Page 14

THIRTEEN

LENORE

I think I forgot how to breathe.

My scream tore from my throat like it had claws. It scraped out of me, raw, as he drove into me with the kind of rhythm that made my spine arch and my soul rattle.

Pleasure bloomed,jagged like glass melting inside my skin. Every thrust carved me open, deeper, wider. His grip on my hips was strong, and his pace was relentless. Thrusting inside me, and not stopping for a second.

I was unraveling.

One hand braced against the cold wall, the other wrapped in the chain above, but none of it anchored me, he did. Every breath was stolen by the weight of him inside me, by the way, he stretched me, filled me, ruined me.

He leaned in, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear, voice pouring into me like poison laced with honey.

“You’re going to come for me.”

The words didn’t land in my ears, they rooted between my legs. My knees buckled. My chest stuttered. My brain fizzed out, sparking on nothing but the command in his tone.

I nodded.

Or tried to.

It didn’t matter. My body moved first, betraying me beautifully.

The heat cracked through my belly and up my spine, blinding and brutal. I clenched around him so hard I felt his breath stutter against my skin, a ragged inhale like I was choking him.

He didn’t stop. He slammed into me, again, and again, and again, until the pleasure ripped through me, messy, stealing every ounce of strength I had left.

I shattered with a sob, my legs collapsing beneath me, caught only by the arms that had just undone me.

And when he came, it wasn’t silent.

He growled.

A deep growl, chest pressed to my back, hips flush against my ass as he spilled into me, pulsing.

His hand slid around my neck, not tight, not harsh, just there. Like a collar. Like he was holding me together, piece by trembling piece. His pet snake crawled to him, passing from my neck to his hand as she knew that letting me go would bring him peace.

I slumped forward, breath hiccuping out of me, the chain creaking above as it caught my weight. My thighs shook. My lips were parted, but no words came.

He didn’t move right away.

He stayed inside me, buried to the hilt, like pulling out would break the spell we’d cast around ourselves. Like if he let go, I’d vanish, and maybe I would. Maybe I wanted to.

The chain above me creaked again, a soft metallic groan as my body sagged forward, spent and shaking. My wrists were raw, my thighs trembling, but all I could feel was him.

Still hard. Still deep.

Still watching me like I was prey he hadn’t finished consuming.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured.

His voice slithered into my bones. It scraped across something inside me I didn’t know was waiting to bleed.

“I think you broke something,” I whispered. It was a joke, I think.

His palm slid up my back until it curled around my throat. Not squeezing this time. Just… resting. Claiming.

“I’ll fix it.”

God help me, I almost asked him to break more.

He slid out of me, slow enough to make me whimper, then caught me by the waist when my knees tried to give out. He turned me around, eyes dragging over every inch of my ruined body.

My thighs were slick with us. My chest heaved. My lips were swollen and kissed raw.

And still, he looked at me like I wasn’t enough.

Like he could still devour more.

He leaned in, brushing his nose along my jaw, then down to my collarbone, his breath hot against my sweat-slicked skin. His voice was quiet, “I should keep you like this.”

Hung up.

Open.

Ready.

My breath caught, heat flooding between my legs again like my body was too stupid to learn.

“You say that like it’s a threat,” I whispered, voice hoarse and cracked.

He chuckled. God, that sound. It was a sound made for sinners.

“No,” he said. “It’s a promise.”

He unhooked my wrists carefully like he hadn’t just ravaged me like I was fragile now. My arms fell limp to my sides, too numb to lift. He caught me before I could crumble and scooped me up, carrying me across the ruined floor like I was something precious instead of desecrated.

There was a mattress on the floor near the altar, covered with a single threadbare blanket that smelled like dust and sin. He laid me down gently like I was something fragile. Something breakable.

Maybe I was.

I curled into myself, muscles sore, skin flushed, throat raw.He knelt beside me, one knee cracking against the stone, his shadow stretching over my spine.

“I can’t let you leave.” His words were quiet.

Not cruel. Not even cold. Just inevitable.

My head snapped toward him, hair clinging to my damp cheek. “What?”

He didn’t look at me. His gaze dropped to the floor, like if he saw my face, it might change his mind. Or worse — it wouldn’t.

“I brought you here to lock you up,” he said. “You’re meant to be here. With me. Forever.”

The silence pressed hard against my ears.

Then—

Laughter.

Sharp, familiar, from under the sheet across the room. My stepmother’s voice, cackling like this was all a joke she already knew the punchline to.

I had forgotten they were still there.

Still watching.

Still breathing.

I turned my face into the blanket to swallow the scream I didn’t want to give them.

“You belong to me, little stepsister,” he said, voice thicker now, like even he could hear how monstrous it sounded. “Only to me.”

Something inside me cracked.

Not from surprise. Not even betrayal.

From recognition.

Because I knew it was true.

And I hated it.

How could I be so stupid?

How could I look into those eyes and not see the iron bars hiding in them?

How could I want him, still, when I could taste the cage in every breath?

That’s what you get, Lenore. For falling for a beautifully wrapped nightmare.

Now you’re locked up, all alone, while the woman who hated you from the moment she saw you laughs behind your back.

And the worst part?

My body still ached for him.

Still pulsed with the memory of his hands, his breath, his darkness pressed so deep inside me it felt like it lived there now. My thighs were sticky. My lips are swollen. My heart cracked wide open and somehow still reaching for him like a fool.

He didn’t look back.

He just stood, turned, and walked away, like he hadn’t just destroyed me.

Like I wasn’t still trembling from the ghost of his touch. The door shut behind him locking me inside of my tomb.

I used to think I meant something to him.

The way his eyes sparkled for me, the way his fingers brushed my cheek like I might shatter, it felt like love. Like I belonged in his world. Like I was safe there.

But real love doesn’t do this to you.

It doesn’t leave bruises. It doesn’t lace hope into every harsh word and call it tenderness. It doesn’t turn silence into a weapon.

And yet, I still can’t let go. God, how I wish I could.

This has always been me — chasing the kind of love that was never mine to begin with. Trying to become someone worth loving. But I was always background noise to the people I wanted to matter to. Always nothing.

I bent myself into shapes just to fit in — guessing what they thought, what they felt, trying to stay one step ahead of their rejection. I’d imagine they hated me just so I could pull away first. All I ever did was sabotage myself. No one needed to ruin me. I beat them to it.

And him… I tried. From the moment he showed up at my door, I tried to understand him. Tried to figure out what love looked like to him, just so I could wear it like a second skin. But you can’t make someone love you. You can’t twist yourself into someone else’s version of enough.

He didn’t love. He obsessed. There’s a difference.

And now his obsession has me locked away.

A cage. Four walls. No key. What’s next — chains?

I wanted to scream, to tear open the silence and make him see me. But he already knew I was here. That’s what made it worse. He knew — and chose not to care.

He didn’t lie to me. He showed me exactly who he was. I just kept closing my eyes.

I sealed my eyes shut, convinced blindness was safer than truth. At least with him, I had a roof. Now I’d trade that roof for freedom in a heartbeat.

I didn’t know what I wanted — not really. But I know what I didn’t want:

Someone too broken to not break me, too lost to see me, too cruel to stop.

I am a joke.

I let him destroy me.

He destroyed me beautifully, and I thanked him for it.