Page 59 of The King of Hearts (The Raven Group #1)

She’s silent and doesn’t move for a moment, as if she’s having an internal debate in her head.

But then she drops her dress and spins away.

Her steps are slow as she approaches the low table.

The light from overhead is in the perfect position to shine down on her.

In her white dress, she glows like an avenging angel as she stands beside the table and stares down at Joseph.

When she speaks, her words are so low that I barely hear them.

“Joseph is your name, right?” She doesn’t wait for his reply, not that he can give it anyway.

“Did you know what Henry was going to do when you took me to him? I was thirteen years old. Still a child. And you delivered me to a man who made me strip in front of him so he could inspect my body. He wanted to make sure I was a good fit and would match his ideal wife. Had the right child-bearing hips to carry his children, the right mannerisms a good wife should have.”

The more she talks, the angrier her expression gets, and the darker my mood grows. I already knew what Henry did to her, but hearing it from Savina’s lips is different from seeing the words on the report I gathered on her.

“He kept me in his freezing cold basement, no clothes or even a blanket to cover myself. I had a toilet and sink and a mattress as thin as paper. Every day I woke up thinking it was only a nightmare, but then the coldness would seep into my bones, reminding me that I was actually living a nightmare.”

Joseph stares up at Savina as she tells him the story of her ordeal, of the situation he put her in.

His eyes are wide with fright, and his body shakes, pure instinct giving him an idea of how his own ordeal will end.

He knows it’s not going to be pretty, but he has no clue just how fucking messy it’s going to get.

“I guess it could have been worse.” Her eyes blaze as she glares down at him.

“Henry never touched me. He left me in the basement alone and only visited long enough to deliver food twice a day. But the thing is, it was the anticipation, the waiting for it to happen, that was more terrifying. I knew one of the times he came to see me, his hands-off approach would change. Fortunately, my family found me before that could happen.”

Her hands ball into fists where she’s resting them on the table beside Joseph’s hip. “You’ve gotten away with what you did long enough. No one deserves to die more than you. And I hope you’re just as scared as I was when I was alone in that basement.”

Alexander used every resource available to him when he searched every corner of the world for the man who took his daughter all of those years ago, and he never managed to find him. He wasn’t even able to get a name. It took me six weeks to locate the bastard.

The whole time Savina spoke, Joseph has kept quiet and hasn’t moved a muscle. But when she turns and goes to the table filled with torture tools, that’s when he comes alive. He jerks against the ropes holding him in place and screams behind the ball gag.

She ignores him and me as she gazes down at the array of tools, picking and choosing which to use.

Most are old and rusty, and a few of them still have blood speckled across the surfaces.

It’s not like you need to worry about infection because the people who enter this room don’t leave it breathing.

She grabs a pair of vise grips and tests them by squeezing and releasing the handle. Seeming satisfied with the functionality, she takes it with her back to the table. The train of her dress drags across the floor, the white material already getting smudged with dirt and grime.

If I were the one in her place, ready to deliver whatever torture method she’s chosen, I would have removed the ball gag so I could hear him scream, but my Vicious leaves it in place. It’s probably best anyway. Repetitious begging becomes wearisome after a while.

I lean against the wall and get ready for the show. When Savina grabs the flap on the front of Joseph’s boxers and tears it open, I want to stalk across the room and rip off the flaccid piece of flesh that’s exposed. I don’t like her looking at another man’s cock.

I hold my place against the wall and grind my molars together. This is my gift to Savina, so I’ll keep my ass right here and let her do her thing.

She looks down at the minuscule piece of flesh, her gaze lingering on it a bit too long.

“Get on with it, Savina,” I growl from across the room. My patience is dwindling and the more she looks at another man’s cock, the redder my vision becomes. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

She looks at me over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. “This one is mine, Ryker. Leave the room if you can’t deal with me touching another man’s cock. You won’t have to worry much longer anyway.”

I can’t help it. I grin at her.

She looks at my mouth for long moments, and I can imagine the things running through her head just from her expression alone.

