Page 49 of Degradation (The Brethren Lords #3)

Devin

S he’s a vision. A masterpiece I can’t tear my eyes from.

I hold her bleeding body against mine and I carry her back to the bed. She’s lost her fight now, lost all that angry defiance. I can’t tell if I prefer her like this, broken and exhausted because of the hurt I’ve caused, or when she’s flinging insults, when she’s trying to beat me. As if she could.

Little whore. Scheming temptress.

I know what she’s done. I know. It’s too late to deny it now, too late to pretend otherwise. My heart is beating rapidly at the mere contact of her skin against mine. My eyes can’t stop devouring every inch of her bleeding flesh.

She is mine.

She is.

God may condemn us. The Brethren certainly will, but this woman, this creature, she is mine, all fucking mine.

The sheets soak up her blood, they slowly turn a pretty red as she lays there, with her eyes so tightly shut.

I thought being here, doing this would sate the anger in me, the hate too. I thought that finally being granted alone time would purge whatever this demon is inside me. But instead, it’s grown, it’s slithered into every piece of me, it’s overtaken everything.

Hurting her should have been enough. It’s always worked before. It’s always purged the voices, purged the need, kept that part of me in check.

So why the fuck isn’t it enough this time?

My fists clench into tight little balls. Where my hand is entwined with her hair, I realise I’m yanking it. For a second a voice in my head says to let it go, to drop the strands, that continuing to do so will hurt her.

As if I haven’t hurt her enough. I sneer at myself. Who the fuck am I? What the fuck is this?

But my hand drops anyway, my fingers relax, and those tresses that feel more like silk than hair slip through, catching the low lamplight, glinting gold as if they’re mocking me.

A tiny noise catches my attention. I know it’s coming from her, but when I turn my gaze up to her face, I can see she’s still unconscious.

She whimpers again, louder. Her face scrunches up, her eyes seem to flit so fast behind those delicate lids.

Is she dreaming? Is she having a nightmare?

My lips quirk, wondering what could possibly be haunting her.

Is it me? Is it her husband? For some reason, that thought pisses me off.

I want it to be me, I want to be the one that haunts her days and well as her nights.

I want to be the one she’s petrified of.

Not her husband. Not that pathetic excuse for a man.

I want her to fear me more than anything else, more than anyone else.

I draw a deep breath; one filled with the scent of jasmine and rose.

She should fear me. She will fear me. I’ll make sure of it. I want her to be haunted by me, to be convinced I’m hiding in every shadow, behind every corner.

I want her to shut her eyes and I’m there, in her head, in her mind. Possessing every tiny piece of her.

“She sees too much.”

Gunther’s words ring in my head and I know then what I have to do. That it has to be me. That this here is the only way to save them, to keep them.

Besides, if I don’t do it, someone else will. And I can’t have that. I can’t.

I don’t realise I’m moving until I’m on top of her, until the knife is back in my hand and I’m pinning her eyelid open, forcing the skin back on itself.

She’s awake now. She’s screaming, only the noise doesn’t sound unpleasant, it sounds like a lullaby, it sounds like a song she’s singing for my ears only.

My skin erupts into goosebumps, my body feels electric, alive.

I pop one eyeball out as carefully as I can. I don’t want to pierce it. I don’t want to damage it. And I need to leave the tear duct in place too, because she cries too prettily to take that delicacy away.

The eyeball flops down her cheek, leaving a little trail of blood. With my hand, I cup it, pulling it taut enough that I can slice through the string of muscle, through all the connecting tissue, freeing it from its captivity.

She fights me more with the second, bucking her body, playing a dangerous game that could result in my blade ending up in her skull.

She screams louder too. She sings so prettily.

Such pretty eyes. Such beautiful, beautiful eyes.

They say eyes are the window to a person’s soul. Well, now, I own that part of her. I’ve claimed it, stolen it. No other man will ever be able to look at her from now on and see what I have.

As I hold them both in my hand, they feel so delicate, so fragile. The most precious jewels on earth.

I clamber off the bed, leaving her there, writhing, whimpering, clawing at her face. I know she’s not going anywhere now, that when I return, she’ll be here still. Maybe I’ll fuck her one last time. Give her one final hit before I return her to her husband’s wrinkled old grasp.

I slip from room, knowing that if I don’t do this now, then they’ll spoil. I’ve spent enough time in Oblivion to know how to preserve body parts.

I find a jar, it’s not ideal but I can transfer them to something more suitable in time. I plop them both in and fill the void with alcohol.

These are mine now. All mine.

When I return to the suite, she’s laying there, howling, on the floor. She must have rolled off the bed, must have become disorientated without me there.

I pick her up, place her back on those bloodstained sheets, brushing the hair from her face.

There’s two hollow bleeding holes where her eyes were.

They stare back at me and I can’t help but smile at the knowledge that no one will ever lay their own eyes on them again.

It’s a piece of her I’m keeping.

A piece of her I’ll have for the rest of my days.

And for Paitlyn, the very last thing she remembers, the last thing she ever saw was me.