Chapter 5 #2
I cried out when he pinned my arms above my head, groaning encouragement as he spread my legs with his thigh and pressed it against my pussy.
I couldn’t help myself then. I lost myself in daydreams, grinding against his leg to ride out my pleasure as flashes of his dead eyes and blood strung along the brick wall sent me into a lustful frenzy.
I imagined his moans were pleas for mercy and that the extra hands now roaming my exposed flesh were that of his friends trying to pull me away from his corpse.
The thought made me nearly desperate as I let my plan play out.
Axton smiled before jerking me forward and I went with it, limp as a ribbon.
Being unkillable comes with perks; one of them is choosing when to pretend I’m not.
I gasped, small and helpless, as they caged me in.
The heat of them made a feverish sweat break out across my skin.
Teeth sank into my earlobe as another’s tongue licked down my neck; I was going to enjoy cutting that out of him.
Hands groped me from all directions, cupping me between the legs and squeezing my breast until I lost track of how many men were in on the action.
The more the merrier. I could toss Satan his sack and tell him to shove off earlier than usual.
Satisfied groans rang in a disgusting chorus around me. They thought they’d won. Men love to mistake performance for permission. I let them. It made the turn so much sweeter.
“Wait.” I deflected Axton’s kiss and made a show of pushing him away. If he came back for more…
He was so dead.
“Come on, baby,” the one behind me said with a breathy laugh while pressing his hard-on into my hip as if it could convince me to stay. “There’s no stopping this train.”
“Yeah,” agreed another to my right. “We promise it’ll be fun. Right, guys?”
A chorus of knowing laughter came at me from every direction. The tone said that they had no intention of leaving whether I wanted this or not.
“I just think we should slow down,” I tried again, turning my head left and right as I pulled against Axton’s restraint on my arms all the while silently hoping he only forced me harder.
That was the plan; let him think I’d fold, then end it quickly. If I could kill Axton, I was one step closer to being ready for Callen.
Axton stepped back in a rush, leaving me in the arms of the body behind me.
What the—
The ground tilted below me. Axton wasn’t taking his prize; he was making space to watch.
My breath snagged as he licked his lips and the scene in the alleyway blurred with another; gravel under my knees, a different night, a different man stepping back to spectate while a girl on an old road listened for her death sentence. Cold sweat burst down my spine.
“Ryan,” Axton said. “Get over here.”
A man with lust-heavy eyes and a feral grin stepped around Axton to take my wrists like he owned them.
I forced my gaze up. Axton's glacier blue eyes darkened to a muddy brown. I shook my head—once, hard—trying to stay present and not let his irises shift the way Callen’s always did right before the laughing had started.
But they weren’t blue anymore. I was staring into molten brown eyes.
“No! Callen please–” A hand clamped over my mouth.
Fingers closed on my throat, drawing me nose to nose. “You’re going to take us all, little stripper whore,” he breathed, “and then you’re going to pay us for a good time.”
A snicker to my left. Another behind me. Two more in front.
They pounced.
Fingers dug into my skin, teeth pinched the nape of my neck–
“Hey!” Someone shouted from down the alley. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Everything is fine,” Axton threw over his shoulder before looking at me with a pointed glare. Play along or you're dead, it said. “We’re just having some fun. Aren’t we, sweetheart?”
I kept my mouth shut, hoping that whomever was shouting would go the fuck away so I could teach these motherfuckers what consent meant.
The shouting continued and a beam of light bounced with the cadence of the stranger’s footsteps as they approached.
Axton rolled his eyes, his lips thinning and jaw tensing in frustration. “I said everything is fine– ”
All of a sudden, everyone froze. Hands went stiff, the grip on my arms tightened, and the only rustle of air was the chill creeping through the alley.
“Get the fuck off of her.”
I tried to turn and see who the hell was ruining my building, murder-driven orgasm, but the shitheads were holding me too tight.
“Look man,” Axton said, his voice low and shaky as he backed away. “We were just having a little fun. No one got hurt.”
A metallic click echoed off the walls, and my heart stopped.
Was someone seriously pointing a gun?
“I said, get. The fuck. Off of her.”
Everyone released me and took a step back.
When I turned, it was to see Axton staring down the barrel of a pistol.
With the gunman solely focused on Axton, the others took it upon themselves to scurry away like rats, and I committed my so-called savior’s face to memory.
A strong, clean-cut jaw clenched to snapping, and a fuck-around-and-find-out glare in his eyes.
The man stepped forward until he was face to face with Axton, put the gun against his head, and growled, “Go. Come here again, and die.”
Axton didn’t say another word. Instead, he ran out of the alley chasing his pack like an alpha who’d just been demoted to beta.
“Are you okay?” The fire in his darkened eyes banked, and his features softened as one hand hovered below my arm like he was ready to catch me if I collapsed.
Weak, Dany, I spat in my head. You are so fucking weak.
“Yeah,” I answered shakily. “Thanks.”
My knees wanted to give. I bit the inside of my cheek until iron bloomed on my tongue and rode the sting back into myself; into reality.
Heat crawled up my throat; my hands trembled once before I fisted them so hard that my nails left behind marks. I bit the inside of my cheek until iron bloomed on my tongue and let the hurt bring me back to reality. I stepped out of his reach and scraped the wobble from my voice. “I’m fine.”
Weak, Dany, I spat in my head. You are so fucking weak.
It was supposed to have been easy-–a done fucking deal. I had those fuckers in the palm of my hands, ready to wipe the world clean of their filth and send them to hell with Lucifer in an Easter basket, or whatever the saying was.
“Are you sure?” he asked wearily.
“Yeah,” I scoffed and straightened my jacket. “Thanks.”
For nothing. Thanks for nothing.
I needed them—three names, three souls—tonight, while the ledger was open. When the window shuts, Luci doesn’t forgive.
Does he?
In all of my afterlife, I never actually knew what happened if the terms of the deal were broken. I knew of demons disappearing; how I’d have neighbors one day and an empty room the next.
Not knowing was worse than knowing in this case. The idea of the unknown coated my palms with sweat, and I had to shove the idea aside before it snowballed into confirmation that he would make me wear badge clips as nipple clamps while burning alive for eternity.
He’s already reminded me of running out of time. How far could I push until his patience ran too thin?
I side-eyed my rogue vigilante. Maybe he could be a stand-in. Technically, he threatened to kill someone and I, the biggest hypocrite on Earth, slaughtered murderers for funsies.
Could I put a hole in Joe and call it even?
I sighed. I didn’t have to continue my train of thought before the last, dying shred of humanity in my heart told me to fuck off with the idea.
No. He isn’t the type of guy who made my list.
He did, however, chase off the people I needed to satiate my lord and savior Lucifer Christ and that was not on my bingo card for the night. He cost me three souls, and for some Satan-damned reason I couldn’t make myself kill him. It would make my life easier. One down, three to go.
But, fury settled easier than shame, so I rolled with it.
I couldn’t kill him, but I could damn sure hate him for fucking up my night.
So I swallowed the shame and let the anger take the wheel. The ledger doesn’t care about chivalry, and I still had a deadline to feed.