by K. Webster
Not Cole. Alan.
I try not to think about what would happen. He’d gush to the police and the media about how happy he was to get his cousin back. Everyone will leave and then I’d be left with him. As soon as the door closed to his home, I’d be trapped. But not like being trapped in a cliff-side cabin by a tattooed, beautiful monster who inhales innocence and exhales hate.
No, I’d be trapped in hell.
But this is hell.
Right?
Compared side by side, they’re the same. Villain dead set on ruining the girl. Brutalization. Hatefulness. Vicious words meant to flay. Knives and fists and pain.
So why doesn’t Cole terrorize me like Alan does?
Because I like him…because I’m attracted to him.
Against every warning bell inside me, my heart beats wildly for him.
For a pretty face?
I dig deep and try to think rationally. To ignore the insane throbbing in my chest. To blot out the way my core clenches and my thighs tremble. How my fingers twitch to touch him and my tongue waters to taste him.
Why?
Why him?
Why not some nice guy I bumped into at the supermarket?
Why not some heroic man like the ones in my romance novels?
Because for some crazy reason, Cole wakes up something inside me. The woman burrowed deep inside has crawled out of her hole to reach for him. Sometimes, with his words and the sad flicker of his brown eyes, he reaches back. It’s that small taste of possibilities that has me craving him so desperately.
I want to fix him.
I want to heal him.
I want to make him see that his past doesn’t dictate his future.
He’s a murderer.
Violent and insane.
A wicked entity who stole me.
Run, Nat. Run far, far away.
His sudden presence in the room seems to make the air crackle with intensity. My body tenses, but I don’t run like my brain is screaming for me to do. I don’t want to run. He’d catch me. I want him to catch me.
Why, crazy, why? So he can cut your fingers off and sodomize you with them?
I shudder violently. I’m stupid. He’s inside my head. He’s making a mess of my already fragmented and abused mind. The man took me and hurt me. He starved me and neglected me. Cold Cole Heart carved a reminder into my flesh that I’ll carry with me until the day I die.
It could be today…it could be sixty years from now.
Either way, he’s infused himself into my blood. He was just enough relatable that I clung to him, desperately hoping he’d be the dark hero in my story.
I’d forgotten my story was full of villains.
In my story, the princess dies.
“You want to run.” His voice is cold and harsh behind me. I don’t dare turn to face him. My eyes once again slide over to the door. Six steps, maybe seven. He’s behind the sofa. I could be quicker.
“No,” I whisper. Lies. He knows it. The air around us knows it because it thickens and chokes me as if to force the truth from me.
“It’s dark,” he rumbles. “You could slip away.” A deep, evil chuckle fills the room. “Or you could just slip. Right over the edge of the cliff. One wrong move and you’d fall onto the rocks waiting at the bottom, barely hidden by the crashing waves. Your head would hit one of the sharper ones with a sickening pop and as you cried out, the ocean water would fill your lungs. You’d drown, honey.”
“I wasn’t going to run,” I say with more conviction. “I want to live.”
“Hmm,” is all he says as he rounds the side of the couch and comes into view clutching a book. “I could give you a head start.” The dangerous glint in his brown eyes makes my stomach flop.
“I’ll stay,” I murmur, lifting my chin.
His lips quirk up on one side, sending a tremor of excitement through my heart. This is what I don’t understand. When he stands there wearing a fitted T-shirt and jeans, looking a picture of normalcy, I falter. I get lost in his piercing brown eyes and intoxicated by his lazy, half smile. For one moment, I’m in a life where he’s not a killer and I’m not a victim.
We’re Cole and Natalie.
“Good,” he says as he sits beside me. The heat of his thigh seems to singe me. Chills from his proximity make my skin pebble and my hairs stick up on end. But it’s his warmth—warmth from this devil—that has me leaning into him. His scent fills my nostrils and I crave to inhale him. To fill my lungs with the evil that smells so good.
With a grunt, he drops the heavy book into my lap. I jump and then my fingers grip the leather-bound book. Not just a book. A scrapbook. The room blurs as tears burn at my eyes. Emotion clogs my throat as a sob crawls up seeking escape. My bottom lip wobbles as I run my fingertip along the square in the center that holds a picture. A picture of me as a baby in my mother’s arms. Her smile. God, her smile. She was so beautiful.
