It’s a recurring theme of late. My inability to protect her. And he knows it. Knows I am powerless and I hate him for it.
Skin shreds where I tug and drag against the invisible barbs. Blood runs hot down my forearms, drenching my shirt. But it does nothing. I have no choice but to watch as Lenora is lifted. The hold on her arms and legs vanishes and I can only stare as she’s placed on the altar.
Unlike before, Lenora doesn’t sit comfortably. She scrambles onto all fours as if the table is too filthy to touch — which it is. Once her backside is no longer pressed naked against the rancid chunk of wood, she balances on her knees and turns gingerly to the open darkness over the stairs.
“Let Marcus go,” she commands. “This has nothing to do with him. I made the deal. Whatever you want, take it from me.”
I make a series of aggressive grunts that go entirely ignored.
“But I enjoy how you suffer, pet.”A cold wisp brushes my cheek.“He’s the perfect leverage to make you behave.”
The caress becomes a sharp nick where he cuts the skin along my cheekbone. The sting is immediate. A reminder to us both that he is in charge.
“I have behaved,” she snaps back. “I have done nothing to warrant this … this cruelty.”
“Haven’t you?”The snarl it’s vicious. A cyclone of violent rage.“You think you have done nothing?”
“What?” she barks back. “What have I done to deserve this?”
Time winds in a commotion of grating silence and the cutting frustrations of a man — if he could even be called that — battling his own demons.
“Doesn’t matter because I have realized what it will take to fix my problem.”
Neither Lenora, nor I understand the implication. I see the confusion on her face and I’m sure it mirrors my own. But that’s all I’m allowed when the full weight of an iceberg slams into me. It collides and sinks into my pores. It soaks through my skin. I feel the invasion, the attack on my person as the creature fits himself inside me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lenora
IneversawVeyn’spossessionof Marcus the first time. Never saw the thin streaks of blood that ribbon down from the corners of his eyes in sharp contrast to his complexion. I didn’t get to watch Marcus gasp and fall to his knees in agony.
“Stop it!”
I scramble off the slick altar and run to him. I’m unclear what my intentions are or how I will stop him. I only know that I must protect Marcus from the demon who has clearly lost his mind.
But I only just reach him when he stands. It’s so sudden, I skid to a halt a few feet away and watch as he rolls his shoulders. The hard muscles flex and bunch. A would-be delicious sight if his eyes weren’t black voids expelling thick, black coils.
“Is this better?” he taunts in a smirk Marcus has never made.
“Get out of him,” I snap.
My command is ignored as he moves lazily closer, his motions predatory and cruel. The leer on his face widening with my retreating shuffle.
“That isn’t what you said when you let me fuck you in this body.”
I hate the heat that swells in my cheeks at the reminder.
“This is different.”
He doesn’t need to ask how. I have no idea. It just is.
But he doesn’t.
He resumes his steady pace. His every stride tracking mine. The back of my heel catches the bottom step going up the platform and I tumble backwards. My spine cracks against the following ledges. The pain echoes and vanishes before the cry even leaves my lips, but it doesn’t matter.
Veyn is over me. He has Marcus’s hands twisted in my top. The buttons pop and ping in opposite directions, vanishing in the filth.
It’s impossible to tell when the entire surface of his eyes are black pools, but I know he’s running them over my naked frame.
