing back into him, moving my hips in the small space he allows, chasing sharper pain and deeper pleasure.
My mind spirals—this is madness, he could drop me, he’s a killer, I should be fighting—but my body betrays me completely, trembling on the razor’s edge.
I try to tell him to stop. The words die in my throat, replaced by broken moans I can no longer contain.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” he snarls, thrusting harder, the wet slap of our bodies mixing with the roar of thunder. “Tell me!”
But I can’t. The words refuse to form because some dark, shameful part of me does want it. I want him to ruin me. I want to fall apart while dangling over death.
He chuckles, low and victorious. “That’s what I thought.”
His hips snap forward with savage force, driving his pierced cock impossibly deeper.
The overwhelming stretch, the fear, the dangerous height, the way every piercing drags against my walls, it all crashes over me at once.
My orgasm rips through me like lightning, violent and devastating.
I scream, body convulsing hard around him as waves of blinding pleasure tear me apart.
My vision whites out. My legs shake uncontrollably.
I clench and flutter around his thick length, soaking him as the storm rages around us.
“Fuck—that’s it,” he growls, voice completely feral. “Come for the devil who owns you.”
His thrusts turn erratic and punishing. With a guttural, animalistic roar that cuts through the thunder, he buries himself to the hilt and comes hard, flooding me with hot, endless pulses of his release. He grinds deep, forcing every drop inside me as if he could brand my soul.
For a few terrifying seconds, the world tilts dangerously.
Then he finally pulls me back over the railing and into his arms. The sudden rush of blood leaving my head makes everything spin violently. Darkness swallows my vision completely.
I collapse against his bloodied chest and pass out.
I gasp sharply and sit up, disoriented. A soft black blanket pools around my breasts.
I peek underneath and see I’m completely naked.
The room is dim, lit only by a few candles and the low glow of the fireplace.
I blink several times, trying to clear my blurred vision, until Drystan comes into focus.
He is sitting in a chair near the bed, leaning back slightly as he sews the wound I gave him near his ribs with slow, precise movements.
His jaw is tight, a muscle ticking rhythmically.
Thick veins stand out along his forearms and the back of his hand with every careful stitch.
His powerful muscles shift and flex under his skin as he works, completely unfazed by the pain.
“Jesus Christ,” I murmur.
“Welcome back,” he says, a faint smile touching his lips as he glances up at me.
“You need a hospital,” I beg, my mind still reeling with fractured memories of the chase, the balcony, the terrifying height, the way he had taken me so brutally while the storm raged around us.
“Feeling calmer now?” he asks casually, as if he hadn’t just fucked me half-dangling over the balcony rail.
“You are insane.” I pull the blanket higher. The moment I shift, a deep, stinging ache blooms between my legs, a raw reminder of how thoroughly he had used me. My body is sore, bruised, and yet… still humming with lingering pleasure.
“You already said that.” He looks up at me, forest-green eyes intense. “And I already told you—I am. And you love it.”
“No, I don’t,” I protest, but my voice wavers. “Drystan, you kill people. You kidnapped me—”
He stands slowly. The movement makes his abs tighten, the fresh stitches pulling against his skin. Rainwater still clings to his black hair, which falls messily over his eyes. He strides toward the bed, his massive frame making the mattress sink deeply as he climbs over me.
“They were using you,” he says, voice low and rough.
“I kept you safe. You know that.” His hand reaches out, brushing a strand of damp hair from my face.
“No other man will ever love you the way I do. No other man will memorize what food makes you smile, what scent makes you sigh, how you like your tea scalding with honey. Yes, I killed them. Because you are mine. Only mine. And I would burn the world down and do it again without hesitation.”
His words sink into me like dark velvet and steel. They shouldn’t comfort me. They shouldn’t make warmth bloom in my chest even as fear still coils in my stomach. But they do. No one has ever seen me the way he has. No one has ever wanted me with this terrifying, all-consuming devotion.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say under my breath, staring into his eyes.
“You don’t have to do anything, my love.” He leans closer, his lips brushing mine in a surprisingly gentle kiss. “Let me show you the depth of my love for you.”
I glance down and notice my name carved into his skin. The sight sends a shiver through me.
“I can’t fall in love with you,” I say softly.
“Why not?” His breath ghosts across my lips.
“Because you know that if you do, it means you are as beautifully fucked up as I am? Because the world told you that no one should love the villain?” His fingers trace my cheek with aching tenderness.
“I will never lie to you. I will never hurt you unless it is to make you scream in pleasure. I will never let anyone touch what is mine again. I will love you for all eternity and whatever darkness comes after.”
His eyes—those deep green eyes—look so devastatingly sincere. I have never been looked at like this. Like I am the beginning and the end of someone’s entire existence.
“You will never kill anyone else,” I beg, my voice barely audible.
“I can’t promise that, my love.” He presses a kiss to my forehead, then to my temple. “If anyone tries to hurt you, they will end up beneath our hellebore. I will destroy this world and whatever waits beyond it for you.”
A broken breath leaves me. “I need time.”
“You have all the time you need,” he murmurs, standing. His wet hair falls over his eyes as he looks down at me, beautiful and terrifying. “Here. At Hellebore.”
He turns and leaves the room.
My body is sore, every muscle aching, the space between my thighs throbbing with the memory of him.
My heart aches for Luke and Jacke—it should be heavier, it should condemn him.
But there is a dangerous, traitorous part of me that feels…
complete. His love is violent. All-consuming, terrifying, and some dark corner of my soul is starting to crave it.