A tear breaks free and snakes down my cheek, hanging on at my jaw. Cole is silent beside me and I remain as quiet as possible so as not to ruin the moment. I don’t want him to remember he’s a monster and take away the most important thing I have left in my life. I don’t want him to turn cold and shut me out.
I want him to just let me enjoy this moment—a moment he handed over to me while I was contemplating escape. The tear drips from my jaw and lands on the book. I swipe it away with my thumb and slowly open it. Picture after picture, I inspect each and every detail. For so long, I’d sneakily hunt for this album when I lived at Alan’s. He was cruel, so eventually I gave up when I couldn’t find it. I assumed he’d tossed it to take away the last thing I had of my mother. But he didn’t and somehow Cole took it. I could kiss him.
When I glance at him, he’s watching me with furled brows. In this moment, he’s not cold or hateful or unhinged. He’s real. His brown eyes flicker with uncertainty and sadness. He’s never looked more human than he does now. I lean into him and his arm slides around me. A small token of affection. I take it. For one moment, I close my eyes and pretend we’re those people—the ones who aren’t us. The ones who are normal.
We. Are. Not. Normal.
“THANK YOU.” HER WHISPERED WORDS are so soft, I nearly miss them. But I don’t miss them. I feel them. All the way down to my marrow.
Question is, why?
Why does she get deep down inside me when all I want is to drive everything and everyone away?
I have a plan.
Had.
I had a plan until I slipped. I made a mistake. I’m man enough to admit that—that I fucked up on my research. I chose the wrong woman.
She sets the album down beside her and then tilts her head up to look at me. Gray eyes. So gray. So different than the monsters that live inside my head. So not Anta. So unlike them.
Her eyes remind me of my mistake. They shoot arrows of guilt stabbing at me—all hitting their intended mark: my cold, cold heart. Like the coward I am, I drop my gaze. To her lips. Pouty and pink. Sweet. She licks them and it makes me want to lick them too. Anta had these lips. They all did. Fat, juicy, tempting. Difference is, these are real. Everything about Natalie is real.
Natalie.
She’s not Anta or the other five women.
She’s different.
Reaching up, I cup her cheek. She doesn’t flinch or shy away. It’s like she craves my touch. The touch of a monster excites her.
I wasn’t always this way.
But my thoughts aren’t silent. I’ve said them. Her gray eyes sharpen as she stares me down with curiosity.
“You weren’t always what way?” she breathes, her nose scrunching.
My chest tightens. I’m reminded of a time when I was seventeen and in the backseat of my car staring into the eyes of my high school girlfriend. She’d asked a question and scrunched her nose up just like Natalie. Even then, I’d remembered thinking she was so innocent. Will it hurt? We were getting hot and heavy. I was ready to take her virginity. But that worried moment had me taking pause. Back when I had
a moral compass and I followed it. Back when I cared about people and their wellbeing. I simply kissed her nose and took her home. Eventually I took her virginity in a much nicer way than the backseat of my car. Eventually we broke up. But in that one moment, I didn’t want to take anything from her. I wanted to keep her innocent.
“A monster,” I utter, my thumb brushing over her bottom lip.
“They made you this way.” She knows just enough of the story to paint her own version of the events.
They.
Not her.
Them.
“I’m worse than a monster,” I bite out, shame scratching away at my insides. I don’t care. I never care. So why the fuck do I care now? “I’m a nightmare.”
She blinks at me and then bites on her bottom lip. I want it between my teeth. I want to bite her and make her bleed. But not to destroy her like the rest. I want to break her so I can stitch her together again. Over and over again until I’ve woven in so much of me, we’re practically one.
“What does that make me?” she asks.
“My victim,” I say coolly.
She sits up and slides into my lap so she’s straddling me. Her gray eyes are darting all over me like she’s trying to figure me out. I’m a puzzle with too many missing pieces. I’m incomplete. There is no picture to see. Only death and darkness and motherfucking evil.
“What does it make me if I want the monster?” she utters. “That I want the nightmare? I’m not a victim if I want it. It makes me certifiably crazy, that’s what. A woman off her rocker.” Her body trembles. “He drove me to be this person.”
Not me.
Him.
A spike of jealousy rises up inside me, stabbing my organs and piercing my heart. “You’re not his anymore.”
