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ELEVEN

LENORE

After the bath, I crawled back into bed.

Sleep tugged at me. Blood from my cuts seeped into the linens, the sting still fresh, but I didn’t mind.

I needed that pain. It grounded me to something real.

Even if it was hell, at least it wasn’t the numbness of that endless dream.

I was trapped inside my own mind, spinning in circles.

No control, no escape. Just the echo of a game I kept playing with myself, and I was done.

Still, I hoped.

Hoped Dorian would show up.

Hoped he’d forgive me for leaving.

Hoped he’d love me enough to heal what was broken in both of us.

Was that too much to ask? Why was I begging for love? For his love? Why couldn’t I just be loved?

My eyes drifted shut, my mind pulling me backward in the past. To the night before I left him in that house.

It was two days after my eighteenth birthday. Just one day before I ran from Gloomsbury Manor. After Dad beat him, I thought I’d never see Dorian again. But he came back. For me.

I was curled on a dusty blanket in the attic when I heard the door creak open. Slow footsteps. The sound of someone dragging themselves across the floor. I turned my head, and there he was.

His face was a mess of bruises and dried blood. He clung to the final two steps of the staircase like they were the only things keeping him alive. Rage flared in my chest.

“Dorian!” I cried, scrambling to his side.

I tried to lift him, but his body was too heavy, too broken. He collapsed against the stairs, barely conscious.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, voice cracked and trembling. “I’m sorry I’m weak.”

“No,” I whispered, pleading, “no, you’re not.”

I knelt beside him, arms trembling as I tried to lift him again. It was no use. His black shirt clung to the raw, bleeding wounds across his back, each stripe carved in by my father’s belt. I counted them. One hundred and twelve.

Tears blurred my vision. My hands, shaking, reached to peel the shirt away from his skin.

He hissed—then screamed. I screamed with him.

He grabbed my wrist, voice choked in agony. “Stop. Please, stop.”

But I couldn’t. I kept going, even as he sobbed until the shirt fell away and the full damage was laid bare.

My palms, slick with his blood, pressed to my lips as I collapsed against him.

“What did he do to you?” I cried.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, trying to smile, trying to comfort me. His hand, weak and shaking, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small necklace. Golden with a heart charm.

“Will you be my heart?” he murmured. “I never knew I had one until I met you.”

“Dorian...” My voice broke as I kissed his hand, and pressed it to my chest. “You are my heart.”

“And you are mine,” he breathed.

I slipped the necklace around my neck, the heart warm against my skin. And then I cried. Silent, aching sobs.

“Come,” he said with a faint smile. “I wanted to give you a second present.”

“You don’t have to,” I whispered, my hand brushing his face — but he pulled me closer.

“Please... please,” he breathed, searching my eyes.

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Sit on the first step. Spread your legs,” he said, still smiling.

“W-What?” My voice trembled.

“Do it.”

I obeyed, stepping forward and sitting down in front of him on the first step.

I was wearing the same white nightdress I always wore, soft cotton, white and innocent. Underneath, though, I had on panties. I lifted the bottom of it as I sat, slowly spreading my legs.

“Lay back,” he said, and I arched, lowering myself against the cold step behind me. I could feel his breath against my skin. I’d never done this before. Never felt anything like this.

“I might be dying,” he whispered, voice rough, “but I won’t die until I’ve had my little stepsister as my last fucking meal.”

With a sudden surge of strength, he pulled me closer to his face.

He pushed my panties aside, revealing my swollen pussy, already aching for him. He pinched gently at first, then kissed me there before parting me with his fingers. His tongue came next, slow, tracing from the center up to my clit.

I gasped. “Oh God.”

“Yeah,” he murmured against me. “You like that, don’t you?”

“Yeah...” I moaned, eyes fluttering closed.

His tongue circled my clit as one finger curled and slid inside me — slow, coaxing, addictive. I opened for him, helpless under the rhythm of his strokes.

I’d never touched myself before. I’d always been the good girl — the quiet one. But now he was showing me how to be bad... for him.

It was so fucking wrong — and I didn’t care. I wanted more.

As his thrusts deepened, he slid in a second finger. He smiled against my clit, still working his tongue up and down my swollen, sensitive skin.

