by K. V. Rose
I push down on the lever. But my mistake is in not calculating the time it would take to pull the heavy door open.
As I pull, something burns at my scalp, and I’m jerked backward.
“You’re not leaving this room until I’m done with you,” Kristof growls.
I lose my footing, my knees coming down, hard, on the marble floor. Kristof jerks me around by my hair until I’m facing him, a smile on his face. I want to vomit.
Blood is gushing from his thigh, but he doesn’t seem to feel the wound anymore. He isn’t even trying to stop the flow of blood. Instead, one hand still twining in my hair, he reaches the other for my throat, yanking me to my feet and slamming me against the door. The one I had almost escaped from.
Almost.
I angle the knife, ready to plunge it into his stomach. I don’t care if he dies. Kristof means nothing to me. No one means anything to me anymore.
But he grabs my wrist, releasing my hair. My scalp still burns, my head spinning from where he slammed it against the door. And now, my wrist is trembling in his hand, his fingers circling easily around me.
“Put down the knife, Sid, and I’ll go easy on you,” he grunts, his voice faint.
The wound is getting to him after all. His command has lost its usual bite.
“No,” I say, even as he pushes my arm against the door at an unnatural angle. He’s going to break it if I don’t let go.
But he’ll have to do it.
Because I’m not fucking letting go.
“Sid,” he breathes against my cheek, hand still crushing against my throat. I can hardly breathe. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I choke out a laugh but can’t find the words to say he is already hurting me. I relax for a second, letting him think the fight has gone out of me. Predictably, his grip around my wrist loosens.
I jerk it forward, angling the knife toward him.
He stops me.
I scream as loud as I can, the sound piercing my own ears. He doesn’t let go. He only slams my head back against the door once more, my feet dangling from the floor in his grip.
A sob tears through my throat. But I clamp my teeth together, refusing to let it out. I won’t cry for this idiot. Even as his fingers curl tighter around my throat, I won’t let the tears spring free.
He slowly lets me slide to the floor, his breathing growing more labored from the blood loss, the knife wound. But even still, he pries my fingers off of my knife, and I have to let him. I can barely breathe with his hand around my neck. He drops the knife to the floor. I hear it clatter, hear his breath, hear my heart pounding in my ears.
He reaches for my thigh, his hand clamping down over it. I want to kill him. I haven’t been with anyone in a year. Not since Lucifer. Not since I’d been Lilith.
His hand rises higher, but just before he can touch me there, there’s a knock on the door at my back. Loud, demanding. Seven quick strikes in a row.
He freezes, and I do too.
“If I have to knock again, I’ll kill you both.” My brother’s cold voice.
“Fuck,” Kristof swears under his breath, but he releases me, and I fall to the floor, trying to catch my breath, my hand going to my neck, rubbing at the burning skin. I crawl out of the way before Kristof can hit me with the door as he pulls it open.
I hear my brother laugh before I see him.
“I knew she wouldn’t let you,” he mutters. The door snaps closed and then he turns to me, his eyes on my hand at my throat. They narrow slightly. “Get up.”
Kristof holds his tongue, but my eyes find his, and he’s fuming. He’s also bleeding and in pain, and he stumbles back against the wall in the foyer, sinking to the floor, not bothering to cover himself in front of me or my brother.
I rub at my neck again, and then get to my feet, tugging down the oversized white t-shirt I’m wearing.
“Why?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
Jeremiah smiles. “Because I can. And you need to learn a lesson.” He turns, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Come with me.” That order is directed to me. He glances at Kristof. “Get cleaned up. I’m going to need you back on duty tomorrow morning.”
Kristof grunts his agreement, which is all he can really manage. I glare at him as I follow Jeremiah out into the dimly lit hall. The door closes behind us, and then Jeremiah pins me against the wall, his hands on my upper arms.
