5. Maeve
MAEVE
FIVE YEARS AGO
His muscles contract with each flick of his wrist. Lithe fingers dance over the canvas, smeared white and blue as he builds the base of a landscape. Long sweeps of black fill the corners, and he uses the tip of his digit, moving in soft, frenzied strokes, highlighting the sky.
Sweat glistens off his shoulders, and the flickering flames caress his pale olive skin as if they own him. Maybe they do. Killian Linwood was always rumored to be born of Hell.
My eyes find the gold chain at his neck, the small pendant hanging lower, resting between his two nipple piercings. It catches the light, glimmers, a beacon in the dark.
“Are you going to stare all night?” he teases. He’s always teasing. “Or are you coming in?”
Wrapping my arms around my waist, I slowly enter his bedroom. On the same floor as me, in the far back corner, he’s always been a ghost in my home, haunting the halls. Never far, never out of sight, always there.
Then, two weeks ago, things changed. Something snapped—a tension that’s been building for years between us gave way, and the man who was my rival in this world became so much more.
A Reaper of the night, and now, he owns my soul entirely.
Taking in the large space, I catalog all his weapons on the desk and the clothes on the floor. He’s never been neat, but that comes from never having a place to put things.
“Nightmares?” he asks, eyes trained on my face. He’s stopped sketching, holding on to the canvas as I glance around.
How many times have I been here since that fateful night, and still it feels odd to be welcomed. I used to come in here, throwing threats, and now this is the place I look for comfort.
Nodding, I move to his side, looking at the colors. They’re muted, but he’s blending everything into some painting that makes me think of desperation and bleakness.
“He’s gone, Maeve,” he murmurs, looking down at me. I avoid his eyes. I can’t have him see all the thoughts—all the emotions.
Two weeks without Michael tormenting my life, and yet, I’m waiting for the day he shows up. Demands for me to get on my knees again.
Every day, I wake up holding my breath. As twisted as it is, I want him back.
Not because I miss him—God, fuck, no—but because without him, life is different.
Uncertain. There is no reason for anything, and there is nothing I’m fighting against. I have freedom, no cage, and I don’t know what to do with it.
There are the nightmares, too. Repressed memories that come to me when I’m most vulnerable, breaking my subconscious in ways I never thought possible.
I’ve looked for ways to wake up when those memories take me. Grabbing my forearm, I rub the sore skin, still healing from the fresh cut of the previous night.
Killian sees. He always fucking sees. Snatching it, he holds my wrist high, pulling my sleeve away. His dark eyes glare, liquid lava, as he traces the edges, tsking at the poor wrap job. I’ve never been as good at mending as he is.
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing?—”
“No,” he snaps. Pulling me close, he uses his free hand to hold my cheeks, forcing me to stare up at him. “No more lies, Princess. No more hiding. Not from me. Not anymore.”
No more hiding. Because under Michael’s control, I hid every dirty act from prying eyes. I couldn’t bear the shame, the looks if I told anyone.
I told Pops once. He sneered at me, told me it was my job—part of the decree I agreed to at thirteen. But what choice is that to level at a child? One so desperate to take or risk one of her precious baby sisters to be given to that monster?
I licked my wounds in the safety of my room, away from all eyes. I hid, surrounded by silence and darkness, praying for it to end. It never did.
Until Killian noticed. He took it upon himself to heal me. To care for me. Without him, I wouldn’t have survived this long.
He shakes my face. “Understand?”
I nod once. “Yes.”
He releases me, and I feel the charcoal on my cheeks. “Have you been doing this long?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him off—that I don’t need his worry—but he picks me up, scattering his knives, and drops me to the desk. Stepping between my legs, he holds my glare, patiently waiting for the truth.
Sullenly, I shake my head. “Only since Michael.”
“He’s gone,” he repeats. “He’s in Hell burning for every fucking horrid thing he did to you. You put him there. You fucking made him suffer. And you were amazing.” Resting his forehead to mine, he exhales. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Licking my lips, I watch his mouth. “Everything. Nothing.” My voice cracks, and my hands tremble as I touch the moth pendant. “I feel… damaged. Sullied. I can’t stop thinking—” the words die in my throat.
Lifting my chin, he pushes. “Tell me.”
“I feel lost without him,” I confess. “Without the pain, without the torment, I don’t know how to stay in this world. I don’t know how to be me. I was used to—him, the horrors. I knew what to expect. I knew how to hold on. I don’t know what to do now when it’s quiet.”
Killian nods slowly, digesting my words. If I expected judgment, I don’t get it. His eyes are open, seeking, as he processes.