“I’ll be your first... and your last, Trouble,” he growled. I could feel every slow thrust inside me, pushing me closer to the edge.

A moan broke from my lips. “Yes... more. Please — more.”

He kept going, holding my lower lips apart as I writhed against his face. I couldn’t stop myself — my hips moved instinctively, riding his mouth, chasing the waves he sent crashing through me.

Then I started to tighten around his fingers. I was so close.

He smiled against me again, still stroking, still devouring me like he owned me.

We didn’t notice the attic door was still open — that anyone in the house could hear us.

And someone did.

My father stood there. Pale. Silent. Frozen — as he watched his daughter writhing under the mouth of his stepson.

But I didn’t see him — not until it was too late.

I was moaning, my body trembling, eyes fluttering open just as the orgasm hit me. I saw him — my father — and our eyes met at the exact moment Dorian pushed me over the edge.

And I screamed his name.

“Dorian.”

Dad stormed inside, grabbing Dorian by the neck and ripping him off me. His mouth was still slick with my taste on his lips, blood smeared from the blows, and he laughed.

Laughed at him.

Even as Dad dragged him across the floor, shouting, Dorian’s voice cut through.

“Now she’s mine, Father.”

The door slammed. Silence swallowed everything after.

I didn’t move.

Tears streaked down my face, but my body still trembled — not from fear. And my lips, curved upward, soft and secret.

That night, I became his.

That night, he consumed me.

I woke with a sharp breath, upright, fingers tangled in the sheet beneath me. No clock on the wall, and never had been, but I knew. 3:18 a.m.

It was always 3:18.

This time, he was there. Standing beside the bed.

His eyes were rolled back, nothing but white, like something inside him had flipped. Drool hung from his lips. Around his eyes, thick black paint ran like tears, like he wasn’t human at all.

I screamed, hand flying out to reach him.

He didn’t move.

And then I saw a severed hand hanging from his fingers, streaked with blood.

“Dorian…” The word was barely breathing as I crawled to the edge of the bed.

The bedroom door slammed behind him. Shut. Locked. It was just us now.

My chest heaved. My skin prickled. And under it all, the ache bloomed again. Even now. Even like this. Maybe I could reach him. Maybe he wasn’t completely gone.

He grabbed my ankle, rough fingers curling tight, and pulled me toward him. His knee forced my legs apart as he leaned in. His eyes were hollow, still seeing somehow even rolled back.

He was hard.

His cock twitched for me, ready, like instinct still lived in him even if he didn’t.

I wore nothing but a tank top and a black thong. The white dress was ruined, stained with dust from the floors of this house.

His drool dripped onto my stomach. I arched, helpless. Wanting.

Then he knelt.

Fingers hooked the edge of my thong and pulled it aside, exposing me. He opened me with stiff hands. I shut my eyes, breath catching as he slid inside.

Cold.

Too cold.

But I moaned.

This was so wrong, Something was wrong.

It shifted. I opened my eyes.

He was staring at me — smiling now, something twisting behind that smile — and laughing. And when I looked down, I saw it. It wasn’t him inside me.

It was Troy’s hand.

Dead. Pale. Moving only because Dorian made it.

I jerked back, panic clawing at my throat, but he pinned me down, grinning wider.

“You like his fingers inside you?”

He yanked the hand free and tossed it to the floor with a sickening slap of flesh on the wood.

“No—“ I tried, pushing at him.

He leaned in closer, breath hot.“Then why’s your pussy so wet?”

His fingers slid through me,up to my clit. He brought them to his lips, tasting me like it was nothing. Like he owned me.

I couldn’t speak.

“You want him?” he asked.”Or me?”

He was too close now.

“Because I can show you where he is. And I can show you where I am.”

His fingers slipped back inside, deeper this time. Hooking me. Claiming me again.

I moaned, eyes squeezing shut.

“Answer me.”

A slap cracked across my inner thigh, the sting blooming fast.

“You—“ I gasped. “I want you .”

He smiled like that was all he needed to hear.

“Good.”

He stood and pulled me with him. My legs barely held me.

“Follow me.”

And I did.

Down the hallway.

Bare feet on the cold floor. Tank top sticking to my skin. Thong soaked.

I followed him — into whatever came next. Into ruin. Into him.

Into my destruction.