I’m about to stalk to her and fuck her where she stands when she makes that sucking teeth sound and spins back around to Joseph.

The fucking part of the program will come later.

She grabs the stubby limp dick in front of her in her soft hand.

My teeth gnash together so hard the muscle in my jaw cramps.

Joseph begins wiggling on the table as best as he can in his tightly bound state, and pathetic sounds come out around the ball gag in his mouth. His eyes are as big as golf balls.

Savina ignores his useless struggles as she pinches the honey-colored flesh just under the lip of the head. She pinches it so hard that the meat flattens to less than an inch. Then she pulls it away from Joseph’s body, stretching it so it’s taut.

His struggles don’t stop, but he’s bound so tightly to the table that his attempts to get her hands off of him don’t hinder her in the slightest. I look at the side of her face as she grabs the vise grips.

Concentration, determination, and utter calm cover her features. But there’s something else there, too.

Glee and serenity.

My vicious little angel is enjoying herself.

It’s that look, coupled with what’s causing it, that makes my cock grow painfully hard in my slacks. I fucking love Savina’s dark side. It perfectly matches my own.

With the meager piece of flesh still stretched out as far as it’ll go, Savina unclamps the vise grips and circles the teeth around it down by the root before locking it closed.

If it were possible, Joseph’s eyes would have popped out and rolled to the table with how wide they are.

He jerks against the leather, yanking and pulling until the skin around the straps bulge out.

Snot flies from his nose at the forceful sounds he’s making.

He manages to give a particular emphatic yank, and it jars Savina’s grip on the tool.

“Stay fucking still,” she snarls and jerks on the vise grips.

Joseph’s out of his mind with fear, so of course he doesn’t stop. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like he’s going to get away.

Savina’s next move is unexpected. I assumed she’d grab a knife or some other tool to cut Joseph’s dick off, but my Vicious is more creative than that. More blood thirsty.

Instead, she starts twisting the vise grips. She does it slowly and with a steady hand, her head cocked to the side as she watches her work. The skin turns a nasty purplish color when the blood flow gets cut off.

Joseph thrashes and strains, jerking against the leather holding him captive to his punishment. His face is a deep shade of red, and every muscle in his body bulges as the pain of having his dick slowly and torturously torn from his body becomes tenfold.

There’s no hint of disgust or even a glimpse of sympathy anywhere on Savina’s face as blood starts to seep out around the clamp of the vise grips.

Red spurts, and it hits her face. She doesn’t blink or acknowledge the speckles.

Her expression remains the same. Peaceful and at ease with a hint of delighted pleasure.

There’s only a small string of flesh left, and Savina gives it a harsh yank.

She holds up the dismembered hunk of meat dangling from the vise grips so the light shines directly on it.

Her hand is covered in blood, and lines of red seep down her arm.

The front of her dress is covered in the stuff as well.

And her skin, the ivory flesh above the bodice, is painted red.

One side of Savina’s mouth tips up as she stares at the dismembered body part, flipping it one way and then the other.

“There’s not much to it, is there?” she asks with a curious note.

The question is rhetorical, but I still say, “No, baby.”

“Kind of disappointing.”

She drops the piece of flesh on the table between Joseph’s legs and looks at the mess she left behind at his groin. Joseph passed out halfway through the ordeal, so he’s as still as a statue, except for the rise and fall of his chest.

“Do we have adrenaline?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder at me.

A grin slowly forms on my face. I fucking love the way she thinks.

A normal person would go into hysterics at even the thought of doing what she just did.

They’d black out, vomit, screech, and run away if put in this situation, even if they had experienced what Savina had.

Most people just can’t handle the gory shit.

Not my vicious angel, though. She fucking thrives on it.

“We do,” I tell her. “Shall I get it for you?”

“Yes, please.” She goes back to looking at Joseph’s passed-out form. “And can you grab the torch for me? I need to cauterize the wound. I don’t want him bleeding out before I’m finished with him.”