Page 19

Mabel Darling

“What’s this?” I ask, sitting up when Duke walks in with a tray in his hands. Boots pops his head up from where he’s lounging on the foot of the bed, stretched out in the sun, and glares at the intruder in annoyance, the tip of his tail flicking.

“Breakfast in bed,” Duke says, sauntering over wearing only a pair of grey sweatpants slung low on his hips and a sleeveless tee. “I figured you deserved it.”

“Isn’t that only for Mother’s Day?”

“Who knows?” he says, dropping a wink and sinking down beside me. “Maybe you’ll be a mother soon.”

He settles the tray across my lap and smiles, his jungle of dark hair tangled like he just rolled out of bed, a lock falling across his forehead, the look in his eyes playful yet earnest.

I shudder and take the ice pack from the tray, slipping it under the blankets and between my legs. “I don’t think so.”

“You never know,” he says. “I know it wasn’t in your plan, but plans change.”

I do know, but I don’t argue. Instead, I pick up the teacup from the saucer and take a sip. It’s mint, my favorite. I can’t help but smile back at him. He’s even more impossible to resist now than he was before. He’s refined his skills, weaponized his charm. But even so, I’m pleased that he remembers everything I ever said to him, even though he’s not the one with nearly-eidetic memory.

Or is he?

I study him as I carefully cut a wedge of strawberry shortcake with my fork, letting my eyes roam over him, the first time I’ve had the chance to really sit still and measure what I’m up against. He’s filled out and bulked up in the past few years, increasing his muscle mass and strength as well as his psychological weapons. He is built like the perfect specimen of a man, the exact physical attributes that my primate brain would choose for breeding stock—broad shoulders speak of his ability to protect both his mate and offspring, as well as building and hunting. His thick, glossy hair and clear, olive skin indicates his virility, and his symmetrical bone structure is pleasing to the eye and provides an unconscious bias toward him, increasing the likelihood that our offspring would also be desirable candidates and therefore carry on my bloodline.

“What’s going on in that pretty little head?” he asks, letting out a soft laugh and reaching to wind a strand of hair behind my ear.

“I’m just looking at you.”

“Well, you better stop, or I’m going to think you want to eat me instead of that.” He nods to the tray, and I pick up a piece of bacon and nibble at the end.

“What’s that?” I ask, nodding at a scar I can see peeking from the edge of his shirt.

“Oh, nothing,” he says, rubbing it through the fabric. “Just a scar.”

“What’s it from?”

He shifts on the bed, casting me an awkward glance, which is quite unusual for Duke. “I messed with Royal’s girl,” he admits. “So, that was the punishment.”

I nod, trying not to think about what that means. Logic says he had sex with her, but the primitive instinct for self-protection says it was something else. I don’t like thinking about him with other girls, irrational as that is. I know how they are, both Baron and him, and if Baron brought his sexual partner on this trip, they have probably both indulged in their fantasies with her—and all the girls they could get before her too. Judging by their aptitude three years ago, and the increase in attractiveness they’ve gained in the intervening years, they’ve never gone without.

“Royal has a girl?” I ask. It seems impossible that the stoic, brutal boy I remember could attract a girl for long enough to feel a possessive urge for her.

“Yeah,” Duke says, grinning. “We thought she was a Darling at first, but turns out, she’s alright.”

I lift a brow and pick up my tea again. The thought of Royal with a girl is interesting, but I’m not upset by it. I’m glad, though I can’t be sure if the feeling is entirely selfish, as somewhere my brain tells me that if he’s healthy enough to be in a relationship, my actions didn’t harm him in any permanent way.

I’m not sure he could say the same about me. His treatment of me is inextricably linked to the twins, the things they did to me that can never be forgiven. He certainly allowed it, even condoned it, but he didn’t participate in most of their tortures. It’s hard for me to parse out his contribution, just as it’s impossible to know whether the physical or psychological damage they did was worse.

Duke snags a strip of bacon from my plate and chews, smiling at me. At least I think it’s Duke. It certainly looks like him. He acts and talks like him. But I’ll never really know. Not beyond a reasonable doubt.

