Page 16 of Sadist (The Triarchy Collection #1)

THEO

T here are not many days you could describe as perfect when you live a life like mine. Satisfying, yes. Even fulfilling, to an extent.

But perfect?

I hadn’t had a day even close to that in longer than I can remember.

Octavia was engrossed in a world of ink and imagination, while I was entranced by the way she would tilt her head slightly with a small frown as if trying to picture something.

She chewed on the corner of her lip as she read, and her thumb idly stroked the side of the Kindle between each touch to turn the page.

The need to touch her had been too much.

I don’t know if it was that I was already pushed to the edge of my tolerance on everything else that my self-control was slipping, but fuck I’d needed to know what she sounded like.

I needed to know what she tasted like. I had kept my hands busy from the second I had woken from my concussion, in an attempt to feel like I was in control of the full riot my body had descended into.

I had intended to just tease her with a little reward for not killing me in my comatose state…

Flex a little control after being knocked well and truly off my axis.

But when she had gasped my name with more than a little need laced into every syllable, I had given in to my desire, unable to resist trailing the tip of my nose up the side of her neck as I breathed in her scent and slipped my hand lower to feel just how desperate she was for me.

God, I had wanted to bite her, feel her tense and gasp as my teeth sank into her flesh.

The thought of that had a slow, delicious ache building between my thighs.

She had done exactly what I demanded of her, the words tripping over each other in her desperation to stay ahead of her orgasm as her muscles began to tremor…

and for once, I had enjoyed rewarding her as much as I would have loved marking that pretty pale skin of hers.

I don’t know at what point she stopped coming, at what point I withdrew my soaked hand to grip her chin, angling her so I could kiss her and finally know how soft her lips were…

or at what point her hand had slipped behind my neck, dragging me harder against her.

But I felt it, the moment that tiny possessive ember caught fire, scorching every dark crevice of my soul in a wildfire that was Octavia Vanguard.

My light in the dark.

And I didn’t know how I was going to keep her, but I’d be damned if I was going to let that go—especially as I sat at my desk and enlightened myself on what had been happening since the events at the bridge.

Tributes to Octavia had been left at the gates of the Vanguard estate. Flowers and trinkets from people who never even knew her piled up in a gaudy display that made my lip curl in disgust every time the images flashed up on screen.

She hadn’t asked me what had happened yet, though I could see the question moving closer to the surface the bolder she was getting—and she was definitely getting bolder. I could feel her eyes on me wherever I was in the room. I coveted it. Wanted her attention, and that alone was a novelty for me.

“What is your middle name?” she asked suddenly, taking me by surprise.

Swiveling my chair around, I gave her a long look.

“Pardon?”

“It begins with E,” she said, eyeing me from her usual spot on the couch.

She hadn’t been back in her cell since my injuries.

We hadn’t even spoken of it. And I hadn’t commented on the bed she had made up on the longer of the couches…

or the fact that it was kept in a disorganized nest of blankets that she tended to curl up in during the noon hours when the sun streamed through the windows.

She stretched like a cat, my Kindle gripped in her hand, and the sunlight shining off the different hues of golden blonde hair that she wore loose around her shoulders.

I wanted to wrap my fist in that hair and use it to drag her onto my strap, but I was barely holding myself in check as it was.

The next time I touched her, it would be at her initiation, and I was not going to go easy on her.

“Elain,” she guessed, when I was silent.

“You found my dog tags, I take it?” I asked dryly, turning back to the screens.

“They were hanging on your headboard, it’s not like they were hidden,” she protested. “And I saw a lot more than just your dog tags.”

I raised a brow at her over my shoulder to see that she had ducked her head down, her eyes glued to the Kindle again, but what I could see of her face was flaming red.

“Why, Octavia—did you take advantage of me in my incapacitated state?” I teased. “For shame.”

“No!” Her head snapped up, her gaze narrowing as she realized I was teasing her. “Ethel,” she said darkly. “Eunice?”

“My parents were drunks, not savages,” I retorted.

“Ellie?” She went on. “Emily…Emmerson—tell me if I get warm—Emory?”

“Octavia…” I warned.

“No, that starts with an O, Theodora.” She set the Kindle down, crossing her arms and twisting her mouth. “You look like an Elvira.”

“What the fuck does an Elvira look like?” I cried.

She gestured toward me in a wide circle. “Alll o’ that.”

I glared at her, and she smirked.

“It’s totally Elvira, isn’t it?”

“It’s Elizabeth,” I said through gritted teeth. “You done?”

“Theodora Elizabeth Lancaster?” she asked, her brows rising. “Really?”

I just folded my arms and leaned back in my seat.

“But it’s such a pretty name?” she said, then snapped her mouth shut, turning red.

“I mean…it’s not that you’re not pretty…

it’s just that pretty is the wrong word.

You’re hot.” She covered her mouth, closing her eyes for a moment.

“You are an educated woman, Octavia,” she muttered to herself. “Act like it.”

“Do you always talk to yourself, or is that another side effect of captivity?” I asked, waiting for her to calm down.

“Another side effect?” she asked, cracking an eye at me.

“I’m going to add Stockholm syndrome to the list,” I said, smirking.

“I do not have a psychological bond with you,” she snapped.

“No?” I teased. “The fascination with everything to do with me is purely coincidental, then?”

The muscle in her jaw ticked, and she pointedly ignored me, lifted the Kindle, and started to read again.

I snorted softly, turning back to the screens and flicking through more news reports.

“You never asked me what happened,” I said into the silence, and I could almost feel her go tense behind me.

“I know what happened,” she said after a long moment. “Whatever it is that my father stood to lose was of greater value than my life was to him. So, realistically, it still doesn’t narrow it down for me because that could be anything from a sandwich to a seat in parliament.”

I don’t know why the unbothered cadence of her voice made me so angry. She didn’t sound shocked, or upset, or even angry. It was just a fact, as if she already knew this about the man who had sired her.

“Who died for me, Theo?”

I wasn’t ready for that question, and I took a moment to compose myself before facing her.

“Whose body is in a morgue right now with my name attached?” she pressed.

Guilt swept over me as the memory suddenly hit me. The sound of her screams as the fire raged through my car.

“One of the local homeless,” I said. I owed her that truth at the very least. “She had blonde hair and a similar build to you and was happy to sit in my car for ￡50 and answer to your name if spoken to. I promised I would let her out after…and now she’s just another life whose blood is on my hands. ”

“Why did you switch us out? Did you know that would happen?” she asked.

“No,” I said quietly. “But I’ve been in this line of work long enough to have learned to trust my gut, and it didn’t feel right.”

She asked nothing more, and I didn’t say anything else, not trusting my temper, and the next few hours passed in companionable silence.