If Mastyx would open up to me, tell me everything about him, what he desires, what he needs, perhaps I could use this information to my advantage as well.
I stretch my arms and tuck them behind my pillow.Just ask him, Contessa. Tell him what you want.
“Ask me what?” Mastyx sits beside me and runs his calloused-feeling hand up and down my thigh.
“How often do you need a soul for your face not to fall apart?”
His clawed nail bites into the skin on my lips. “That’s not something you want from me; that’s just a question you want answered.” He huffs in irritation. “And it depends. The human’s age and overall health play a role.” He slides the death mask off his face and sets it beside us. “Why did you want to know this?”
I rub my forehead and frown, trying not to look at his grotesque face. “I don’t know. I thought maybe I could help you get a new one more often. You know, so your face stays relatively human for longer.”
He tosses his head back and belts out a diabolical roar of laughter. “Little Sinner, someone must die so I can take their soul for me to get a new face. I thought by now you would know that.”
What the fuck are you doing, Tessa? Are you really offering to help him get more souls for your own benefit?
A sinister glow lights up in his eyes, and a Cheshire Cat smile spreads across his face. “You want to deliver more lost souls to me to make our encounters more tolerable?”
“Maybe?”
Dammit, Tessa. Shut up.
He leans forward, cupping my face with both hands, his eyes drilling holes through me, a smile curling on his lips. “No, don’t shut up, my naughty Little Sinner. Tell me your terms.”
Why is he so excited about this idea?I wonder what’s in it for him.
“I get their souls, and a new face for a while, but what do you want in exchange?”
He’s reading my mind again. What do I want? He’s letting me have what I want. Something doesn’t feel right about all this.
Still, I do often worry that if I have an unclean thought about another man or think about fucking them, he’ll react and hurt me, so it only seems like the most logical choice to consider as part of this agreement.
My palms sweat, and I rub them together, pursing my lips as I calculate my words carefully.
“I choose all the marks, fuck them if I want, before I set them up for you. You know, make them sin or reveal their dark side or taunt them or whatever.” I clench my jaw and raise my eyebrows. Even as the words leave my lips, I feel my confidence fading, so I explain further. “I mean…it’s not like I want to fuck them, it’s just, I may want to or need to convince the person to come with me or at least say I’m going to or…”
“Silence,” he says, raising his hand, before leaning away, his eyes darkening, the flames in them growing dim briefly before rising again. “And how often would that be?” He grits his teeth, his jaw shifting as it clenches, his jealous side showing.
He didn’t say no right away, so that’s a good sign. I need to make it more about my need for him than my need to lure a man to his death.
I take a deep breath and bat my eyelashes, a cocky confidence beaming off of me before saying, “Only when my loins long for your burning cock.”
My breath remains trapped inside me, waiting for him to respond, a part of me regretting not only making such a bold request but also manipulating the terms in my favor.
He chuckles at first, but it grows louder and louder. “Oh, Little Sinner, we have a deal.”
That was too easy. He’s way too willing to share me with another man so he can have their soul. They must be of great value to him to allow that to happen.
“But…” He lifts me from the bed and sets me on top of his abdomen. “…you will no longer just lure them. You will need to get your hands dirty as well, Little Sinner.” A flaming piece of paper appears in his hand from seemingly nowhere, the edges blackened and red embers floating off from it, landing on his chest. He extinguishes its flames with a quick blow from his lips and places it before me. “Sign.”
“But I don’t have a pen,” I say, furrowing my brows. “And what do you mean,get my hands dirty?”
He grips my hand and holds one of my fingers tight between his. With his other hand, he pricks the tip of my finger with his claw, making me scowl. “I mean, you need to draw blood. You need to be somewhat responsible for your own rescue.”
“Meaning?”
The bead of blood triggers a heated gaze in his eyes, before he looks up at me with an amused intensity that makes me tremor. “Meaning, you must kill too.”
Kill? He wants me to kill men, not just lure them to their deaths. Fuck. That’s not really what I wanted to do. I know I’ve been entertaining the idea that sacrificing to him may be a way for me to gain power and control, but I didn’t plan on diving right in to doing it.