That’s what started me down the path to madness before, though, the first string that unraveled. I won’t go there again.

It doesn’t matter. That’s what I have to tell myself, over and over. My brain doesn’t like that answer. My brain likes everything to be categorized and labeled correctly. But I know that ultimately, the label matters less than the substance. After all, I stole Dahlia’s label, and I’m still as me as I ever was, and Dahlia is still Dahlia, no matter how much she’s changed.

And if I try to figure out who is Duke and who is Baron every time I see them, I’ll drive myself crazy again. Especially now that I live with them, and I’ll see them all the time, every day. And in the end, I’m right. It doesn’t really matter which one is which as long as I have them both. The only thing that will come of obsessing over it is another direct descent into madness.

This Dolce boy watches me eat, studying me like an insect under a microscope.

“What’s it like?” he asks after a few minutes.

I swallow before answering. “What’s what like?”

“Being loved by two men who can’t love.”

“Terrible.”

“Really?”

“It’s not love at all,” I say, sipping my tea. “You don’t know how.”

“And yet, I somehow figured it out for you.”

“Did you?”

“To the best of my ability,” he says. “And I don’t think you have any room to talk. I know you only said it to me because Baron made you. You don’t love me.”

“I’m not sure I know how either. I told him that.”

He nods. “Then you’re right. It is terrible loving two people who can’t love.”

His shoulders sag, and he watches me with eyes that are suddenly miserable, haunted in a way I don’t understand. I don’t remember ever seeing that look before, so I catalog it in my brain with the other changes I’ve noticed in him. He’s still very much a deviant, still under his brother’s influence, still trying to pretend that makes him better. But he’s sadder, too, more contemplative. He never would have sat in silence with me before.

I’m almost finished eating when Baron enters the room, freshly showered and clean shaven, neat as always and well-dressed in understated but obscenely expensive attire, as if he’s off to an admissions interview at one of the coastal elite schools. The only thing that gives away a more sinister motive is the pair of giant pliers he carries in one hand.

“How’s your cunt?” he asks, setting down the instrument and sliding onto the bed next to me. He lifts the blanket to check my ice pack, but I pin my arms over the covers and glare at him.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A simple enough one,” he says, receiving Boots into his arms when the cat strolls up the bed and plops down on his chest.

Duke scowls.

“You’ve been on your own too long if you think that’s an appropriate way to greet your partner first thing in the morning,” I tell Baron.

He nods thoughtfully, stroking Boots from ears to the tip of his tail. “How would you like me to express my concern?”

“How about ‘good morning’? ‘How are you feeling?’ You could even add a nickname, if you’re so inclined.”

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Good morning, little monster. How are you feeling? Are you still bleeding?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, moving the ice pack under me. “I haven’t been to the bathroom.”

It’s been a few days since they punished me, and I’ve spent most of it in bed.

“Go clean up,” Baron says. “Then we’ll talk more.”

I hobble to the bathroom and back, then slip under the covers and replace the ice pack. “Not too bad,” I report.

“Good,” Baron says. “Now let’s talk about the other night.”

“What’s to talk about?” I ask.

“Maybe the fact that you ran away?” Duke says.

“I didn’t run away. Do you really think I’d just go to my aunt’s house and wait for you if I didn’t want you to find me?”

“You wanted us to find you,” Baron muses. “Of course.”

“Oh right,” Duke says with a wicked grin. “You like punishment.”

“I didn’t run away,” I insist. “My aunt called and said she was leaving, so I went to say goodbye. When I got there, she mentioned that the body was gone. She thought we’d come to get it while she was sleeping. I told her it wasn’t us. Was it?”

“You wanted us to kill someone to prove our commitment,” Baron says. “What do you want now?”

I glare up at him. “Nothing. And it was one girl. You killed every guy I’ve been with.”

“Well, maybe you should have cared enough to kill all the girls we’ve fucked,” Duke says. “That’s not our fault.”

A frown creases Baron’s brow. “I killed one guy. You killed the rest.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I say, frowning back at him.