“You cannot afford to disobey me, Sid,” he growls at me, his eyes wild on mine. “What if he finds you again? What if his filthy fucking friends find you? That,” he jerks his head to the door at our left, the door to Kristof’s room. “Was to teach you a lesson. To help you understand just what could happen to you if you don’t trust me fully.” He takes a breath, his fingers curling tighter around my arms. “Do you think I enjoy tormenting you?”
Even though I know I shouldn’t, even though I feel some sick rush of gratitude toward him for not letting it go so far, laughter bubbles on my lips. “Yes,” I hiss. “Yes, Brother, I think you love tormenting me. Aside from making money and fucking women, I think tormenting me is your favorite pastime.”
He blows out a breath, presses his brow against mine. I can feel his words against my lips.
“Sid,” he whispers. My heart slams in my chest. My brother is the most dangerous when he’s quiet. When he’s still. For several moments, he doesn’t speak. And then he says, “If you can’t get it together, I will kill you. I won’t risk letting you crawl around on the streets. I won’t risk anyone coming back for you. I won’t risk the Unsaints finding you again. I’d rather you be dead.”
My heart lodges in my throat, and he smiles.
He pulls back, but still holds on tight to me. In that moment, I’m grateful. Without his grip, I think I might faint. “I know what they do to people that hurt them. And if they were to find out what you are to me…they’d do much worse than Lucifer did that night.”
My cheeks heat, and I look away, no longer able to meet his eyes.
He shakes me. “Look at me,” he spits, his voice venomous.
Reluctantly, I bring my gaze to his.
“I’ve seen all of your dirty little secrets, Sid. I know what you did before me. I know that what I saw was the least of what you’ve done. You’re used goods, Sid. This is the best you’re going to get.” He steps away from me, finally releasing his hold on my arms. “You couldn’t really ask for more though, could you?”
Then he turns and walks away, leaving me half-naked on the dim hallway, just outside of Kristof’s door.
Chapter Six
Present
That night, I lay in bed, the ceiling fan set on high, spinning like a cyclone above my head. I haven’t been able to stand the quiet since that night. Since I had awoken to Jeremiah kicking me in the side, silence ringing out in the forest, after he’d dragged me from the asylum.
I close my eyes against the memory.
But it isn’t the memory I want to block out. At least, not all of it.
It’s the pain in my chest when I think of him. The hole of rage. Grief. Obsession. Even one year later, Halloween quickly approaching in two weeks’ time, I can’t let that night go. Those blue eyes behind his skull paint, those full lips outlined in stripes of black and white. He’s fucking burned into my soul.
All of the Unsaints are.
I sit up, slide against the headboard at my back. It’s black, like most everything in my room is. Black comforter, black satin sheets, black marble floor. It’s why I chose this room. Jeremiah had given me the pick of them, the ones not used for his staff or himself. Even the bathtub is inlaid with obsidian stone.
I glance out the balcony window, the heavy black drapes open wide. I’m on the seventh floor, and I know Jeremiah is one above me. Directly above me. I don’t know if that’s where his room always was, or if he’d moved his to be closer to me. To keep an eye on me.
I’d asked him. As always, he never answered me. Neither would Nicolas. Although I think that’s more because Ni
colas has never known where Jeremiah’s room is. Only his guards seem to know that, and Brooklin.
Nicolas could be a guard, but he isn’t. Not exactly. He’s smarter than the others. Not as smart as Jeremiah, or else Jeremiah wouldn’t have let him work for him. But smart enough.
It was Nicolas who’d come to my room to tell me Kristof would live, and he’d keep his hands off of me from now on. He’d told me to keep my mouth shut in the kill rooms, as he calls them. To keep my damn head on my shoulders. To listen to my brother.
I told him to fuck off.
Jeremiah never took me to kill rooms more than once a month or so, after he tormented me at Raven Park. I was good for the rest of October. That doesn’t mean, of course, that nobody else won’t die at his command. It just means I won’t have to see the remains. He likes to give me a break. To keep me guessing.
To make me panic.
He’s a businessman of the worst kind, if you can even call him that. He operates outside of the law, dealing in things most people wouldn’t dare.