Picking up one of his blades, he holds it between us. The edge is sharp, wicked in the dim lighting.
“Does the pain help?” he asks, voice rough. “Does it anchor you to this world?”
“It was all I knew.” I shrug. “I don’t know how to live without being in pain.”
Taking his hand, he pushes my head back, thumb on my chin. “When used right, pain can heighten pleasure.” His thumb traces my lips. “Let me help you, Princess. Let me be your safe place in this world.”
My heart constricts. Killian has always been my safe place—I never knew it until he took some of the bad memories away and replaced them with his hands.
“Alright.”
He leans forward, capturing my lips with his warm ones. He tastes like mint and tobacco, stealing my breath as if it owns him. Maybe it does. There isn’t a part of me that he doesn’t own.
Nibbling on my bottom lip, he kneels before me, using his knife to slice my leggings. They shred into thin strips, the cold blade drawing goose flesh. He rises as it cuts across my thighs, and I gasp as the blade coasts my skin.
He stops short of the seam at my pussy, smirking at me. Glaring, I cross my arms.
“You know,” he comments lightly, turning the blade so the hilt rests against my clit. I bite back a whimper as he presses, just the right pressure that has me shuddering. “This should only be performed with someone you trust.”
“Oh, you don’t say,” I snap, grabbing his wrist. “Are you saying I shouldn’t look for anyone else to play knives with?”
Snatching my throat, he pulls me close, lips brushing mine as he speaks. “This is my way of reminding you, Princess, who fucking owns you.” He moves the hilt, and I moan, spikes of pleasure shooting outward. “You only come to me. Only my blade touches your skin, remember?”
“You said that as a threat.”
“Or a promise,” he says, grinning. His wrist moves, grinding into me, and I sigh, content.
My body has been used for another’s pleasure since I was thirteen. Only with Killian has my body been used for me—to give me pleasure, to bring me to heights of ecstasy I never dreamed possible. All because of the Reaper before me.
“And what about you?” I flutter my eyes, hips moving along with his agonizingly slow movements.
“What about me?” He’s smiling so wide, a dimple pulls at the corner of his mouth. I want to bite it.
“Who owns you?”
He huffs a sharp laugh. “If you don’t know that by now, I haven’t been doing a good enough job of showing you.”
The hilt twists, pushing harder as he dips his head to taste my lips. His tongue sweeps my mouth, laying an unseen claim, and I moan. Nails dig into my neck, the sting of pain drawing me higher.
I’m infuriatingly close and yet not close enough. Pulling his hair, I yank him back, glaring into his eyes.
“Tell me,” I demand. “Who owns you, Pup?”
He shudders, a violent shake, as if my words alone have leashed him. Pressing his forehead to mine, he doesn’t stop teasing me. Rage, pleasure, and frustration build higher, mixing into an inky mess, and I can’t see straight, let alone think.
“You,” he whispers like a prayer. “You do, Princess. Every wretched part of me belongs to you. Only you.”
“Good boy.” He groans, closing his eyes as if I’ve grabbed his heart and squeezed it.
Exhaling, he leans back, taking the hilt with him, and I whimper.
“Do you trust me?”
My answer is immediate. “Yes.”
The tip of the blade skirts the seam, slicing the fabric away until I’m sitting there, naked from the waist down. Tsking, he holds the blade to my collar and winks. “Don’t move.”
The fabric falls away, the rip loud in my ears. Sitting before him, he scans my body, eyes dark and tone wistful. “Fucking magnificent.”
I hardly think so. Crossing my arms to hide the scars—the burns—he glares. “Don’t do that. Don’t ever hide from me.”
“But the scars?—”
“You’re a survivor,” he interrupts. Pulling my hands away, his rough fingers trace a scar above my left breast. “A warrior. Don’t be ashamed of the scars that came from being forged into something deadly. You’re a blade, Maeve. Own it.”
Taking my hand, he helps me slip from the desk.
“I said only my knife touches your skin. I’ll show you why.”
Stripping his clothing, he leads me to his bed, pulling me to straddle his lap. Once I’m there, he lies back and then tugs me to sit on his chest.
I raise an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
Holding the blade, he turns it while speaking. “You need the pain to feel something familiar. And I want a piece of you inside me at all times.” Carefully, he touches my inflamed flesh with the icy blade, and I shudder. “I have something for the both of us.”
With such care, Killian’s blade slices into my skin. Fresh euphoria ignites in my blood, and I jerk upward, panting hard. He holds my hips, pinning me to his chest, continuing his work.