“This place gives me the creeps, and not the good kind. Start grabbing so we can get out of here,” I said urgently, turning away from the stone vaults and toward the first wall of shelves.
As expected, there were so many things stored away here. I could only imagine how much these things would fetch on the black market. What kind of secrets did this family seal up with their dead? What kind of precious stones and metals hadn’t seen the light of day in over three hundred years?
There was enough here to catch my rent up for an entire year. Probably more.
I could pay off my car, I could get my own place. I wouldn’t have to live with Mark anymore.
This was the payout I’d been searching so long for, and I could hardly control myself as I grabbed a wooden box off a shelf and popped the lid open. Inside was a silver tiara that made my pulse quicken, and with a huge grin I threw it in the bag. The rest of the shelf was laden with more elegant jewelry. All stunning. Regal.And fucking expensive.
This was exactly the jackpot I’d been hoping for.
My head went light—From the high that came with a successful raid, or the thick air that seemed to stuff itself down my throat like a chloroform-soaked rag, I wasn’t sure.
“We might have to break this up into two trips. I can’t fucking breathe in here,” I rasped, gasping for air. “Move faster so we can get the hell out of here.”
I grabbed everything I could get my hands on, dollar signs racking up before my eyes. This raid was everything I’d ever dreamed it would be, and I knew my life would be forever changed from the moment we stepped out of this mausoleum.
Chapter2
BELIAL
To live is to die.
It was a fact of nature. A hymn that echoed across the heavens, their lyrics inscribed upon the bones of God himself.
All things that drew breath would eventually age and rot. Then they became mine.
There was no fighting it. It was a cosmic law. All living things were destined to become mine in time.
With Catherine, I couldn’t wait for her heart to give out.
I’d kidnapped her from the land of the living, and dragged her down to the darkest pits of my realm. I had defied nature itself.
Even death has his vices. How could I be blamed?
The breath from her lungs had been like a breeze, sifting through the hair of a freshly-freed inmate. The healthy flush of her cheeks had made my fleshless skull ache with longing. The moment I set eyes on her, I longed to hear the echo of her laughter through my cold crypt of a palace.
I’d lusted for her vitality. My cock had stirred to life for the first time in centuries at the thought of owning her before her life ran its course.
I wanted to own so much more than her corpse.
In the beginning I’d planned for her to be a pampered pet. Something to bring life to my castle. But in the end she’d been nothing but a prisoner.
The never-ending, labyrinthine hallways of my palace had driven her to madness. When she failed to escape, she tried to leave me in the only way she could.
Every night she took her own life. At first she’d done it quick, and clean. With a letter opener in her room the first night. On the second, she’d hung herself from the balcony of her tower using her bed sheets.
Every day she’d wake up, unscathed. Like the previous night had never happened. As the days mounted, so had her desperation.
Her suicides became more…creative.
She’d drowned herself in the Styx behind the palace. Fed herself to the carnivorous oak in the garden. Intentionally gotten herself crushed between the walls of the moving chambers within my castle. Threw herself onto the swords of the haunted suits of armor that patrolled my halls.
The list went on.
Those were the only ones I distinctly remembered; the rest blended together. The only thing that stood out was the sight of her mangled body just before I revived her. I should have felt more than nothingness each time those lifeless eyes stared up at me, a pool of dark red blood spreading beneath her.
Maybe if I had, I would have kept it up longer. Eventually, I tired of the constant cycle. So one day when I found her, I decided it would be the last.
