“I am unmated,” I whispered thickly.
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he demanded as he picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder onto the bed. “I had a witch try to bind you to me as my mate last night, and he couldn’t because you are already fucking mated to someone else. I want to know whom you allowed to claim you so I can hang his fucking head above my throne so the world knows you are mine and mine alone.”
“You tried to bind me to you by force?” I asked as I sat up, staring at him as he paced before the bed, naked and hard in his glorious anger. “Why would you even want that?”
“So that I can fuck you whenever I want to,” he snapped. “So that you would look at me like you used to look at me, and kiss me like I am your fucking air, Avery. So that when the witches come to argue for your life, they won’t be able to because it belongs to me!”
“And I’d be what to you, Conner, your whore?”
“My whore? What do you think you are now? You’re a prisoner who murdered the fucking King of the England Vampires! You are mine to do as I please with until I decide otherwise! You won’t give me a reason for slaughtering them, and I have asked until I am blue in the face. Soon enough, I will know what you did and why you did it. There will be nothing you can keep hidden from me, Avery.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded as he searched my eyes.
“It means I’m done fucking around and asking what happened. I deserve the truth.”
“You deserve the truth? You don’t deserve shit! You left me in a hive with men who had been told that they would never be allowed to touch me, and then left me with them. What the fuck do you think happened?”
“Stop lying,” he snarled as he paused in front of me. “My father wouldn’t have allowed it to happen!”
“Your father was the first to fuck me! Then your brothers joined in the fun, and then the men. You want to know what happened, Conner. They destroyed me. They took turns tearing me apart, and at day, they’d feed me your blood so that I’d be so high that I liked it! I didn’t know who was fucking me anymore. I was the whore! I was their whore, and they made damn sure I never forgot where I belonged. Even worse, I begged them for it. I begged for the blood that made my mind think I was with you and I let them do whatever the hell they wanted to me so I could survive them. There, now you know what they did to me.”
“My brothers wouldn’t have hurt you. My father helped me keep you safe from the others. I don’t buy your lies anymore, witch,” he shouted as he grabbed my arm and, ripping me from the bed, he walked me back to the cross. I hit against it with my back, crying out as his anger slithered over my flesh. “They loved you as much as your own parents could have. How fucking dare you say anything less about them.”
“Believe whatever you want, Conner. I don’t need you to believe it, but when you offered to give Amery to your men who have been denied the use of her cunt, what did you think they would do with her? Did you assume they’d buy her flowers and line up to date her or abuse her until she no longer could tell the difference between who used her body?” I asked softly as tears streaked down my cheeks.
“Shut your fucking mouth or I will shut it for you, whore,” he hissed vehemently. My eyes closed at the name he used as everything inside of me screamed. My mouth clamped shut as I dropped my eyes, staring at the floor with no expression, no emotion as I’d learned to do long ago. He secured my arms and my ankles before he stepped back towards me. “Look at me.”
I wouldn’t, I’d find a way to escape him, and I’d get the others away from the murdering bastards who thought we belonged leashed and at heel. I’d find a way to survive because it was what I did. I survived to watch the world change around me, to watch those I loved die slowly before my eyes. I went on, even when I shouldn’t have.
“I said, look at me,” he demanded as his fingers bit into my flesh, lifting my chin. I opened my eyes, staring blankly into his. “I gave you the world. I gave you immortality and a way to live at my side, and this is how you repay me? You lie to me about what happened in that place of death; you make up vile lies about my family, and for what? Pity? Do you think even if I believed what you said, that I would feel sorry for you? You are beneath me, just as my father said you were. You and your kind deal in lies and treachery and make up lies about what happened to make yourself look better. I’m not some little prince who is besotted by you anymore, Avery. I’m the King, and I demand answers for what you did. If I find out you were planted to do what you did, not even all the witches of this world are going to be enough to protect you from me.”