Tonight, he’d killed that man before he took me to Raven Park. Our usual sick routine. A reminder of what could happen to me again, if I wasn’t safe.
I have no idea why that man was his target tonight. No clue in what way he’d run afoul of my brother. Jeremiah didn’t offer that kind of information. He didn’t need to. We were sworn to him, to the Order, for the rest of our lives. If we wanted to quit, well, our lives would end rather quickly.
But no one seems foolish enough to come after Jeremiah Rain, to oppose him.
I wish someone would.
Specifically, I wished he would. Lucifer. The Unsaints. But he’d vanished that night, the first we met. The last, too. Vanished with the rest of them after Lover’s Death. He could be dead for all I know.
I remember the time before Jeremiah and the Unsaints, when I’d spent many blissful years unaware that Jeremiah Rain even existed so close to me. I’d seen the hotel, of course, but I never gave a damn that some billionaire bought it. I didn’t know about Lucifer either, or the Society of Six. About Lover’s Death. The Unsaints.
It’s not that my life had been easy before.
It hadn’t been.
It’d been hard.
But it had been mine.
Mine to end, until Lucifer convinced me otherwise.
Until my brother came in and took it all away. The choice. The plan. My mind.
Chapter Seven
Halloween, One Year Ago
The voices grow distance and the chill this far from the fire wraps itself around me like a living thing. I put my hand on the grip of my gun on my thigh. Before, when I strapped this thing on hours ago—was it really only hours?—I’d felt certain. I’d known what came next. After a series of bumps and bruises and shots to the heart, this final thing was going to be it for me. My own choice, taking my life in my own hands.
Now, though...I’m not so sure. But I don’t want to fall back into that abyss of darkness I’d fell into too many times before. That darkness was suffocating. Maddening. I know I can’t survive that again.
But can I pull the trigger when the cold barrel of this gun is digging into the side of my head?
I don’t know.
The party in Raven Park grows distant and I realize with a start that the fucking merry-go-round is ahead of me. The park opens up into a small clearing, a circle filled in with wood chips for kids to play.
Only right now, it looks like kids should never come here. The merry-go-round isn’t moving, but shadows seem to lurk within the small poles spearing the animals: bears, ponies, something that looks like a wolf but with floppy ears. In the dark, it all looks a little grotesque.
I think I see something thick spilling from the white unicorn’s side, but I shake my head and it disappears.
Ria’s words are just freaking me out. I reach for the horns on my head absently, still walking toward the clearing, and then I freeze.
Someone is watching me.
Standing in the shadows, leaned casually against a lion, it’s the man from the party with the hood on. It’s still on, down low over his face, concealing his eyes, but I know he’s watching me. He’s been watching me since the party.
My blood runs cold as I realize he probably followed me out here.
I stop walking and wrap my arms around myself. I think, for just a second, I should reach for my gun, but I don’t. I don’t want to provoke this guy, and with this much vodka in my veins, my aim would be shit. Instead, I glance over my shoulder, hoping someone else will have floated this way from the party. But there’s nothing but dark, empty woods at my back.
I force myself to face this guy again.
But he’s gone.
I spin around, heart thudding. I have no idea who he is but for some reason, I can’t help but to think he’s an Unsaint, too. He’s too dark to be anything else.
I know what Lucifer and Atlas look like. Is this Mayhem? Or Cain? Ezra? What was the other one’s name? And what does it mean if it is one of them?
I spin around again, eyes darting over the clearing, the woods, the merry-go-round. But there’s nothing to see. And there’s nothing but silence, too, and the sound of my own breathing. My heart pumping hard in my chest.
I reach for the grip of the gun, and then strong arms wrap around me from behind, blocking my access.
I open my mouth to scream.
A hand come over my lips, muffling the sound.
“Shhh, baby. I won’t hurt you if you’re quiet.”
There’s something about that voice that sounds dangerously familiar. But I can’t place it. Maybe a client? I don’t know.