“Okay, Black Widow Killer,” Duke says. “I suppose that’s just a coincidence?”

“It is,” I insist. “I admit, it’s my fault. I led you to them. I take responsibility for that. But you have to admit we’re equally guilty.”

“What are you talking about?” Baron asks, pinching the bridge of his nose like his glasses are giving him a headache instead of me.

“I led you to the bad men,” I say. “You killed them.”

He shakes his head slowly, watching me through narrowed eyes again. “No, I didn’t.”

I swallow hard, dropping my gaze to Boots, who’s made himself comfortable on Baron’s chest. “Then who did?”

“Why are you lying?” Duke demands, his gaze moving from me, to Baron, and back. I can’t tell who he’s asking, but Baron doesn’t answer, so I do.

“I’m not lying,” I whisper, my throat tight.

“Stop fucking with us,” he snaps. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you’re trying to set us up, it’s not going to work. And if you’re recording this somehow, you just admitted to your part. We haven’t done shit. So stop trying to distract us and get out of this. The point is, you lied. You said you were on our side, a partner, and then you ran away.”

“That’s right,” Baron says. “We had a plan, and everyone agreed to it. I’m not the one who broke my word.”

“I didn’t either.”

“You left without telling us where you were going,” Baron says. “That’s running away. We need a guarantee that won’t happen again, Mabel.”

“For the last time, I didn’t run away,” I say, throwing up my hands. “I’d never leave Boots. I would have gone back, but it was a long walk, and I knew you’d come get me. You knew where to find me.”

Boots looks at me, his eyes wide, one ear flicking in annoyance. I reach for him, and he allows me to pull him from Baron’s arms into my lap. I never understood how Baron won him over. The first time Boots saw him, he hissed and ran under the bed. The next time, he was tame as a kitten. I later wondered if that meant it had been Duke that took me on our second date, not Baron. Or maybe it was the opposite. But I’ll never know. And if that’s the case, then the boy talking to me now is Duke. I promised myself I wouldn’t go down that path again, though, so I stop myself right there.

It doesn’t matter. I have them both, for better or worse.

“If this is going to work, we have to trust each other,” Baron says. “We followed through with our end. We need a guarantee that you won’t run again.”

“I told you, I didn’t, and I won’t.”

“You had to know we were testing you when we left you alone,” he says. “You thought you’d test us back, see how far we’d let you go. Don’t worry, little monster. I’m not disappointed. I wouldn’t expect anything less. You were testing our limits with something that seemed innocent enough that you think you can talk your way out of it. But you can’t. Next time, you’ll go further. We can’t start out this way. There are rules, and when you break them, you face the consequences.”

“I did,” I say, shrinking down against the pillows. “You already punished me.”

“I’m not talking about punishment,” he says. “I’m talking about your promise. Show us you won’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

“And now you’ll prove it,” he says, nodding to Duke. “Our punishing you was to show what we would do. Now we need you to show us what you’ll do.”

“What will I do?” I ask, my pulse erratic.

“You’ll show your commitment to staying by removing your ability to run.”

Duke seems to know what he wants, and he brings over the giant pliers Baron set on the dresser. I struggle to breathe.

“What is that for?”

“You’re going to break your toes,” Baron says, handing them to me. “To show us you won’t break your promise.”

“I won’t!” I cry again.

“Words are cheap,” he says. “We need tangible proof.”

He reaches for Boots, but I turn away, not trusting him when he has those things in his hand.

He pulls me back, his eyes calm and unrelenting.

“Don’t hurt him,” I cry. “Promise me.”

“Do what I say, and I’ll have no reason to,” he says, extracting Boots from my arms and setting him carefully on the floor. The cat stalks away, flicking his tail and looking gravely offended by the struggle over him.

Baron presses the pliers into my hand. I stare at him, pleading with my eyes.

Of course, Baron shows no mercy.

“Did you use these on that girl?” I whisper, staring at the instrument instead of him.

“Yes,” Baron says. “But I sterilized them. You don’t think I’d keep anything with a dead girl’s blood on it, do you?”

“Please,” I whisper, tears welling in my eyes before the pain even begins.

