Page 89 of The Ecstasy of Sin

The red pool spreading beneath him—fed by the shredded mess of his back—is growing by the second as he gasps for breath, fighting to stay conscious through the agony.

Arousal shoots through me like a fucking arrow. My cock begins to harden at the sight, thick with bloodlust and ecstasy.

I focus on the pain radiating through my body, grounding myself in the ache, using it to keep the euphoria at bay.

An image flashes through my mind: Wren pinned beneath me in all of this blood, her soft cunt taking my cock for the first time. The fantasy has me bricked the fuck up.

I take a moment to catch my breath, and to survey the bloodthirsty crowd. The gory scene before them is so nauseating that one man drops his head and pukes onto the floor. I can’t help but laugh, knowing that the best is yet to come: I’m going to rip open Maksim’s body and decorate the cage with his entrails.

Dimitri will never recover from what he watches me do to his brother tonight. He will regret every fucking decision he made to try to pressure and bully my brothers into obedience.

I wait ever so fucking patiently for my opponent as he tries to collect himself, and steady his erratic breathing.

There’s no fun in ending him too soon, not when I have so much more rage to feed him. So much more pleasure to draw from his suffering.

Maksim is struggling. His back is a butchered mess of meat and blood, and pain is etched into every line of his face.

My eyes sweep past the cage, letting the chaos wash over me, until something catches my eye.

Wren.

She’s standing at the back of the crowd, safely beyond the crush of bodies. My brothers flank her left side, watching the fight with intense concentration.

She’s looking right at me. Those big, brown eyes, wide and haunting and fixed on mine. Her wavy hair spills over hershoulders like a curtain of silk, making her look like something holy dropped in the middle of hell.

The urge to get her out of here and back to the safety of my home slams into my chest like a bullet.

And then I see Dimitri fucking Volkov, stepping up behind the woman that belongs to me.

He’s holding my gaze, a smug smile twisting his mouth, as he snakes an arm around her waist and jerks her back against his unworthy body.

Rage fractures my pitch black soul, a red haze descending over my vision as I watch confusion, and then fear, fill her eyes.

Dimitri starts pulling her away, dragging her backward through the crowd as she tries to resist. The edges of my vision begin to darken as my bloodlust mutates into something far worse.

Dimitri Volkov is a fucking dead man, and I’m going to make him suffer so profoundly that he begs me for death. And for the fucking crime of touching what’s mine? For putting fear into Wren’s eyes? I won’t let him have that mercy. I’m going to torture him until his fucking mind breaks and his heart gives out.

The darkness that consumes me every time I take a life claws its way to the surface, obliterating the razor-sharp focus I had on this fight. I don’t see Maksim coming until his shoulder crashes into the center of my back.

The air is ripped from my lungs as he knocks me to the ground, my back scraping across the rough, textured mat as he throws chaotic punches at my face.

One catches the side of my head before I raise both of my arms to block, the hatred inside of me rising with the need to exterminate his entire bloodline.

I let the fury swell inside of me until it possesses every cell of my body like a demon from the burning pits of hell, dropping my guard and letting him land one hit to my mouth before I move.

Maksim’s gaze narrows, surprise flickering across his face as I stop fighting back. That split second of hesitation is mine, and I use it with tactical devastation.

Trapping his legs with mine, I yank him down and drive my shoulder into him, rolling us until he’s pinned beneath me.

Straddling his hips, I let the maddening fog descend, and batter his fucking face without mercy.

Maksim is going to fucking die—him and his piece of shit brother. I will destroy the entire fucking Bratva if I have to, and I’ll do it with a smile.

He tries to defend himself, but I shift my weight up his body to drive my knee into the underside of his jaw. It rattles him so hard he slips into a daze, but I don’t stop striking him. His face is a mess of blood and bruises, broken open in so many places that he no longer looks human.

The floor of the cage vibrates dully under my knees, through every impact with Maksim’s face. Muted, like they're underwater, the crowd roars so loudly the very ground shakes beneath us. Like sharks they long to feed on this man’s death.

My mind blacks out in the psychotic mist that is my fury. My knuckles are splitting despite the black wraps covering them,because I’m hitting him so hard and fast that the blood soaked bandages are sliding out of place.