Page 36 of The Ecstasy of Sin

I break into a jog to cross the street, slowing down again once I hit the side of the church. When I round the corner, I hear voices. One I instantly recognize, and one I don’t.

Wren’s outline is the first thing I see. Then lightning strikes across the sky in a wicked web of bolts, weaving through the thick clouds, and the scene explodes into clarity.

A man has his hand on Wren, gripping her wrist and tugging her toward his looming form.

An unholy rage detonates inside me, and not even the consecrated ground beneath my feet can keep my demons at bay.

Bloodlust takes over, shifting my vision to red, focused entirely on the motherfucker that thinks he can touch what belongs to me.

Wren is fucking mine!

They fall to the rain-slick concrete, and another flash of lightning brightens the scene. His hands, which I intend to cut from his fucking body, are wrapped around her throat.

She’s fighting him; kicking, thrashing, and clawing.

I black out.

The last thing I can remember is breaking out into a run as my mind devolves into a primitive beast with a singular focus: protect what’s mine.

The next thing I know, I’m kneeling on the motherfucker’s chest, delivering hit after brutal hit to his fucking face.

I’m lost in the madness of my obsession, burning with rage and pleasure. I need to kill him. He touched her, hurt her, and he tried to kill her.

The bones of his skull are shattering beneath my fists, what teeth he has left in his mouth are coated in red as his lips split in a dozen cuts.

My hands are aching so profoundly, but I can’t stop. Not when his face caves in, and thick blood runs like someone turned on a faucet. Not when discordant sounds and gurgling emit from the mess of a human face beneath me, and definitely not when pleasure settles at the base of my spine.

The chaotic mixture of earned violence and euphoria rides me so fucking hard, it clears the fog of rage from my mind and centers me.

My breathing steadies, and that’s when I finally stop hitting the man who tried to kill Wren.

Fuck.I want to drag her over and lay her out in this carnage. I want to spread her thighs, and force myself inside of her. I want to make her come all over my cock until she understands what all of this means.

Until she understands what I’ve become for her.

I reach behind me, blood-slick fingers wrapping around the hilt of my knife beneath my sweatshirt, and draw it free.

My head turns just as lightning splits open the pitch black sky, and I see Wren sitting upright, one hand to her throat and the other helping to push herself across the ground, away from me and the horror I’ve wrought in her name.

My voice is eerily calm, nearly unrecognizable, as I call out to her. “Run, little lamb.”

I don’t wait to see what she does. I lift the dagger up, twirling it in my hand, then drive it down into him.

The man’s chest heaves beneath me, his lungs full of blood, desperate for a breath that will never come. I twist the dagger to open the wound, dropping my free hand to slide it along the edge of the blade and feel the rush of thick, hot blood as it flows around my fingers.

I groan, dropping my head and soaking in the feel of him dying beneath me. My knees sliding on blood and rain, falling to either side of his torso.

My cock is straining against my zipper, and the intense need to fuck Wren in the pool of this man’s blood has me shuddering.

Wren.

I glance to the side, relieved to see that Wren obeyed me and fled like prey into the night. I spot her backpack nearby, and narrow my gaze at it like it personally wronged me.

She needs that.

I rise from the corpse, peel off my soaked sweatshirt, and start wiping the worst of the blood from my hands. I’m still a fucking mess, but I need my phone. I scrub just enough gore off to dig it from my back pocket and make the call.

Ryker answers on the second ring. “What’s up, Daddy?”