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Daxeel lures out my ease—he plays me like an instrument he has learned well, too well, and my legs relax, hiked over his grinding hips.

His words are a murmur I barely hear over the whisperings of the shadows, their skitterings, the lulled thumps of my heart pulsing through my body—

But if I listened closely, I might hear the danger, the edge of a blade. “Do you not see that it was kindness I offered you then?”

The cocoon swirls and shifts and flutters.

I feel the cool touch it all caressing my flesh, like peppermint breaths all over me.

He pushes into me, all the way, then more. An ache springs up around my core just before his hips shift, and he grinds himself against my thrumming clit.

My head falls back, lips parting around a raspy sound.

A throaty growl rumbles through him.

He hooks his arm around the back of my knee, then shoves forward, hard.All the way.

My moans strangle into a cry.

Spine curving off the bed, I arch into him, but it only gives him a better angle to fuck into me. My hands shove at his shoulders, but he pushes against my resistance like it’s nothing more than a breeze.

I make no mistake, this is a punishment.

He bites at my forearm.

The scratch of my skin is enough to strike a hiss through me. I yank my hands off his shoulders, out of his bite’s reach.

A frown cuts into my face, and I glower up at him.

There’s no pity in those dark, swarming eyes, not for me, not anymore. Bitterness swims in the ripples of his gaze, darkens the pits of his souls, and he growls out, “I saved you from another’s cruelty.”

Then he’s on me.

His hand pushes up my body to grip my throat—and he grips, firm. I gasp a breath through the constriction of his inked fingers wrapped around my neck and have just enough margin to catch a breath.

But Daxeel comes shoving up my body.

His cock slams into me deep, too deep, and his mouth crashes down on mine to devour my pitchy cry.

His firm mouth on mine is bitter. There’s no love to be unearthed in this kiss—this is a claim.

Huskily, he grunts the words into my mouth, his pace thriving, pistoning in and out of me, “I spared you from my own.”

My legs spread a little wider, my back arches a bit more, and I invite him further into me. because I am despicable. I am so ugly and horrid beneath the flesh—I shouldn’t be fluttering, I should be climbing…

But I am, and I am sick for it.

“I overlooked your circumstance,” he slams into me so hard that I jut up the bed, “your social status,” a throaty growl catches in him and, grip tightening around my neck, he brings me back down, impaling me, “your breed, your race, your poverty.”

Pace punishing, he fucks me into the mattress.

My hands grab at furs, twist and scratch, and I don’t know if I’m searching for an escape or support to hold onto.

I don’t know much of anything beyond that I feel small beneath him. And I like it.

Gods help me.

So sick, so twisted.