Page 79 of Lord of the Lone Wolf (Bonded Hearts #3)
His hand slid lower, fingers tracing the waistband of Maseo’s breeches with deliberate intent. He pressed his erection more insistently against Maseo’s thigh. “I can’t wait to fuck you until you can’t remember Auslin’s or Kitsuki’s names.”
The words sent a wave of nauseating terror through Maseo, far worse than the physical pain of the sword. It wasn’t about revenge or jealousy anymore. Kio had become an inhuman creature of pure malice that killed without conscience and took pleasure in suffering.
“Please stop,” Maseo whispered, hating himself for the word but unable to stop it from escaping.
Kio’s hand moved lower to work at the fastenings of Maseo’s breeches. “It’s nice to know you still beg so beautifully. You must get a lot of practice from pleading with Kitsuki to pay attention to you.”
“That’s not true,” Maseo denied.
Kio leaned in closer, his breath hot against Maseo’s ear, the unmistakable hardness of his arousal pressing against his captive’s thigh. “You can pretend you hated it, but we both know how much you loved getting fucked by me. Nobody’s dick has ever made you feel as good as mine. Say it.”
Maseo remained mute, refusing to give Kio another victory.
Kio pushed aside the loosened fabric, his fingers trailing over skin with a familiar, unwanted intimacy. Maseo’s body went rigid with revulsion, but there was nowhere to go, no way to escape the touch that brought back memories he’d spent years trying to bury.
“There it is,” Kio moaned in satisfaction. “Your body remembers who you belong to, even if your mind wants to forget.”
“Get your hands off me,” Maseo snarled, but Kio only chuckled.
“Or what? You’ll fight me?” Kio’s other hand came up to cup Maseo’s face, his thumb brushing over his cheekbone in a mockery of tenderness. “You’re pinned to a wall with my sword through your shoulder. You can barely stay conscious, let alone fight.”
As if to prove his point, Kio leaned in and pressed his lips to Maseo’s throat, teeth scraping against the vulnerable skin in a promise of violence. A groan of pleasure escaped him as his body shuddered against Maseo’s.
The contact sent revulsion through Maseo, stirring memories of similar unwanted touches that had once led to brutal violations. He turned away, earning a backhand across the face so violent that his vision exploded with stars as his head cracked against the stone wall.
“No, you don’t get to reject me anymore. It’s my right to fuck you, because you’ve always been mine.”
Maseo spat, tasting copper where his teeth had cut his lip. “No matter what you do to me, I’ll never be yours again.”
Something dark and terrible flickered in Kio’s eyes, a glimpse into the abyss that had consumed whatever humanity he once possessed. “You’ve forgotten your place. But don’t worry. I’ll enjoy reminding you.”
His hand moved to Maseo’s throat in silent threat.
“Do you know what the best part is?” Kio’s touch drifted to Maseo’s chest, nails raking over sensitive skin hard enough to leave red welts.
His breath caught at the sight of the marks he was creating, his gaze following them with sick fascination.
“They’re too busy fucking each other to care about me destroying you. ”
His palm covered Maseo’s heart. “I could keep you here for hours. Maybe even days, since this part of the castle is never used. Nobody will hear you scream but me.”
“Someone will come looking for me,” Maseo said, but each passing second made it harder to believe.
“When?” Kio’s laugh was the sound of breaking sanity, his eyes bright with a feverish light of desire. “Tomorrow morning, when you don’t show up for breakfast? By then, I’ll be long gone, and you’ll be nothing but a memory.”
His hand moved lower again, past Maseo’s navel, and the half-wolf shifter’s struggles grew more frantic, despite the agony it caused.
He couldn’t let Kio reduce him to the broken thing he had once been. “No, I won’t let you do this.”
“And how do you plan to stop me? You can barely stand, you have no weapon, and you’re losing blood fast. Your body can’t heal with the sword still in you. Face it, Maseo. No one’s coming to save you this time.”
Maseo refused to give up. He had survived his father’s attempt to kill him by finding strength he never knew he possessed. He wouldn’t let it end with giving Kio the satisfaction of breaking him again.
“You’re wrong. They’ll save me because, unlike you, I’m not alone anymore. I’m loved.” It wasn’t true, but Maseo needed to believe it to keep going.
Kio’s face contorted with rage. “You think they love you? That’s rich. You’re nothing but their charity case. The moment you become inconvenient, they’ll throw you away, like everyone else who has abandoned you. You’ll be wishing you could come crawling back to me.”
“When they find out what you’ve done, they’ll make you pay.”
Kio responded by grabbing Maseo’s face and forcing a brutal, possessive kiss on him designed to humiliate. A moan of pleasure rumbled in his chest as he violated Maseo’s mouth. Maseo bit down hard on Kio’s lip, tasting blood as the madman jerked back with a howl of pain.
Instead of hitting him, Kio dug his fingers into Maseo’s throat. “Maybe I’ll strangle you while I take what I want.”
Maseo’s vision began to blur and darken as Kio’s grip tightened, cutting off his air supply. He clawed at Kio with his free arm, but his strength was fading fast. The combination of blood loss, pain, and oxygen deprivation was taking its toll.
“That’s it,” Kio murmured, rocking his hips against Maseo in a violating rhythm. “Be a good boy and let me have what’s mine.”
But Maseo couldn’t stop fighting. Even as darkness crept in around the edges of his vision and his lungs burned for air, he continued to struggle. He remembered all the reasons he had to live, all the people who would mourn his loss, and found strength he didn’t know he possessed.
With his remaining air, with the last of his strength, Maseo spat, “Rot in Blightmare Vale, you worthless fuck.”
Kio’s grip loosened, and Maseo sucked in a desperate breath. “What did you say to me?”
“You heard me.”
Rather than responding with words, Kio jerked the sword upward.
The twisting motion connected with the festering necromancy wound between his shoulder blades, awakening the rotting magic embedded in his back. What had been lying dormant roared to life as Kio’s sadism fed the dark magic, using the fresh trauma as an invitation to feast.
A scream tore from Maseo’s throat as his upper back became a battlefield. The sword carved a new pathway of destruction through his shoulder while decay radiated outward from the original wound, the two sources of agony merging into something unholy.
“Shout all you want,” Kio taunted, his body shuddering with each convulsion that wracked Maseo’s frame. The man’s twisted enjoyment poured into the dark magic like fuel on a fire, giving the necromancy strength to burrow deeper. “No one is coming to save you. It’s only you and me.”
Tears streamed down his face unbidden, his body betraying his determination to remain defiant as every fiber of his being rebelled against the dual assault.
The necromancy gorged itself on the fresh territory of destruction to devour with ravenous intensity.
What had been separate sources of torment now pulsed in unison, creating a feedback loop that made his vision fracture into fragments of white-hot agony.
The first drops of putrid poison fluid seeped from the original necromantic wound to leak into the new one. What had been a slow poisoning was becoming a sprint toward the grave.
Kio twisted the sword again, and Maseo’s cries echoed off the stone walls, swallowed by the darkness of the empty corridor.
Blood mixed with necrotic acid ran down his chest, pooling on the floor beneath his feet, while Kio’s mad laughter mingled with the sound of his anguish, his arousal mounting with each moment of Maseo’s suffering.
His free hand slipped inside Maseo’s breeches to claim the ultimate victory over his captive. “Let’s see how long you can last before you break.”
Maseo closed his eyes and prepared to suffer but clung to the distant hope that rescue might come before Kio destroyed him.