“Go on,” Baron says, pulling the blanket completely off the bed, baring my feet with their toes curled under at the thought of what’s coming. “Show us what you’re willing to do to be our partner.”

I stare at my toes, the shell pink polish I chose when I went with my aunt to get a pedicure. Slowly, I curl my leg up. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely get the instrument around my toe. I start with the little one. I pinch it in the metal grip, then close my eyes, take a breath, and twist. I feel the crack through every bone in my body. Pain shoots through my leg, and a choked sob escapes my trembling lips. I take another breath, then grip the next one. The pain is deeper this time, but I know I have to do it fast, before it really sinks in, before the shock wears off and my body realizes the extent of the damage.

I twist hard, a tortured cry escaping this time when my toe snaps.

“Oh, god,” I gasp out, panting and shaking. An insane, maniacal laugh bubbles up, and before it can end, I grab the next one and jerk the pliers down. I have this manic urge to crack them all one after another, like snap beans, as fast as I can. The power is exhilarating, even as the agony is starting to throb through my foot, up my leg.

“Good little monster,” Baron growls, a rough edge to his voice and a hot shimmer in his eyes that’s as savage as my own determination. He pushes up his glasses, his breath coming quick. “Keep going.”

I stare at the bulge in his lap, my breaths heaving.

He’s hard.

Oh, god. What have I done?

I made a deal with the devil, the one I barely survived last time. What made me think I was stronger now, that I could survive him again? That I could keep my secrets until the time was right?

She has to tell us. We’re her parents. That comes before any silly promises she made to a little girl.

I sing the next line in my head while I snap the fourth toe. I’ll never tell…

She won’t say anything! That devil child got in her head.

I grip the big toe in the pliers, the tears blurring my vision until I can’t even see it. “Please,” I choke out. “I can’t do it. It’s too big.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” Duke says, honking with laughter.

“Please,” I cry, not caring how pathetic I sound. The pain is crashing in waves now, unbearable already.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Baron says. “You broke four. Just one more. You pick.”

“And we get to fuck you as soon as you finish,” Duke adds. “Any hole we choose.”

Oh god. He’s getting off on this too.

Even if I could survive Baron, somehow convince him he needs me, there’s still Duke. I don’t just have to outwit one of them. I have to outwit both. But I see it clearly now. They’ll destroy me long before I get the chance.

I nod wordlessly, crying too hard to speak.

I move the pliers to the little toe on my other foot, holding it pinched in the grip. But after a few breaths, I can’t do it. I’ll cripple both feet if I break even one toe on each. I move back to the big toe, inhale as deeply as I can, and force my limbs to still.

Are you here now, Dahlia? Are you in my head? Give me the strength now that you had even then. Give me your thirst for revenge.

Gripping the handles as tightly as I can, I wrench my toe back. The crack is audible, echoing through the room. Duke whoops. My toes are bent at odd angles, the little one already swelling. They look like crooked teeth, each pointing the wrong way, with strange gaps between. I collapse into sobs, but Baron catches me. He cradles me to his chest, kissing the top of my head.

“That was hot as fuck,” Duke says, sliding onto the bed next to us. He takes my hand, pries the instrument of torture from it, and places it on the next one.

Baron lifts my chin, his dark eyes heated behind the lenses of his glasses. “Tell me you love me.”

I hate you.

“I love you,” I manage, my voice shaking.

“Tell him.”

Gripping my chin, he turns my face to Duke, who has shoved down his sweats and wrapped my hand around his shaft to stroke himself with it.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, baby,” Duke says, pressing his lips to my puffy, tear-stained ones. “I’m about to fill you so full of it you pop. Though you can wait nine months if you want.”

He winks at me, then buries his hand in my hair, tugging me away from Baron. He lays me on the bed and shoves down my sleep shorts, rubbing the hot crown of his cock against the cold skin where the ice pack was pressed just moments ago. He groans and wets me with his pre-release before pushing the tip inside. I cry out, but he shushes me and pushes in deeper.

