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I twisted violently in his grip, wrenching my mouth free of his fingers.
“I agreed to one performance!” I shouted into the cavernous room, my voice cutting through the heat and the crowd’s murmur. Every eye locked onto me. “I agreed to yield my body on this altar for one night, with the House as my sole witness! But the contract is bound! When the curtain falls, the Devil escorts me below the red door to my sister with zero claims, zero bonds, and zero debts attached to my name! If the House tries to take more, the vow is void, and the sacrifice gives nothing!”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then, the floor beneath us went dead cold. The House’s hum stalled, snagging on the precise, legal parameters I had just thrown into the open air. The loophole was set in stone before three hundred witnesses.
Malachi stared down at me, his silver eyes blazing with fury and a twisted, reluctant surge of admiration.
“You reckless, arrogant little bitch,” he snarled under his breath, his fingers wrapping around my neck until my airway tightened. “You think you can play games with the architecture?”
“I think you’re stuck with my terms, Devil,” I gasped out, glaring into his mask. “So either give them the show you promised, or admit you can’t handle your own stage.”
His grip shifted from lethal to purely dominant. “Oh, you’re getting the show. And you’re going to scream so loud the dead below the floorboards wake up to listen.”
Malachi seized me by the throat and hurled me backward onto the wooden altar with enough force to crack my skull against the dark grain. Stars exploded across my vision. Before I could drag air back into my lungs, he was on me, his full weight crushing my chest as he wrenched my arms above my head and pinned both wrists together with one brutal hand.
“Don’t fucking move,” he snarled, his breath hot against my ear.
He grabbed lengths of white braided silk from the base of the altar and wound them around my wrists with vicious efficiency, yanking the knots so tight the fibers bit through skin. He secured the bindings to iron rings embedded on either side of the platform, stretching my arms wide until my shoulders screamed in protest and my spine arched helplessly off the wood.
I twisted against the restraints, testing their give. There was none. The silk cut deeper with every movement, leaving raw welts across my pulse points.
“Look at her,” Malachi announced to the crowd, his voice dropping into a low, predatory rasp that reverberated through the floorboards. “Still thinks she has a choice.”
He gripped the neckline of the white silk slip with both hands and tore downward with savage force. The delicate fabric shredded apart, the sound of ripping cloth echoing through the theater as he exposed my bare breasts and stomach to the glare of the spotlights. The crowd’s collective intake of breath was audible, a wave of hunger that seemed to thicken the air and feed the oppressive heat radiating from the altar.
Malachi didn’t pause. He bent over me, his mouth closing around my left nipple with bruising pressure. His teeth sank into the sensitive flesh hard enough to make me cry out, the sharp pain lancing straight down to my core.
My body betrayed me instantly. Heat flooded between my thighs, slick and shameful, even as my mind recoiled.
“You hate me,” Malachi murmured against my wet skin, dragging his teeth across my sternum before biting down on the swell of my other breast hard enough to leave marks. “Say it. Tell them how much you want me dead.”
“I loathe you with every fiber of my being,” I choked out, my voice breaking as his tongue traced the curve of my ribs with deliberate cruelty. “You’re a fucking monster.”
“And you’re dripping for a monster.”
He shoved the torn remnants of the silk up to my waist, baring me completely. His hand slid between my thighs without warning, his rough fingers finding my center and forcing their way inside with zero gentleness. He drove two fingers deep in one brutal thrust, curling them hard against my inner wall.
A strangled scream tore from my throat. My hips bucked involuntarily against his hand as he pumped his fingers with relentless, punishing force, stretching me open. At the same time, the crowd leaned over the balcony railings, their breathing audible in the suffocating quiet.
“Look how easily you open for me,” Malachi taunted, his thumb grinding mercilessly against my clit. “All that venom, and you’re soaking my hand like a whore.”
He withdrew his fingers abruptly, slick with my arousal, and dragged them across my stomach, leaving a glistening trail over my pale skin. Then he shoved those same fingers into my mouth, forcing them past my teeth until I gagged.
“Taste yourself,” he commanded, his voice thick with dark satisfaction. “Taste what your body does when I touch you.”
I bit down hard on his fingers. He yanked them free with a vicious curse and backhanded me across the face.
The blow snapped my head to the side, pain exploding across my cheekbone. My vision blurred. Blood filled my mouth where my teeth had cut the inside of my cheek.
“Stupid little bitch,” Malachi growled, gripping my jaw hard enough to bruise and forcing my face back toward his. “I’m the Devil, little flower. You want to fight? I’ll give you something to fight.”
He unfastened his trousers and shoved them down, releasing his cock. It was thick, heavy, and pulsing with dark veins, fully erect and glistening in the stage lights. The sight of it sent a bolt of pure terror through my chest.
“Watch,” Malachi commanded, his voice carrying to every corner of the theater.
He positioned himself between my bound thighs, gripping my hips with bruising force, his fingers digging into the soft flesh hard enough to leave purple marks. He dragged me down the altar toward him, angling my pelvis upward, and drove his cock inside me in one savage, unforgiving thrust.
