Last chance. Tell me she’s safe.
I pick up the phone this time. My thumbs hover over the glass, the red light of a passing siren illuminating the ink on my knuckles.
She’s exactly where she belongs. Stop looking for her, Little Sister. You won’t like what’s left of her when I’m done.
I toss the phone back. It’s a declaration of war, but I’ve been at war since I was old enough to hold a blade.
I turn the corner onto the long, winding drive that leads to my house. The iron gates hiss open, a welcome home from the only thing that doesn’t demand my blood.I park the car and sit for a moment, letting the adrenaline of the warehouse fade into the cold, sharp hunger for the woman upstairs.
I look at my hands. There’s a smudge of the kid’s blood under my fingernail. I don’t wash it off. I want her to see it. I want her to know exactly what kind of monster she let into her bed. I want her to smell the salt and the iron and realise that the man who just broke a boy in a basement is the only man who will ever be allowed to touch her.
She’s my ruin. She’s my religion. And tonight, I’m going to make her pray.
I step out of the car, the rain having turned into a fine, ghostly mist. The house is silent, a stone gargoyle watching over the lake. I walk through the front door, the marble echoing my arrival, and head straight for the stairs.
Every step is a beat in a song she doesn’t know the lyrics to yet.
By the time I reach the bedroom door, my heart is a steady, lethal thrum. I turn the key in the lock—the sound of a world ending—and push the door open.
I push the door open. The room is a tomb of shadow and sandalwood, the only light provided by the weak, silver moon filtering through the heavy velvet drapes.
She’s there.
She’s curled on her side in the centre of the vast, dark bed, a pale ghost against the charcoal sheets. The zip-tie marks on her wrists are angry red bracelets in the dark. She looks fragile. She looks like a secret I haven’t finished telling yet.
I don’t turn on the light. I don’t need it. I could find every inch of her in a sensory blackout.
I strip slowly, tossing my clothes onto the floor until I’m as bare as the day I decided the world owed me everything. My skin is still buzzing from the warehouse, the phantom screams of the scout a dull hum beneath my ribs. I climb onto the mattress, the springs not making a sound, and hover over her.
She’s breathing deep and rhythmic. She thinks she’s safe because she’s unconscious. She thinks the night is over.
I lean down and press my mouth to the shell of her ear. I don’t whisper. I just let the heat of my breath hit her skin until she stirs.
“Wake up, Darling,” I murmur, my voice a low, jagged rasp. “The monsters are home.”
She flinches, her eyes snapping open, wide and wild with a terror that instantly turns to heat the second she realises it’s me. She tries to sit up, but I pin her down with the weight of my body, my hand sliding up to her throat, not squeezing, just reminding her who owns the air she’s breathing.
“Peter,” she gasps, her voice a wrecked thread. “You… you smell like…”
“Like work,” I finish for her. I take her hand—the one that isn’t pinned—and bring it to my face. I lickthe palm, slow and deliberate, and then I press her fingers against the drying blood on my jaw. “Taste it, Wendy. Taste the reason you get to sleep in silk while the rest of the world bleeds.”
She whimpers, her pupils blowing out until her eyes are just two black holes of need. She hates that this turns her on. She hates that the smell of iron and violence makes her legs fall open for me.
I don’t give her a chance to process the shame. I flip her onto her stomach with a violent jerk, shoving her face into the silk pillows. I grab her wrists and pin them to the small of her back with one hand, my other hand sliding down to the raw, weeping heat between her thighs.
“You’re still wet,” I growl, my mouth pressed against the nape of her neck. “Even in your sleep, you’re waiting for me. You’re a fucking addict, Wendy. And I’m the only one with the needle.”
I don’t use fingers this time. I take the heavy, cold glass of bourbon I brought up from the nightstand and pour a slow, amber stream over her ass, letting it run down into the crack of her cheeks. She shrieks as the alcohol hits the micro-cuts from the mirror, the sting making her back arch and her muscles seize.
“Does it burn?” I mock, my teeth nipping at her shoulder blade. “Good. I want you to feel every second of what you are.”
I set the glass down and replace it with my tongue. I lick the bourbon off her skin, the taste of smoke and oak mixing with the salt of her sweat. I move lower, my tongue finding the places where the glass bit deepest, cleaning her with a terrifying, rhythmic intensity that has her sobbing into the pillow.
“Peter, please… it’s too much… I can’t?—”
“You’ll take exactly what I give you,” I snap, biting the back of her thigh hard enough to leave a mark she’ll see for a month.
I reach for my nightstand and pull out a fresh set of ties. I don’t want her moving. I want her to be a statue of my desire. I cinch her wrists together, the zip sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room.
