Page 8 of Ghouls and Girth (The Knottiverse: Halloween Monsters #4)

Daisy

Everything hurts. I’ve never ached so badly in my entire life. Dim lights illuminate a cobbled path, leading me through the cemetery, but my vision phases in and out as I fight to remain conscious.

My friends’ voices drift to me from far away. I stumble toward them, but my body struggles to follow basic commands.

My knees wobble and pain streaks from between my legs with every step. The last few minutes feel like the worst fever dream in history, and I wish they could be my mind playing tricks on me, but my ruined body proves they really happened.

A wave of need rolls over me, so intense my mind blanks and legs turn to jelly. I catch my palms on a smooth headstone and lock my elbows, desperate to remain upright.

I must escape. They’ll kill me if I don’t.

I won’t survive more of what they want to do to me. Despite the fiery lust melting my bones, the deep, throbbing pain in my abdomen warns me away from the monsters who took so much more than I was willing to give. So much more than I’ve given anyone.

No one would believe I lost my virginity in the brutal attack. Blood trickles down my body from razor-thin cuts. Smears of crimson mat my hair and cake my breasts. The wetness leaking from my swollen pussy washes away the proof of my virginity.

I sob.

My gums ache. Crescent teeth marks burn on my left calf. The decadent hints of mint and citrus fade from my tongue, leaving only the coppery taste of blood.

I bit Mr. Swanky Grouchypants. Mr. Grunty Hunk bit me.

The nicknames seem so stupid and na?ve now that I’ve tasted the depths of their depravity, but labeling them any other way threatens to upend my sanity. I was so, so wrong to think of this place as a sanctuary.

Everything hurts worse the further I stumble away.

Bianca’s shout pulls me out of my pity party. I rub my hand over my face to clear my eyes and gag at the goop coating my digits. With one boot missing, my uneven strides become even more of a challenge. The cobbled pathway is gone. So are the lights.

But Bianca’s angry voice carries clearly through the night even as the truck idles far off in the distance.

I’m close. They’re right there on the other side of the angel statue tombstone. Her spread wings cast a pitch-black shadow amid the moonless night.

An arm bands around me from behind and lifts me off my feet as a hand clamps over my mouth. Pure terror fuels my fight reflex, so even as I recognize the man is much too small to be one of the monsters, I kick and twist with everything I have.

“Do you really want your mother to see you like this, you fucking whore?” my stepfather hisses in my ear.

I open my mouth to bite him, but my stomach sours at his putrid scent, and I jerk my head to the side, desperate for fresh air. He drops his hand to my throat and squeezes. The world turns black.

My head throbs. Pain pulses from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair. Lush grass scratches the side of my face and prickles against my flattened breasts.

A line of fire streaks over my back.

I gasp awake and sob as the familiar sting of leather whips against my bare ass. Dirt cakes under my nails as I claw at the lawn. Cruel hands pin my head to the ground, lift my hips, and wedge my knees underneath me.

It’s too much. My soul cries out.

Two masculine souls respond.

I shake from the intensity of the connection. Nothing I’ve felt in my entire life could prepare me for the sensation. My stepfather lands several more blows, but I don’t feel them. I can’t. There’s no room for anything except the pain of the incomplete bonds in my chest.

Hair as white as snow plays over broad shoulders as a breeze fills my nostrils with overwhelming scents. Tears drip across the bridge of my nose and soak into the ground under my head as the delicious mix of mint and citrus soothes my angst.

Understanding snaps through me.

They changed me. They hurt me. They stole pieces of me I’ll never get back.

In return, they gave me pieces of themselves. The incomplete, jagged edges hurt.

My stepfather’s belt lands in the grass with a clink an inch in front of my face, blocking my view as a massive skeletal form weaves between the headstones. A low vibration infects my bones. It grows louder as my alpha draws nearer.

Disgust twists my insides as warm flesh brushes against my chilled ass. My stepfather’s putrid stench curdles my stomach. Something deep inside my chest cracks.

Animalistic fury sweeps through me. I fling clumps of dirt at my stepfather, but he presses more of his weight on his palm, increasing the pressure in my skull, and grinds his filthy cock against my ass.

Eerie white eyes ghost along my periphery. Long, razor-sharp talons flash.

I sob and snarl, but certainty thrums through my veins.

My monsters will save me. I will not suffer under my stepfather’s belt again. My mother’s selfishness won’t leave me to defend myself. Bryce will never touch me again.

My massive, brutal alphas will save, protect, and claim me.

Even if it means killing me when they shove their giant cocks inside my body.

And even if it makes me the biggest masochist on the planet, I yearn for their invasion. Ache for their domination. Throb for their cruelty.

But most of all, I’m desperate for their teeth in my flesh and their mark on my soul.

I need them.

Now.