“Just end it, Conner,” I whispered softly, watching him glaring through slanted eyes at me. “Kill me, please. You stole death from me. Give it to me now. End it here, right here, right now. Do it!” I screamed as I shook with the memories and horror of what I’d been forced to escape from because he’d made me immortal, and only he could end my life. “I wish for it, every morning when I wake up, and every night when I go to sleep. I pray for death, so just fucking do it already and be done with this.”
“Never. Never, little witch. You are mine as you promised to be for all time. I may not even end it if I discover you betrayed me from the beginning. There are fates worse than death.”
“I’m very aware of them. I lived through them.”
“You have no idea of the things we can do to you,” he uttered softly.
“There’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t already been done, Conner. I am good with pain, and I know what death looks like. I have felt it all, thanks to you and your family. When I said I’d wished you had left me in the garbage to die, I wish you had to spare me everything I have endured. You think you can scare me with pain, or the threat of it? Try me. Throw me to the hive and let them play with me, show me what a good King you are. I’ll be okay with them, fuck, I may even like it.”
Chapter 9
My arms burned from being suspended for days, and my legs felt unattached as they hung uselessly below me. Conner came and went as he pleased, touching me, driving me to the brink of madness as he touched and used me like I was nothing more than his personal toy. He never spoke to me, or about me, and I never tried to engage him in conversation either. I had stopped responding to his touches last night, only allowing it to play out and move when he demanded it, like a machine built for his pleasure.
I was lost in the memories I’d buried long ago, so deeply embedded into the blackness of my mind that I’d almost been able to pretend they didn’t exist. Now they seemed to seep through my pores, clawing through the surface of my mind as I slept, haunting my dreams. Exhaustion made them worsen, made them dominant in my mind as I was left with my demons while he played King below in the hall he’d created to mirror his father’s throne room.
Today, however, he watched me from the shadows of the room, studying me as I waited for him to play with me. The silence haunted me, it unnerved me until I was sure I’d lose it and begin screaming. His father had kept me in a dark room for months, holding me there in chains until I’d never thought to look upon the sun or feel it heating my face again.
Conner stood, slowly moving towards me in nothing more than a pair of loose-fitting jeans that hugged his hips. I didn’t gaze into his eyes, nor look upon the face I’d once loved. I stared at his feet, giving him the submission he craved, and even when he demanded it, I didn’t look up. I’d learned this lesson from his father and brothers, to look up meant abuse would be given, or an inch of flesh would be taken. To these creatures, I was nothing. I was less than nothing, and an enemy that refused to be used against her own kind held only one use. Those were the options Grigori had given me that day. Submit and be used as a weapon, or die a million deaths at his hand, since I couldn’t be killed outright because of what Conner, his son, had made me into.
I’d prayed for death, begged the Gods to let me join them on the other side, if there was one. I’d be
gged the Goddess to give me mercy, to end the suffering I endured daily as I refused to submit to Grigori’s will. I’d begged them to take me to Conner, but everyone had told me he’d known my fate, that he had agreed to it before he’d walked away from me, leaving me to their mercy for which they had none.
“Look at me, Avery,” he growled. When I didn’t, he grabbed my chin, lifting my eyes to his, and yet I didn’t see him. His eyes searched my face before he dropped his hold on it and let his hands lower to my naked breasts, tweaking my nipples as he watched me. “You brought this on yourself, waif. My father knew how much you meant to me, and he was a good man. I couldn’t let you go back to the witches knowing everything about us. You were born my enemy, and I couldn’t trust you not to become it again when I’d let you go.”
My heart hammered painfully against my ribcage as I listened to his version of our relationship. To him, his father was a King among men, and his word was his bond. He had loved him, holding him on an ivory pedestal. Of course, he hadn’t been forced to learn the truth of the monster that had created him, but I had. I hadn’t been able to ignore the truth, nor the strength of his hands around my throat as he’d fucked me. I’d been unable to ignore the real monster that Conner had been spared from seeing.
