Page 60 of The King of Hearts (The Raven Group #1)

I go to the table and unzip the pouch that has several syringes of epinephrine.

Plucking one out, I take it and the yellow torch over to Savina, dropping them both onto Joseph’s bare chest. I’m facing her, but she’s still facing Joseph.

Grabbing a fistful of her hair, I turn her head and tilt it back.

Her pretty, chocolatey eyes meet mine. She’s so goddamn beautiful with her face dotted with blood, and what makes it so appealing is that she’s the one who drew that blood.

I drop my head and steal a kiss. Our lips smash together, and I thrust my tongue inside her mouth.

She matches my passion with her own, moaning into our kiss like she can’t get enough.

Fuck knows, I never will. This woman has made me into an addict, and my drug of choice is her.

There will never be a time in a thousand lifetimes where I’ve reached my limit of her.

I yank my mouth away from hers before I do something rash, like fuck her before she’s done with her task. She pants and her eyes are glazed over as she dazedly stares up at me.

“Finish up, Vicious.”

She blinks a couple of times before the lust-clouded look fades away, and she comes back to reality. Her pink tongue darts out and touches her lips, like she’s licking that last little bit of me on her mouth.

I go back to my position against the wall. A smug smirk tips up my lips when her hand fumbles with the syringe at first. I like knowing I affect her enough that I distract her.

Instead of cauterizing the wound in Joseph’s groin while he’s passed out to save him from the pain, she chooses to shoot him up with adrenaline first. I would have done the same. I mean, torture is the reason we’re here, after all.

Savina jabs the syringe in the meaty part of Joseph’s thigh and pushes the plunger.

The effect of the shot is immediate. His eyes pop open wide, the white in the orbs almost glowing.

They dart around and within seconds lock on Savina.

The thrashing begins again, along with the muffled yells against the ball gag.

“It’s bad form to pass out before the fun is over, Joseph,” she states over his smothered yells.

She picks up the torch. It takes her a minute to figure out how to turn it on. The flame that comes out of the burn tip is blue, then turns a purplish-pink.

The thrashing and screaming get worse. And the best part?

Joseph will feel every second as Savina burns his flesh to seal the leaking arteries. The adrenaline pumping through his body won’t allow him to pass out. And it won’t allow his heart to stop.

It’s fucking glorious.

Joseph’s muted screams still echo in my ears over an hour later.

He held on longer than I thought he would.

Even after the second dose of adrenaline wore off, he lasted another ten minutes before he passed out from blood loss, and his heart stopped beating.

That was five minutes ago. Savina was in the process of using a cigar cutter on one of his last remaining fingers when he died.

His death didn’t stop her though. She slammed her hand down on the cigar cutter, and the detached digit rolled from the table to the floor.

Meeting the same fate as the others. As Savina moved around the table, those fingers were kicked around by her bare feet.

It didn’t even faze her when she stepped on one.

Her dress is more red than white. Not once did she falter in her torture. She stayed the course and inflicted as much pain as she could.

Joseph’s lifeless body is missing eight of his ten fingers, has strips of flesh missing along his torso, has one eye removed, both ankles have been crushed and are at awkward angles, and there are deep lacerations over eighty percent of his body.

On the floor below the table, strips of flesh and fingers swim in a pool of blood.

Savina’s bloody arms hang loose at her sides, and her expression is composed when she turns to face me. “Take his heart,” she says. “I want it.”

“Whatever you wish, baby.”

I go to the table and get the items I need.

I’ve perfected the art of removing a heart from a human body, so the process doesn’t take very long.

The only thing I’m missing is the sounds of Joseph’s screams. Most often, my victims are always alive when I begin the process, and I kind of miss the symbolic sounds.

My arms, up to my elbows, and the front of my dress shirt are covered in blood when I hold out the heart to Savina over Joseph’s dead body. Her eyes light up with pleasure as she takes it into her small hands.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll give you any man’s heart. You only have to ask.”

Her eyes hold mine for a beat before she drops them to the bloody heart. She turns it this way and that, head cocked to the side, inspecting the organ. She flicks one of the severed arteries with the tip of a finger.

I drop the tool in my hand, and it falls inside the empty cavity of Joseph’s chest. I stalk around the table, my thoughts moving from blood and torture to something more lascivious.