“Please,” I beg. “I’m still sore.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “It’ll only hurt for a minute. God, you feel so fucking good. I can’t help myself. I need to be inside you right now. To be with you. Don’t you need that too, baby?”

When I don’t answer, Baron leans close beside me, his warm breath feathering over my cheek, gentle as the boy I once thought he was.

“Tell him,” he croons. “Tell him you need it too.”

Tears streak my cheeks, and the fear and hopelessness that crash over me are far deeper than the physical anguish. But I focus on my broken toes anyway, letting the pain distract me from what Duke is doing, let it dull me to everything else until I feel nothing but the throbbing, twisted, broken bones, because I am a twisted, broken girl.

“Yes,” I whisper dully. “I need it too.”

Duke groans, his forehead dropping to mine. “Relax for me, mio tesoro.”

His mouth sinks onto mine, and I shrink back into the pillow, but he’s relentless. He coaxes, then forces me to take his tongue too. My eyes roll back and forth, and I find Baron standing over the bed now, watching, those tiny gold flecks in his eyes molten. After a moment, he undoes his belt and drops his pants. While I watch, he slowly removes his shoes, then kicks everything away. The anticipation is torture. I know he’s going to hurt me worse than Duke. He always does.

He stands over us, slowly undoing the buttons of his shirt before shrugging it off and hanging it from the bedpost. My whole body clenches, a shudder rolling over me when he approaches. Duke moans, grinding into me torturously deep.

I’ll have to find a new pelvic floor specialist if this is going to last.

Baron climbs onto the bed, a monument of chiseled muscle, carved to perfection like a Roman god. He kneels over me, lazily stroking a hand up and down his excruciating length. When I see them next to each other, they’re not quite so indistinguishable anymore. Duke’s bulked up, adding at least twenty pounds of solid muscle since I saw them last, while Baron’s leaner than his brother but just as hard. His smooth olive skin is unblemished, without the scar I saw peeking from the shoulder of Duke’s shirt. He has only the two tattoos I remember, a swan on the inside of his arm and the words in Latin he shares with all his brothers.

“You want her ass?” Duke asks, pushing up on his hands and giving me a short, vicious thrust that tears a cry of agony from my lips.

“No,” Baron says, kneeling above me in all his naked, sculpted glory. “I’ll take her mouth.”

“Then I’ll take her ass,” Duke says with a gleeful cackle, pulling out and then starting on the back.

I barely feel the pain. I’m captivated by Baron Dolce, like I’m still the na?ve girl he hand-picked in high school. But I’m not that girl, and instead of love, all I feel is terror when he straddles my chest, his knees under my arms, and drops his fat, heavy dick on my face. It’s hot against my tear-soaked skin, stretching from my chin to past my hairline. I whimper, fresh tears pouring down my cheeks and temples. Baron’s mouth stretches into a sadistic smile, and his fingers wrap around my throat.

Panic billows inside me like ink from a poison squid, blinding me with terror, with the memories that come flooding back, the pain that drove me off the bridge. It was Royal who saved me that day.

No one’s here to save me today.

After a second, though, Baron’s grip relaxes, and his fingers slide from the front of my neck to the back, cradling it. His thumb strokes my throat, against my racing pulse. Something has shifted in his eyes.

“Look at me,” he says. “That’s right, little monster. Open wide.”

I open, and he leans forward, onto his knees, and grips his shaft, guiding his crown into my mouth. When I close my lips around it, he smiles, but it’s different. It’s not the smile of the boy who would force himself down my throat until I vomited and passed out, then keep going until he had his fill, leaving me to wake up alone in a pool of vomit and blood and semen. It’s a soft smile, not apologetic like Duke’s will be later, when he brings me an ice pack after rutting into me like a feral animal, but shining with some warmth I can’t explain.

“Give me your hands,” he murmurs, ignoring his brother’s grunting and groaning, the way he’s rocking the whole bed with his force. Baron’s eyes stay locked on mine, and he takes my hands and wraps them around his shaft, first one at the base, and then the other above it. There’s still a little too much of his length for comfort, but it’s a mercy he’s never shown me before. He strokes my cheek, the corner of my mouth that’s stretched wide around his girth, then swipes a tear off my temple with his thumb before burying his hand behind my neck again. He tugs a little, changing the angle of my head, and then he starts to move, pushing into the back of my throat while his gaze holds mine.

