Instead, she looked to me. She looked into the abyss with tear-stricken eyes. In the eye of that moment, she gave me her vulnerability, her power. And when she faded into the darkness of her mind, she didn’t look away. Instead…she took me with her.
Her gaze challenges me. I cannot say why it pulls at me. But it’s an obsession now. Not by emotion but by design.
Even as Rory removes the suction cup, and the voices of my brothers remarking on the state of her red and puffy clit fade into the background, I assess her state. We have taken her blood and flesh as she took ours. Punishment returned tenfold as our law dictates. All Kin-bound to such a law that both punishes, protects, and rewards.
It is the only way to maintain law and order among the damned.
While I don’t have a twisted arousal over her blood, sweat, and tears of misery as Rory does, seeing her stripped to her most vulnerable state is why cock is at its hardest.
In my younger years, sex was categorized by quantity vs quality, defending against the chronic boredom I felt.
I have spent my life collecting vulnerability.
The four men gathered around her have pledged their power, their lives, their very souls to me because I exploited them when they were at their most vulnerable—but I also saved them when they were at their weakest.
With great power comes…more power.
Our bond was forged through blood, flesh, broken bones, fire, torture, and more. The only ones who deserve to be our Kin, who may become our Kin, must survive the same.
She is not the first woman to enter our orbit. I picked up easy prey in bars with Seth at my side as a strategic chess move. Too easy to kill their self-esteem, too easy to brainwash. Those were Level 1’s.
But tonight, in the moments Briella stared into the abyss, she wasn’t handing her brain over for a washing. She was inviting me inside…
Because deep inside her, she knows only I can play with the demons there.
Level 2’s normally beg for death. And I grant it to them…much to my brothers’ chagrin.
So, when Rory strokes her, pulling at her dilated labia and tapping her bloated clit, I step forward. “Level 2” is all I say.
His fingers freeze, then pull back with a frustrated flex, his teeth gritting. But his simmering anger doesn’t last long. Not when Rory lives in the moment, chasing the next high after high—of which I grant him the lion’s share.
But my share comes first.
I loosen my belt.
“What else, Raphael?” Jude asks, the first to seek more direction. He will never lose that militaristic side, which makes him my second-in-command. Patience and endurance and unwavering loyalty make him my partner.
I level with Seth. His brown eyes catch the firelight, turning warm and ready. “The brand.”
He doesn’t balk. Vincent, the only other one with the steadiest hand, would. Seth has the steadiness and care. It’s not just about force—it’s about control, and Seth brings his craftsman’s finesse to it vs. Vincent’s raw power. Jude would spend an hour debating methods. And Rory?
It’s never a good idea to put an instrument of fire into the hands of a pyromaniac.
At least he’s content watching as Seth ignites the incinerator in the back corner of the cave to prepare the brand.
In moments, I’m as naked as my brothers. And standing closest to Briella. Her soft breathing echoes in my eardrums. She will wake soon. For now, I peel back a few violet curls, wet with her sweat from her cheek. I unlatch the back of the ring gag, letting it clatter to the floor.
I want every micro-expression and micro-sound she has to offer.
I don’t bother whispering in her ear.
She will wake once the excruciating brand hits her flesh. Before this, I will take all her power, her consent, her identity, her existence.
I begin the moment I dig my fingers into the backs of her thighs—hot with welted flesh and wet with blood—lift her until my cock is poised at her slick entrance… and drive myself deep to the hilt inside her.
Her head snaps up unexpectedly. Her eyes widen on mine. And then, that center as hot and soaked as predicted…clenches around me.
When she blinks and melts with tears pouring down her cheeks, but her lips are still and quiet with words of unspeakable weakness, I’m certain. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than her.