I’ve kept a lid on my desire while my Vicious played with her victim, but that type of playtime is over. It’s my turn to have some fun.

Savina’s head lifts from admiring her newly acquired heart, and her eyes meet mine. They turn to pools of melted chocolate when she sees the salacious intent on my face. Her arm lifts out away from her body, and her fingers let go of the heart. It thunks on Joseph’s body and rolls somewhere.

The moment I reach her, my fingers latch around her delicate throat.

Using my thumb, I apply pressure to the underside of her jaw so she’s forced to tip her head back.

Streaks of blood smear across her cheeks and forehead, and her hair is a sticky mess, half down and half still up from the pretty hairdo.

She’s never looked more fucking beautiful.

I drop my head, slanting it slightly to the side, and slam my mouth against hers. I force my tongue past her lips, desperate to taste her, to conquer her, to fucking devour her.

She moans into my mouth, and her hands clutch at the material of my shirt at my ribs, her little nails digging in.

I eat away at her mouth like it’s the last meal I’ll ever have.

Wrapping my free arm around her waist, I tug her until she’s flush against my body, not a spare centimeter of space between us.

Then I turn us so her ass meets the edge of the table.

I pull my mouth from hers, but only allow an inch of space. “I’m going to fuck you, Vicious. Right here on top of Joseph’s dead body.”

The shutter that goes through her is visible.

Her head turns, and her eyes dart over her shoulder.

When she turns back, her bottom lip is caught between her teeth.

Indecision wars with desire in her expression.

She wants me to fuck her because her body demands it, but her head isn’t all the way in the game.

It’s that little bit of conscience she has left that’s causing her to hesitate.

It doesn’t matter whether she’s on board with the sinister act because I won’t be stopped. I’ll fuck her exactly how I want, where I want, when I want, and she’ll fucking take it.

I don’t give her a chance to respond before my hand squeezes her throat, limiting her air supply, and my mouth drops back to hers. I lift her with my arm around her waist and drop her down on the table. A garbled sound leaves her throat when she lands on Joseph’s arm.

When I release her throat and remove my arm from around her waist, she wobbles because her balance is a little off due to the uneven position.

She catches herself from falling backward by putting her hands behind her.

One goes to the area between Joseph’s legs, the other lands on the top part of his sternum, right in the gaping hole in his chest.

I grab the top of her dress and rip it down so her beautiful tits bounce free. Her eyes widen and fill with uncertainty when I move the same hand down her legs and begin lifting the long material. Behind the dubiety is undeniable desire, and that desire grows stronger the higher the dress goes.

I ruck the material up so it bunches in her lap. Her breathing picks up, and her lips part. I know what I’m going to find when I reach between her legs. She may not be ready to admit she wants this yet, but her body won’t lie.

Halfway up her thighs, I feel the evidence of her arousal, and when I reach her skimpy thong, it’s soaked. Too soaked for her to have just gotten turned on.

“This isn’t from the last minute or so,” I say, flicking my finger over her clit through her thong. “It’s too much. How long have you been turned on, baby? What did it for you? Was it when you started carving into his flesh? Or maybe when you crushed his ankles with the sledgehammer.”

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps her eyes pinned on my face.

“Did you get wet when you scooped his eye out and made him eat it, or was it when you sliced the skin of his scrotum and plucked out his testicles?”

“No,” she whispers quietly. Her tongue comes out and runs across her bottom lip. “It was when you cracked open his chest.”

A smile slowly creeps across my face, pleased with her answer. As a reward, I slip my finger beneath her thong and finger her hole, pushing just the tip inside. “You like the hearts I give you.”

“Yes,” she pants.

I’m surprised that she admitted it so easily, but I really shouldn’t be. Killing someone is nasty business. If she could stand there, dismembering and mutilating a body with her own two hands, me killing a man in her name and giving her his heart is like saying ‘it’s just another day in the life.’

“Such a bloodthirsty little girl, aren’t you, wife?”

Without warning, I shove my whole finger inside her tight hole. She gasps and her elbows start to give out, but she relocks them in place. I slide my finger out and add two more, jamming them inside her so hard and fast my knuckles bang against her pelvic bone.