I shiver, wanting to close my eyes but unable. His is a new expression entirely, a glimpse of some other Baron, though it’s not the haunted look of yearning and regret I saw in Duke’s eyes. This is a tender smile, almost sweet, like the Baron who brought me flowers each morning before class, the one I thought was all a lie.

What if it wasn’t?

What if it was all true?

Baron’s fingers squeeze the back of my neck with a gentle, reassuring pressure, and then he leans forward and grips the headboard with his free hand, rolling his hips in a slow, sensual rhythm. I’m hypnotized by the flex of his abs above me, his pectorals, his square chin and that molten, shimmering heat in his eyes. Nothing else exists. He’s so big he fills my vision, my mind, my body. His skin is soft and salty against my tongue, hot in my hands. His rhythm is the rhythm of the whole world—his steady passes in and out of my throat, the throb in my toes, the stroke of Duke’s tongue as he eats me out, having finished his business first, the crashing of waves in the distance.

“Mabel,” Baron says, his voice husky, and for one terrible, terrifying moment, I think he’s going to say the thing he never says. My eyes widen, and he stills, staring back at me, his eyes dark fire behind his glasses.

“Suck,” he whispers instead, sliding his hand to the front of my neck again.

I obey, and he draws a sharp breath and slides back so only the thick head of his cock remains between my lips. I suck again, and he spills into my mouth, over my tongue, down my throat. I swallow, and swallow, and swallow, and he watches, his palm on my throat, his eyes burning into mine, his crown between my teeth.

From somewhere far removed, I feel my body give Duke what he wants, what he takes from me. I used to hate it, the way he gloated over it, what he said it meant. I used to believe him. Now, I hardly notice it. I’m lodged in my head, and what’s below Baron’s thighs seems incidental. My whole world is bracketed by them, as if I’ve received an epidural that shut off the bottom half.

Baron grips my wrist, tugging until I release my grip on his length. He drags his tip from between my lips, letting a fat drop of cum spill onto my lower lip before sitting back. He swipes his thumb across it, smearing it over my skin, then dips between my teeth. I suck, expecting a flare of desire, but his eyes remain unchanged, filled with that gooey, melty chocolate warmth. He slides down the bed and settles beside me, and Duke flops down on my other side.

“Damn, that was good,” Duke says, rubbing his palm over his rippled abs. He sighs, folding one arm behind his head.

Baron leans up on his elbow, gently gripping my chin and turning it his way. I flinch, but he presses his lips to mine, lingering, inhaling my scent, tasting himself on my tongue, as if he’s memorizing the kiss, savoring it. When he finally draws away, Duke pulls my head towards him, plunging his tongue into my mouth and kissing me with more depth, more passion, more hunger. At last, though, he sinks back down again, dragging my leg over his and closing his eyes.

“Smells like sex in here,” he says with a sigh of contentment.

Baron is still watching, lying on his side facing me. He slides his legs onto either side of mine and dips his fingers into me, lazily playing in the mess Duke made.

“Our little monster,” he says, and he smiles at me with that same foreign, disconcerting tenderness. “We’re finally back together. And this time, we’ll do it right.”

Without opening his eyes, Duke gropes across me, sliding his hand down to cup my mound and dip a finger in with his brother’s. A deep sound of contentment rumbles in his chest, and he sinks into the bed, his muscles relaxing fully.

“I love you, little fairy,” he mumbles a minute later, already half asleep.

I realize with a cold shock of dread what’s changed. My whole body starts to shake violently between them. I had it all wrong. They haven’t tracked me down to finish the job they started three years ago. They don’t want to make me fall in love with them so they can break me, shatter me irreparably yet again. They’ve been there, done that. There’s no triumph in doing it again.

This time, they don’t want to destroy me. They want something unimaginably worse.

They want to love me.

Thanks for reading Twice As Twisted . Click here for Book 2: Worse Than Wicked.