I close my mouth, but the hand stays clamped over it. I smell clean laundry, the smoke on him from the bonfire.
He pulls me closer into him. I know without looking it’s got to be the one that’s been following me. And I know, too, that even though I have the weapon, I’m the one who is so fucked right now. Strangely, I long for Lucifer. But he let me go. And I walked right into this.
“Why were you leaving so soon?” the man’s words brush against my neck. I’m painfully aware I’m only in a bodysuit and fishnet leggings and I wish I’d thought to grab a coat. Something to cover myself. But I didn’t think I’d make it this long.
I try to speak and shocking me, the guy moves his hand, bringing it down to my stomach beside the other one.
“Who are you?” I hear the fear in my voice, but I don’t have time to care.
He chuckles against my skin. “I’m your worst nightmare.” His fingers dig into my abdomen.
“What do you want?”
He presses his lips against my neck, warm and nearly gentle. “Always the same questions,” he taunts me. “As if the answers matter. I always get what I want, baby. And tonight, I want you.” He nips at my neck.
I try to turn in his grasp, but he doesn’t let me so much as budge.
“Easy, baby. The less you fight, the more fun you’ll have.”
I feel fear giving way to anger as I glance at the merry-go-round beside us. “Fuck you,” I snap at him, knowing as I say the words, they’re not very wise. Not for someone in my position. But I suddenly don’t care. This Halloween has been a series of fuck ups from start to finish. Might as well go out with a bang.
But the guy doesn’t seem angry. He pulls me further into his hard body and runs a hot tongue down my neck. “Oh, you will.”
“Jeremiah,” a man’s voice says warningly.
Ah, I think wryly, so this is Jeremiah. What a fucking pleasure to meet him.
But my heart soars all the same. Because that voice...it’s Lucifer’s.
I can’t see him and as he calls the Unsaint’s name again, I realize he’s behind us.
Jeremiah seems to tense with me in his arms and he spins us both around. I see the familiar skeleton paint, the hoodie, black curls, and as he gets closer, the blue eyes.
I feel a sick relief that Lucifer is here.
But he doesn’
t look relieved. He looks fucking pissed.
“Let her go,” he growls to Jeremiah
Jeremiah says nothing for a moment. Then he runs his hand over my stomach, down toward my groin, where he rests it. I struggle to draw breath, my eyes pleading with Lucifer’s. But Lucifer isn’t looking at me. His jaw clenches and it’s almost as if he simply refuses to see where Jeremiah’s hand is.
“No can do, Luce. She’s mine for the night.”
Lucifer shakes his head. “Let her go,” he says again.
Jeremiah sighs. His hand slides down my inner thigh, his hot fingers over the skin beneath the fishnet.
“You know how this works,” he says, deadly calm. “You left her.” He grips my thigh tighter and his time there’s no mistaking Lucifer saw it. His eyes narrow into slits. Bright blue, brilliant slits. “Now, I found her. We all get to pick.”
Lucifer doesn’t back down. But he doesn’t say anything else either. I don’t move. Jeremiah’s fingers still close around my thigh.
After a moment, he spins me around, picks me up, forcing my legs to wrap around him. His hood is still pulled down low, and I’m too terrified to move as he slides me down the length of his body. I don’t imagine a soft groan when my pelvis goes over his hard cock.
I put my hands on his chest, trying to push away, but surprising me, he sets me on my feet. Before I can find my footing, Lucifer yanks me into him, spinning me around. He’s got one hand on my low back and the other is pointing at Jeremiah.
“If you touch her again, I’ll fucking skin you alive.”
I feel his heart beneath my hands and it’s strange...his pulse isn’t fast. It’s steady. Strong. But calm. Even as he keeps pointing at Jeremiah.
Jeremiah says nothing.
And then Lucifer grabs my hand and yanks me past the merry-go-round, back into the woods. I stumble but he keeps pulling at me. I glance over my shoulder and see Jeremiah is still watching us.