Peter is sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in a fresh white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal the dark ink on his forearms. His hands are scrubbed clean, his fingernails immaculate, as if the blood of a man hadn’t been under them only hours ago. He’s holding a cup of tea.
“Drink,” he says, leaning over me.
I stare at him, and for a second, the image of Mikhail’s raw, quivering muscle flashes over Peter’s handsome face. My stomach roils. I try to pull away, but my body feels like it’s made of lead.
“You… you hung him up,” I whisper. My voice is a ghost, a thin, rattling thing that doesn’t belong to me. “You peeled him like an orange.”
“I did,” Peter says, his eyes sparkling with that horrific, witty intelligence. He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from my forehead. His touch is so gentle it makes me want to scream. “And you watched. Every second of it. Do you remember what you said right before you fainted, Wendy?”
I shake my head, my breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches.
“You said it looked like rubies,” he whispers, leaning down until his lips are brushing my ear. “You weren’t repulsed, Darling. You were mesmerised. The Hale blood in you finally recognised its own.”
“No,” I choke out. “I’m not like you. I’m not a monster.”
“Aren’t you?” He sets the tea down and suddenly he’s over me, his arms pinning me to the silk sheets. He doesn’t look angry; he looks fascinated. “You stayed in the chair. You watched the salt hit the nerves. And beneath the horror, beneath the vomit and the screaming… you were wet, Wendy. You were dripping for the violence.”
“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” I scream, my hands coming up to hit his chest.
But as my palms hit his heart, I feel it. The pulse. The power. The absolute, unshakeable certainty of him. My mind is screaming run, but my body is softening, my legs falling open under the weight of his thighs.
The chains aren’t on my wrists. They’re in the way I’m looking at his mouth, wondering if it still tastes like iron.
“Clara called your Mum,” I say, trying to find a foothold in reality. “She told her you’re insane. She’s going to get help.”
Peter laughs, a sharp, barking sound that echoes off the crown moulding. “Clara is currently in the guest suite with a very large sedative and a very small understanding of how this world works. And Mum? Mum told her to make sure the blood didn’t ruin the rugs. We are a family of collectors, Wendy. And you are the crown jewel.”
He slides his hand down my body, his fingers tracing the line of my ribs through the thin silk of my nightgown.
“The North End will come back,” I whisper, desperate for something to stop the way my heart isstarting to race for all the wrong reasons. “They’ll burn this place to the ground.”
“Let them,” Peter purrs, his hand reaching the hem of my gown and sliding upward. “I’ll use their bones to build us a new porch. But for now, you’re going to stop thinking about dead boys and start thinking about me.”
He finds the ache between my legs—the one that hasn’t gone away, the one that feels like a wound and a prayer all at once.
“You’re still mine, Wendy,” he growls, his teeth nipping at my jaw. “Even after the blood. Especially after the blood.”
I close my eyes, a sob catching in my throat as his fingers find their mark. I hate him. I hate him with every broken piece of my soul.
And as I arch my back against him, I realise the most terrifying thing of all: the door is wide open, and I’m not even looking for it anymore.
“Sit up, Wendy,” he commands.
His voice is a low, vibrating friction that leaves no room for the word no. I move like a puppet, my limbs heavy and uncoordinated as I sit on the edge of the mattress. Peter stands between my legs, his hands coming up to the straps of my nightgown. With a single, sharp tug, the silk hisses down my skin, pooling at my hips.
I’m bare to the waist in the cold morning light, my skin pale and trembling. He stares at me, his eyes traveling over the bruises he left, the marks Elena tried to hide, and the way my nipples peak under the intensity of his gaze.
“You look like a sacrificial lamb,” he whispers, reaching for the crystal carafe on the nightstand. It’s filledwith thick, golden honey from the breakfast tray. “But we both know you’re the one holding the knife.”
He tilts the carafe.
I gasp, my back arching as the viscous, heavy sweetness hits my collarbone. It’s warm—too warm—and it moves like slow-motion lava, trailing down the slope of my breast, catching on the curve, and then dripping, heavy and gold, onto my stomach.
“Peter,” I moan, my eyes fluttering shut. “Please, don’t…”
“Don’t what? Don’t treat you like the feast you are?” He leans in, the scent of honey and his dark, masculine musk overwhelming me. “Yesterday you watched me peel a man. Today, you’re going to watch me consume you. There is no middle ground in this house, Wendy. There is only the hunter and the prize.”
He drops to his knees between my thighs.
