Page 2 of Infinite Darkness (The Artmaker Trilogy #2)

Lunch sat between us on the table, untouched. Steam curled from the plate of roasted chicken and potatoes he’d made, filling the cabin with a smell that should’ve been comforting. But my stomach twisted tighter with every breath, appetite buried under a weight I couldn’t name.

Atticus sat across from me, elbows on the table, eyes steady and unreadable. He’d barely spoken since we came in from the pasture, letting the silence do what his words didn’t need to. My fingers worried the edge of the napkin on my lap, heart pounding like it was trying to warn me to run.

Finally, his voice cut through the quiet—deep, even, laced with that calm danger that made my pulse trip over itself. “You’re still conflicted,” he said, as though reading my thoughts. “But I’m not. So I’ll be certain enough for both of us.”

My breath caught. I didn’t answer, couldn’t.

He leaned forward slightly, green eyes pinning me in place, the corner of his mouth twitching like he almost smiled.

“You sit here. You eat what I make for you. And you don’t make me repeat myself.

If you don’t…” his tone dipped lower, a steel thread winding through velvet, “…I will put you over this table, tie you down, and remind you why you don’t test me.

And after that, Bluebell?” His head tilted, voice brushing over my skin like a dark promise.

“You’ll eat every bite I put in front of you. Are we clear?”

Heat curled low in my stomach, traitorous and hot, clashing with the fear crawling icy fingers up my spine. I shifted in my chair, unable to meet his gaze. “I… yes, I understand.” My voice was small, too thin to carry the weight of what he demanded.

“That’s not what I want you to say.” His tone sharpened, making my skin prickle.

My lips trembled. “Yes, sir.”

A slow, satisfied smile pulled at his mouth, victory disguised as tenderness.

He reached across the table, his knuckles brushing my chin, tilting my face toward him like I was something he’d claimed long ago.

“Good girl,” he murmured, low enough that the words curled straight into my chest. “That’s my obedient little Bluebell. ”

The word made me flinch, shame and defiance twisting in my stomach. “I’m not your pet,” I whispered before I could stop myself, my voice a shaky echo.

Atticus’s smile didn’t falter, but something darker slid behind his eyes, something feral and unmovable.

“Ah, but you are,” he said softly, like it was fact, like it had already been carved into me.

“Whether you’re ready to admit it or not, you need me just as much as I need you.

And I…” His hand tightened slightly under my chin, holding me there, forcing me to look at him.

“…I am not a good man. I don’t wait for permission. I take what’s mine.”

My breath stuttered, and the world around us narrowed to the press of his gaze, the quiet hum of danger vibrating in the air. Then his next words slid in cold and sharp, cutting through the haze.

“If you ever left, Bluebell…” His lips curved in a mockery of a smile. “Well, I can’t exactly make you into art. So I’d have to let you go.”

Something in his tone made my blood run cold, horror creeping in with a clarity that stole my breath. “Make me… art?” My voice cracked, barely audible. “If I wasn’t me, if I was someone else, you’d… kill me? Turn me into one of your pieces?”

He didn’t look away. Didn’t deny it. And that silence was worse than anything he could’ve said.

The truth hit like a blade sliding slow between my ribs: I was sitting across from a man who didn’t just take what he wanted. He decided who deserved to live. Who deserved to die. And what pieces of you got left behind when he was done.

For a single, dizzying moment, I wondered if freezing to death on that roadside would’ve been kinder than this.

He must have seen the fear flash across my face, because he leaned back slightly, voice shifting into something quieter, almost tender. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse a wild staccato. “Other humans?” The words barely made it past my lips.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“You… kill them?” My voice broke, thin and trembling, as I asked the question I already knew the answer to.

Atticus’s thumb slid under my chin again, tipping my head up until his green eyes locked on mine, sharp and unyielding. “Look at me when we discuss things,” he said softly, a command threaded with threat. My breath hitched as his fingers traced down my cheek, tender and possessive all at once.

Every instinct screamed to pull away, but the ice in his gaze rooted me to the spot. I forced a small nod, my voice barely a whisper. “Yes… sir.”

Atticus’s thumb found my chin, slow, deliberate, a pressure that felt like ownership.

My breath snagged, the memory of waking under his weight slamming into me—the heavy press of his arm, the way my thighs had ached, the shame that had pooled low in my stomach even while my body betrayed me.

That gnawing, hungry part of me I didn’t want to admit existed…

it hadn’t left. It hummed under my skin even now, traitorous and hot.

“Eyes on me, Bluebell,” he said, voice low and calm, but threaded with steel. “When we talk about important things, you look at me.”

My chin trembled under his grip, tears pricking hot at the corners of my eyes.

I wanted to look away, wanted to crawl out of my own skin, but his gaze held me there, sharp and unyielding.

Like he could see every dirty thought I’d had this morning, every question looping in my head that I didn’t dare say out loud: Why didn’t I stop him?

Why did I want it? What does that make me?

He traced a finger down my cheek, feather-light, cruel in its gentleness.

“Ah, my pretty little Bluebell,” he murmured, voice curling over me like smoke.

“I can taste it on you. Sadness, fear… and something else.” His lips almost brushed my ear, his tone a dark caress.

“You’re waiting for me to make sense of myself.

To give you answers that make me less of a monster in your head. ”

A tremor ran through me, every instinct screaming to pull back. But when I flinched, his eyes iced over, warning enough to still me.

“Do not pull away from me.” The words were soft, deadly quiet, and they pinned me harder than his hand did.

My breath hitched as I forced a nod, the sound of my own pulse deafening in my ears. “Yes… sir.”

A smile ghosted across his mouth, slow and feral, victory disguised as warmth.

His fingers trailed down my collarbone, light as a whisper, but every nerve in my body screamed under his touch, memories from the night before flooding me.

The heat of his breath on my neck. The weight of his body caging mine.

The awful truth that somewhere deep down, I’d wanted what he’d done, even while my lips begged him to stop.

“There’s no neat explanation for me,” he said softly, but his tone was a blade gliding just beneath my skin.

“I’m not a good man. I don’t pretend to be.

I make beauty out of endings no one else is brave enough to witness.

Living, breathing humans…” He leaned closer, his words intimate and vile all at once.

“…transformed into art. Masterpieces to be admired forever. Every one of them unique. Every one of them unforgettable.”

My breath came in broken gasps, horror settling like ice in my veins. Tears welled, spilling hot and fast before I could stop them, salt catching on my lips as my whole body shook.

“You’re insane,” I whispered, my voice cracking, the word a desperate attempt to push him away, to make him unreal.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, his eyes locked on mine with terrifying certainty.

“No, Bluebell,” he said, soft enough to sound like comfort, lethal enough to make my stomach lurch.

“Insane would mean I couldn’t stop myself.

But I can. I just don’t want to. Watching life slip away doesn’t make me sick.

” His hand gripped my chin harder, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, every word a knife.

“It makes me feel alive. Inspired. Like I was put on this earth to create beauty from ashes.”

My chest squeezed tight, bile burning the back of my throat. This wasn’t just a man who killed. This was a man who savored it . Who could look me in the eye over a quiet lunch and tell me that death was his muse.

And sitting there, trapped under his touch, my heart hammering in my ears, a sick, shameful truth crawled up my spine: I wasn’t just afraid of him. I was afraid of what he made me feel.