Page 180 of Pleasure & Prey: Vol. 2

I know what he means, even without him clarifying what it he means. My hands come up to stroke along his arms, and I lean my head back to stare at the ceiling pensively before I answer. “Because she was cruel,” I murmur at last, giving him the answer I’ve told before. But now it feels hollow on my lips, even though it is the truth. “Because she hurt me. She wouldn’t let me sleep in the house, and⁠—”

“No.” He flicks my nose punishingly with a small chuckle. “I’m not asking about that. I want to know why. What did it for you? What was the thing to push you over the edge? What combination of things made you take a flashlight and beat your mother’s skull to smithereens?”

His frank, brutal way of describing it makes a shiver go down my spine, and my fingers feel numb as I grip his arm a little more tightly, like an anchor to hold me in place.

I don’t have to tell him, I reason. I could honestly make something up or evade the question. Even Cass doesn’t know everything, and I consider him my best friend.

“She threw me in a well.” The words come out a bit strangled and soft. My fingers tighten on his arm, and I’m unable to sit completely still. “It wasn’t just that. It was the other things too, you know? She used to love me. Mom and I did everything together. She taught me how to ride a horse. She took me with her everywhere. But then suddenly?” I shrug, the action jerky.

“I don’t know what happened. Suddenly, I wasn’t her daughter anymore. She would grab me and shake me. She’d demand to know where Sierra went, and why I’d taken her.” From the corner of my eye, I can see my hands shaking, clutching his arm like a vice. “Over and over and over. Every day, until she got tired of looking at me and made Dad build me a room in the barn loft. I loved the horses until then, but they kept me up at night and it was so cold in the barn. And—” My words falter, and I close my eyes to push back the hot tears I can feel pushing to the surface.

“Did I mention she threw me in a well?”

“Maybe once.” Larkin’s mouth brushes my jaw, and I jump, surprised. “Poor, silly girl. My poor Sierra.” Something goes through me, something both exciting and terrifying, when he whispers my real name in my ear.

“I never went anywhere!” My words are harsher than I intend them to be, betraying years of pent-up confusion and anger. “I was always there, Larkin! It’s not like I’m some-some alien doppelgänger or fae changeling. I’m her! Sierra Tova Morwen. Daughter of Anna and Rick Morwen. She’s the one who went crazy, but”—I let out a wretched, humorless laugh and glare up at the ceiling—“somehow I’m the one who got dealt the consequences.”

His silence isn’t what I expect. He holds me around the shoulders, letting me grip his arm, but Larkin doesn’t give me one of his normal, snarky replies. Anxiety churns below my sternum, and I twist to look at him, my neck protesting as I glare at him over my shoulder. “You think I’m lying.”

Larkin is quick to assure me, “No, I don’t think you’re lying at all. I think you’re the same Sierra who was born to Anna and Rick Morwen. I think you grew up with a mother who stopped loving you and a father who didn’t protect you.” He suddenly pulls me to the side, forcing me onto my back on the couch so he can hover over me.

“But do you want to know what else I think?” His words send a shiver down my spine, and I’m tempted to tell him no. Larkin holds himself over me, his towel slipping dangerously low while mine has completely given up and slithered to the floor. Before tonight, I’ve never felt this vulnerable, or this raw. I don’t understand some of my reactions to him, or to Dale’s death.

I’m never very good with change, no matter how I like to tease about being adaptable in bad situations. Larkin represents change and newness and⁠—

“Yeah,” I breathe. “Yes. I want to know what you think.”

“I think you’re a monster.”

The words make me go cold, and I swear my heart stops beating. I freeze under him, my eyes wide and on his, expecting him to break out into a laugh or smirk down at me before saying something to break the heavy mood.

“I think you’re fucked up, silly girl.” The fondness doesn’t quite soften his words, and I’m too frozen to do anything as he reaches up to cup my face, thumb trailing over my lower lip. “You’ve killed four people now, and you cried over Dale not because he’s dead, but because he made it self-defense when you wanted it to be in cold blood.”

“No, that’s not⁠—”

“You killed your roommate’s boyfriend and instead of falling apart, you immediately calculated a way to make it look like one of mine.” His nail digs into the softness of my lip, drawing a soft breath from my mouth.

“You killed your mother by beating her face in with a flashlight with such brutality no one could believe a child could do that. You got away with it because of that fact. Because the murder was so cruel, so cold, that the jurors didn’t actually want to believe the little girl in the courtroom could have done that, and it was easier to believe in justifiable cause than to look at you and see you for what you are.” He lowers his face so his lips just over mine and we’re breathing the same air.

“You found your father dead and went to some guy staying in a cabin on the island. You could’ve run away from him. Derek Prescott wasn’t exactly that athletic. You could’ve gone anywhere, done anything. You could’ve just killed him quickly. But no, little girl,” Larkin croons with a sweetness in his words that makes me feel sick.

“You poked out his eyes and listened to him scream. Then you beat him with that same flashlight, even though he was never going to be able to find or hurt you. Hell, he would’ve died anyway from what you did to his eyes. But that wasn’t enough for you. So do I think you’re a changeling or a doppelgänger? Do I think you just magically appeared to take over the body of Sierra Tova Morwen? Absolutely not.”

He sinks down impossibly closer, until his lips brush mine, and my heart pounds against my chest to escape the prison of my ribs in a rapid, rabbit-like frenzy.

I don’t want to hear this.

I don’t want to know what he thinks⁠—

“I think you were always a little monster. I think it was always inside you, growing like the sweetest rot.” He tucks my hair back from my face. “And I think your mother made you bloom into what you were always meant to be, Sierra.” He purrs my real name, and I swear I can’t breathe. I can’t take a breath, or move, or scream, or⁠—

“You bloomed into what you were always meant to be; a depraved, fucked-up little thing who takes what doesn’t belong to her and causes other monsters to fall in love.”

Wait…what? The words don’t make sense. I stare at him, baffled, though I can barely see the glint of his eyes as my mouth tries to form words. Larkin grins at my confusion, and his grip tightens almost painfully on my jaw.

“That’s right,” he chuckles. “Though I don’t know how you can’t tell, I’ll spell it out for you. I’m obsessed with you, silly girl.” Suddenly he kisses me, though that doesn’t feel like a proper word for it. This time, it’s mostly teeth and aggression. He bites and claims, leaving wounds and marks on my lower lip, my tongue, and finally the line of my jaw before he’s satisfied enough that he pulls away. When I try to move or fight back, Larkin grabs my wrists in the hand that had been gripping my face, slamming them onto the sofa above my head and making me cry out in discomfort and surprise.

“You’re mine, Sierra.” He leans back just enough to meet my eyes, and I feel like I’m drowning in his brown-black gaze. “You will always be mine. Until the day you kill me, or the day we die together.” Larkin doesn’t let me answer. He kisses me again and again, biting new marks into my skin as his touch and tongue wander further down, like he’s on a mission to leave his mark on every inch of skin he can reach.