My shoes clack up the metal stairs, and three sets of footsteps sound from behind me, telling me that Jude is tagging along too. Just what we need, for him to become obsessed, which I can tell he will from just a single look at the beautiful creature that now rests in Knox’s arms. She’s that irresistible mix of strength and vulnerability that we all find hard to resist. He’s also not been the same these past few years, the darkness having overtaken him since that fucked up day, but I guess the brutal murder of your twin in front of you will do that to even the most sane person, and Jude was far from sane to begin with.
Pushing open the door to my room, I look over the ordered space with an appreciative eye, making sure all is how I left it several weeks ago. I perfectly made the bed, there is no clutter or trinkets on the desk, and everything is in its rightful place. I cringe as the others follow, my teeth on edge with them in my space, messing it up with their vibrancy.
Knox strides straight over to the bed as Tarl pulls down the covers, and my eye twitches at the mess he’s just created. More gently than I ever thought him capable of, Knox lays the little Dove down, turning her so that she’s on her stomach and we can see for the first time how ravaged her back really is. Earl’s work, by the looks of it.
Even I grimace as I step closer, Jude next to me as we both gaze at the mess of flesh and blood. The skin of some splits is an angry red on either side, demonstrating the first signs of infection.
“Jesus,” Tarl mumbles in a low tone, placing his medical bag on the bed next to her. He must have swung past his room to grab it. Knox steps away as Tarl leans closer to inspect the wounds. “There are burns down here too.”
My eyes snap down to her lower back, seeing the blisters in the shape of tailoring shears, our cursed gang emblem. Mybreath catches as I gaze at the angry wound, my still-hard dick twitching at the brand which now marks her as our property.
“She looks so pretty, all bloody. Beautiful, broken bird,” Jude says with a sigh, and I realize that he’s gone from my side, having moved to the other side of the bed and laid down next to her, brushing her hair from her damp, trembling face.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I watch him, watch the obsession take root like a parasite as he gazes at her like she hung the fucking moon or some shit.
“Don’t get too comfy,” I tell the room, my brother’s eyes never leaving her prone, shuddering form. “We still have a job to do. She has information on the Soldiers, and we need it to take those bastards down once and for all.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, brother,” Jude coos, a soft whimper leaving our little Dove’s lips as he traces a deep cut with his fingertip. “I’ll have her singing soon enough. Won’t I, my darling Nightingale?” He brings the digit to his lips, sucking the bloody tip with a look of rapture on his face.
I look up to meet the worried gazes of Tarl and Knox, all of us wondering if she’ll survive Jude’s affection long enough to give us what we need. I fucking hope so. I vowed as I held the cooling corpse of my little sister that I would seek revenge on the Dead Soldiers, those cunts that stole her from this world.
And if I have to make their leader’s daughter shatter into a million pieces, pull out all of her feathers one by one, then I will do it with a motherfucking smile on my face.
CHAPTER THREE
“HEY JUDE” BY JOE ANDERSON
LARK
Groaning, I snuggle into the soft cloud that embraces my throbbing body. The fresh scent of clean cotton mixed with an intoxicating mix of amber, sandalwood, and vanilla surrounds me and makes me want to never leave this haven. I rub my face in it, practically purring as it fills my senses.
“You like the way my brother smells, pretty broken bird?” a voice asks from next to me. I pause in my movements, slowly turning my head to see a black-haired god in bed next to me. He looks familiar, but my brain feels a little fuzzy and I just can't place him.
My eyes take him in like the tall fucking drink of water that he is. Well, I assume he's tall, given that I have to look up to catch his deep blue gaze. What I see in his orbs gives me pause though. There's nothing in their depths at all. His face might smile with amusement, but his eyes are dead, empty pits that look upon the world dispassionately. A shiver cascades over mybody, my skin tingling with warning mixed in with strong desire that again surprises me in its intensity.
“Your brother?” I question, my voice cracking as my throat is dry as a motherfucking desert.
He reaches behind him, giving me a view of his naked back—is he in the buff?!I stifle a gasp as I take in the furrows and valleys that make up the skin there. Without thinking, my hand darts out, my fingers caressing one of the deeper scars that slices his back in two. He shudders, a small yet deep sound coming from him that makes my core ache.Greedy bitch.
“We match, you and I, broken bird,” he says, turning back to me so that I can see his defined torso, the sheet having fallen down to his lap. His body is a mix of ink and scars. Curiouser and curiouser, and yep, looks like he's naked as the day that he was born. Not that I'm objecting to the view, though I wonder why he's in my bed and what may have happened whilst I was out. I'm not objectionable to a bit of consensual somnophilia, but a girl likes to experience if she's been fucked seven ways’ til Sunday by a god, at least the first time. I don’t think I was that lucky, the place between my thighs only slightly tender from fucking Knox but no more so than that. “And yes, my brother. I believe you met him yesterday when Knox was balls deep inside your pretty cunt,” he continues, and my eyebrows rise as the memories flood back. I wiggle my backside as the ache in my sex makes a little more sense, a dull pain flaring across my back at the movement.
“Ah, yes, tall, dark-haired dude with a pocket handkerchief?” I question, smirking when I remember what I did to that piece of cloth.
“Bingo, birdie,” he replies, holding out one of those reusable, metal bottles with a straw cap.
Lifting my head slightly, I take the straw in my mouth and suck, holding his gaze. It hurts like a bitch, but I'm too damnthirsty to care. A flicker of heat warms his blue eyes as he watches me drink, taking the bottle away when I stop.
“You can be Baby Devil then. You know, seeing as you're clearly younger than him,” I inform him, looking at his boyish face and deciding that he's more my age than that of the two guys I met in the basement, Knox and his brother, who seemed older. Speaking of… “Where the fuck am I?”
“The Devil's lair, my Nightingale,” he tells me with no emotion in his tone. “Or my brother's room. He insisted we brought you here to recover before we break you again.” His own hand reaches out and traces my fresh wounds, a hiss leaving my lips at the contact as I flinch from his touch. Of course, my pussy clenches, reminding me of the pain from Knox fucking me while my back was rubbed raw against the wall of the cell.
“Why bother?” I ask, brows furrowed in a mix of confusion and pain as he keeps stroking my ravaged back, my hands digging into the soft as a fucking cloud mattress beneath me. “Why let me heal first?”
“All the better to hurt you later, Nightingale,” he answers in that timeless voice. There's a gleam in his blue eyes, a quickness to his breath as he studies my wounds, lapping up my pained movements and gasps. The fucking psycho even gets a hard-on, the sheet tenting in his lap.
“You just like giving pain, Baby Devil? Or you enjoy receiving too?” I question, nodding to the admittedly large chubbie that's trying to make a bid for freedom.
“Both,” he replies, his other hand tracing some scars just above his hip bone. The sheet slips further, his erect dick springing free, and my eyes bug as both my mouth and pussy water. Metal glints on the end and along the underside, creating the holy grail of dick piercings; a Jacob's motherfucking ladder ending in a magic cross.