“You have nothing to say to me, waif?” he demanded softly as he bent down, releasing my feet before standing up to free my hands. The moment I was released, I fell to the floor, unable to catch myself before my mind realized I would need to.
I didn’t rise from the floor. Instead, I crawled into position and knelt as his feet with my head held down in a submissive position. He knelt in front of me, placing two fingers beneath my chin before lifting my face to stare into my eyes.
“Tell me the truth. Tell me my father didn’t rape you and you just wanted my pity,” he hissed.
“Your father didn’t rape me. I just wanted your pity,” I replied, telling him what he’d said to say.
“Fucking mean it!” he shouted, and I flinched, recoiling as I placed my head at his feet with my ass in the air, submitting. “What the fuck are you doing?” he growled.
“What a good whore does, master,” I uttered barely above a whisper. “I am whatever you wish me to be, and will do whatever you wish of me. I am nothing and no one. Use me as you wish to.”
“Get the fuck up,” he hissed through his teeth.
I rose to my feet even though my thighs burned from being suspended for days. My eyes remained on his bare feet as I struggled to stay upright. He walked around me, staring at my prone position. He silently removed his belt, slipping it free of his waist before he slipped it around my neck. I tensed but remained still as he tightened it.
“I’m going to guess whoever the fuck mated with you liked it rough and that you played along with it to please him. So show me what you like, Avery. Show me how to fuck you right. The little waif I knew, she didn’t like to be manhandled, she liked it gentle and slow. She liked to feel me stretching her tight pussy when I fucked it slowly, but you, you want it hard and fast. So, show me what your husband or mate enjoyed, and what you allowed him to do to you.”
“I am not married, nor do I have a mate, master,” I whispered as he tightened the belt until it began to close off my airway.
“You are mated, or you would be mine right now. How many men have you fucked since I took you to my father and left you?”
“Two hundred and seventy-three men and seventeen women have used me, and I served each well and pleased them greatly, master.”
“Used you?” he asked hesitantly. “Women?”
“There are ways to penetrate a body that doesn’t include having a cock. I learned to take whatever they gave me or put into me however they chose to do so. What would you like to use on me, master? I can accommodate many things, and I enjoy the pain it gives.”
“Stop it, Avery,” he warned as he pulled me closer, catching me as my legs gave out. His hand lifted my chin, finding the tears swimming in my eyes, and he frowned deeply, disturbed by my words.
“Tell me how you want me to be, and I will be it,” I whispered thickly. “Tell me how to act, and I will. Tell me how to pleasure you, and I will be the best whore you have ever had. You want me to tell you that everything was amazing when I was with your father, I will. I will do whatever it takes to survive. I am witch. My goal is to survive whatever happens to me, no matter how deeply it scars my soul. To endure and survive until the coven comes to free me.”
“Don’t you fucking recite that shit ass mantra to me,” he snapped angrily. “You said it to me for weeks as I fed you my blood to bring you back from the grave. Day after day, I held you in my arms, not allowing your weak body to leave mine for fear your pulse would fucking stop. Me, Avery, I held you through the storm, and I cared alone if you lived or died. Not your fucking coven, never them. You whispered it so many times that I still hear it when I sleep. You’re not a whore. You’ve never been one, nor will you ever be one. No matter what the fuck I choose to call you, we both know the fucking truth.”
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding to him without lifting my head.
“You’re not fucking docile either, so stop pretending to be. Where’s the fucking firecracker who loved to argue with me? Where the fuck did that girl go?”
“You killed her,” I said gently as I dropped to my knees and waited for him to issue an order. My hands folded in front of me, my head bowed as my spine arched into the position his father had loved. I waited for the order, to either be shared or given to whoever had pleased the King the most today.
“Get up!” he growled and stepped back, watching me as I once again struggled to rise from the ground; the exhaustion of raising and lowering into the position sapped my strength, and yet I would rise because I would survive this too.
