Page 140 of Jewel of the Assassin

I can’t see what he’s doing, but I know he’s not sane. Not safe. My maddening assassin, who knows all the erotic, beautiful ways to hurt me, to make me crave him until only we exist in a storm of our own making. We’ve ripped our storm upon our enemies.

Now, we’re entering the eye.

When Roman turns and advances toward me again, my jaw drops at the object in each hand. “You can’t be serious!”

A wicked grin crooks one side of his face.

Okay, there’s kinky, and then there’s just crazy.

Roman’s prepared. The second I dodge to one side, trying to lunge out of the way, he catches me.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Valentina,” he scolds me while I buck and thrash against him, kicking up a storm.

With one iron-strong arm, he maintains his hold on me, then kicks the cross bearing Anton’s corpse right off the altar. The fall thunders through the church, and I feel it reverberate into thealtar as Roman dumps me on the stone, spattered with his brother’s blood. I try to scramble away, half-desperate from panic and half-desperate from need, for him to punish me harder.

Like a ritualistic cleansing. Make it hurt. Make it hard. Purge what was old.

All that we were dies here on this altar. What rises next will be unbroken and untouchable.

We are so going to hell for this.

46

“I will possess you. I will hurt you until I have all of you.”

ROMAN

Her screams have only begun.

Something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention. Inspiration hits, and I warn Valentina not to move while I rip down the decorative ceremonial chains on the walls at the back of the church. Her eyes go wide, and she tries to scramble off the altar, slipping on all the blood. I have to say, she’s gorgeous. Like some she-demon risen from the bowels of hell, soaked in the blood of a thousand demons.

Before she can get off the altar, I seize her, planting her front down on the stone before binding her with the iron chains. Her legs spread. One look at Anton’s raw lash marks on her back has my chest hardening. Today, I’m opening the wound—so I may give her new ones.

“In this chapel, the old world is rendered to ash at our feet,” I proclaim. “We have taken our justice, our revenge. We have takenthe purest freedom and right to sin, to descend. And now, we will rise. The past burned away. The future is ours.”

“Roman,” she whispers, swallowing hard.

A muscle thunders in my jaw as I trace one finger along her spine, reveling in how she shivers. Other than a little whimper, she doesn’t make a sound. She doesn’t so much as twitch. Such a good girl.

She knows what’s coming. She knows who I am.

I am the inventor of her wildest dreams and sweetest nightmares. I know how to make her weep with the delicate balance of torture before she sings from utter rapture.

No shields or armor tonight. No walls. Everything stripped apart, pressed down, shaken together, an outpouring of blood and fire and wrath. My love for her is brutal and violent. Obsessive. I will worship her as devastatingly as I afflict her. Hatred and love will clash like strangers on a bender.

So, I do not hesitate before cutting down the bell tower rope, hardly disturbing the chimes in the process. Strong rope. Not too thick and not too thin.

“Roman, what are you doing?” she moans, straining her neck to see.

I take my place behind her and slowly drag the rope across her back, caressing her skin with its touch. “Not Roman. Master, now.”

She takes a deep breath. As I do.

I raise the rope like a fire whip. The moment she softens, I bring it down in a hard strike on her ass. Her yelp gets me harder.

Crack! I strike the other side of her plump, firm buttocks. I swing again and again, not stopping until they are red and chafed. I move onto her back, opening the marks. She shrieks and sobs through her tears, wetting the altar.

Heat simmers under my skin, the blood swarming to my cock.