Page 85

She didn’t want it in her throat again; all she had wanted to taste was the blood.

This dream was no longer enticing. In fact, now that she’d had a meal, it didn’t feel dream-like at all.

It was real.

Darius was real.

She was in a room with a man who had put his organ in her mouth.

An organ she had licked manically for drops of blood that did not make her retch as human blood did...

Semen did not taste appealing, the belief confirmed a moment later when he fisted her hair, and led her mouth to the tip where a drop of tang remained.

She kissed it as she was told to, felt her stomach rumble and her throat itch.

Mostly, she felt unclean.

“Are you thinking of the mean old priest?”

A flood of terrible memories intruded as if a dam had broken behind her eyes. This interlude had not been the first time she’d done this. How could she have forgotten something so horrible?

A cry caught in her throat, one that turned to a whimper of degradation.

A hand came to her bowed head and stroked her hair. “And that, kara sevde, is why I do not allow you to remember. That is why every night for you starts new and clean.”

Who would want to have such dark things always lurking in their mind? The stranger had given her blood that had not made her sick, he had given her pleasure in the tub, and then he had given her the memory of a terrible past. Falling to his feet, she put her lips to his shoes and begged he take the nightmares away again.

Voice like iron, Darius warned his treasure, “I shall take all he did from your mind, but remember this fractured moment tonight should you question your life in my care, buck my requests, or shy from my attention. There is no suffering in this room but the torment you bring upon yourself. I would give you the bliss of permanent innocence. I would fill you with pleasure. Thank me for it.”

Sobbing, she vigorously held to his leg. “Thank you.”

And then the rancid memories that had broken her heart were gone. Confused why she was even upset, the tears stopped.

Cupping her face, he wiped wet trails from her cheeks. “Your life with me, in this place, can be sunshine or it can be darkness. Every night, the choice is yours.”

Chapter 9

Over several hours, Darius taught her the meaning of rapture.

And the price…

His attention had been so wondrous that she’d almost forgotten how degrading it was to be used. Yet no matter how he kissed and touched, under her joy she knew all he did was for his own entertainment. He wanted to see her beg like a whore, knew what nerves to manipulate to earn a slattern’s response.

Twisted by the expertise of a practiced lecher, she’d cried out, unsure of the exact moment his body had pushed her past sanity. For only a mad woman would have thanked him for fucking her so raw she’d bled.

She’d even tangled her hands in his hair when he’d pulled her cunt to his mouth so he might feast on their shared fluids.

When his come and her blood were smeared over his chin, red eyes burned and his long teeth shone in the candlelight. “Turn over. Bow your head to the covers.”

She’d obeyed without question.

“Tell me you love me.” Glistening cockhead notched between her cleft, he’d raked his nails over her hips.

More of her blood spilled from the gashes, just as the foul words fell from a drunken tongue. “I love you.”

“Call me your God!” He spread her cheeks, sluicing forward through all the mess that dripped from her cunt.

It felt as if there was a knock on the door of her skull, a mental caution to refuse such blasphemy. There was only one God. The God. The creator of the world who’d promised to deliver her from evil.