“I told you, I learned where I belong and how to please my masters. That is what you are now, right? I am your prisoner just as I was your father’s. You plan to fuck me whenever you want, so did your father. Will you share me too? I find that with enough of your blood in my system, I don’t care who hurts me or who takes me. You’re right; they didn’t rape me, Conner. They didn’t need to, they just fed me your blood, and I did whatever they wanted. It wasn’t the sex that bothered me though; it was what they did to me after it had worn off. Do you know what your hive did to the witches they captured? How they cut them apart to rid the parts that could cast? They take their points from them, all of them.”
“You don’t have a single fucking scar on you,” he said, grabbing my hair and pulling me to him as he removed the belt from my neck. “You’re as perfect as you were the day I walked away from you. Your pretty green eyes may have lost their sparkle, but they’re still the most beautiful thing I have ever looked into. Your saucy little tongue, it still brushes against mine with a shyness that makes me ache to feel it. Your silky midnight curls that frame your perfect heart-shaped face is still as soft as it was when I held you the night I made you into a woman. Your skin is smooth, still perfect against mine. So tell me, Avery, how much fucking torture could you have endured after I left you?” he demanded harshly.
“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” I said as I shoved him away from me. “You want me, feed me your blood, and I’ll do whatever you want. Put me back in chains if you’re done with me for the night, a good whore waits in silence to be fucked. I don’t need to listen to your fucking drivel when my cunt needs to be filled.” It was crude and the last thing I wanted, and yet he wanted the truth, but he couldn’t handle the truth of what I’d endured—shit, most days I couldn’t handle it either.
“Is that what you want, my blood?” he asked.
“That is the price to use the whores, is it not? Come on, princeling, give it to me and show me what you got. Feed me, and I’ll rock your world.” I stared him down as he glared at me, but his finger rose, slicing through his pectoral muscle as his
breathing intensified with his need, his anger driving him.
I stepped closer, licking my lips as I slid my tongue over his chest before biting my lip open to mix them, growling loudly as the blood touched my tongue. I sucked against his flesh and his hands captured my head, holding me there as my mouth sucked against the wound greedily. My hands stroked his sides, and before I knew his intention, his hands pulled my mouth away from the source of his blood, kissing me. He picked me up, moving towards the bed as my hands found his hair, yanking his mouth from mine. I stared at him, unseeing.
“Conner,” I whispered breathlessly as I let him drop us to the bed before I pushed away, working his pants to get them undone. The moment they were, I stroked his cock slowly before I licked down the length and then back up again, wetting it for my throat before I took him entirely into my mouth. I took him all, bobbing against it even though no air reached my lungs as he sealed my airway. His frenzied noises only emboldened me as I swallowed until light exploded behind my eyes as my lungs burned. Not even when he pulled at my hair did I stop sucking or fucking him with my throat. His blood, when combined with mine, made it impossible for me to stop or feel anything. The only need I held was to please him and him alone. It was as if I’d been given drugs that numbed my mind and body and created an addiction to please him.
“Avery,” he whispered as he pulled my hair, forcing my head back.
I stared at him, seeing through him to the ghosts that stood around us. I rose from the bed to my knees, crawling over him as he watched me. “I can do better, master. Let me please you,” I uttered past the burning in my throat.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded huskily.
My mouth landed on the cut that threatened to close, needing more to forget the pain that haunted me. I kissed it before using my blunt teeth to open the wound as I took from him what he gave freely. He hissed as I bit into his flesh. My cunt slid over his smooth cock, riding the rigid edge to please him. He pulled me from his blood, dropping his eyes to my bloodied mouth, realizing it wasn’t just his blood coating them as his blood healed the wound on my lip. It was our blood mixed together that worked against me. It always had, as if when it mixed, it turned my body against me and made me into whatever they wanted me to become, only it had never happened until after he’d left me. I’d never had the combination until after I’d been beaten and had his blood forced down my throat.
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