“I never was.”
My palms find her tiny ass through the sweatpants and I squeeze her, drawing her closer to me. Her arms wrap loosely around my neck and her forehead rests to mine. Something about the way she holds on to me is possessive in its own way. As though her body backs up the claims of her mouth.
“This is fucked up,” I warn huskily. “You wanting me. I could remember my purpose at any second and turn back into the man who stole you.”
“That man was beautiful,” she murmurs, her sweet lips too close to mine. I want to bite and suck and own. “He’s still beautiful.” She lets out a breathy sigh. “When that man looked at me and spoke to me…I felt alive.”
“I am death,” I warn. “You should have seen that in my eyes.”
“I saw hope.”
I open my mouth to argue, but then her mouth is on mine. Needy and hungry. She wants to pour her motherfucking soul into me. Nothing that pure belongs in something so wicked as me. I want to spit her out and throw her into the floor. I want to force the sweetness away from all this sour. But this unusually brave and resilient woman is firm in her kiss. She wants me to understand something by the way she kisses me. That her words aren’t just words, they’re true.
She wants the beast.
And it makes no sense.
The wolf in the storybooks wants to devour the girl. He wants to hurt and destroy her. In the end, the prince always saves the day at the last second.
Her tongue swipes against mine and I remember taking my girlfriend to prom. Showed up in a limo and brought a beautiful corsage. The way she looked at me… Back then, I was a prince.
I could never be him again.
Not with all the blood I have on my hands.
My fingers shake with the need to extract more blood. To continue making them pay. It won’t stop with Natalie. It can’t stop with her. Death is my motherfucking purpose.
I’m no prince.
I’m a wolf and I’m hungry for more.
“Anta,” I try, even though it sounds weak on my tongue. My inner monster can’t be fooled. And the fighter in my arms doesn’t give up.
She pulls away to lock those stormy eyes on mine. “Nope. The bitch is dead.”
I blink at her in surprise. Fire flickers in her fierce stare. In Natalie’s stare. For a brief moment, a flicker of what-ifs runs through my mind. What if I kept her? What if I let it all go? What if I moved on with my life and tried to be happy? It’s such a foreign concept that a harsh, crazed laugh bubbles up from me. Instead of being frightened, she cups both my cheeks and peppers kisses on my face. Soft and sweet. The madness inside me yields to her. It’s on bended fucking knee before her. I’m vulnerable and weak to her. Yet she doesn’t use it against me. Her fingers slide into my hair and she kisses me deeply.
My cock is hard and eager to be inside of her again. But not like this. Not with her straddling my lap like she has the upper hand. I need…I close my eyes and horrors of long ago poke at me. Sharp and evil. A constant reminder.
Make it hurt.
Make her hurt.
Make them pay.
Cole.
My name is whispered. My name is screamed.
My name is ignored by me.
That man—Cole Heart—is being devoured by the darkness. Eaten alive by the insanity. Revenge has sharp teeth and is ruthless.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
I’m there. Then here.
She’s beneath me on her cold, cold bed. Shivering and frightened. My sweet little victim.
Those howls rattling from her rock my bones and try to kidnap my heart. I silence them by pulling out my knife. All that exists are her tears and her fear.
Slice. Slice. Slice.
I make the clothes that aren’t hers disappear.
“Cole,” she sobs. “Cole.”
Her cries are like theirs. Her mouth is like theirs. Her eyes are too filled with tears to look like hers.
The madness wins.
It always wins.
“Give me your hands,” I roar. My vision swims with darkness. A chill makes my bones ache. Like then, when I was trapped inside that hell for so long.
Her hands shake as she offers them so easily to me. Fingernails, long and sharp remain on her elegant fingers.
Rip them off.
Take them.
I drop the knife onto the bed and set to removing my belt. She cries as I wrap her wrists together tightly with it. With a hard push, I send her onto the bed on her back. Her tits bounce and my dick strains against my jeans. I want to suck and bite those rosy nipples.
No.
No.
I want to cut them from her body.
Snatching up my knife, I stare at them. She’d bleed like they bled. She’d scream like they screamed. She’d live like they lived. But in pain.
I ignore the gnawing in my gut.
She deserves it for what she did to me.
“H-He once made me s-suck his cock w-when I had the f-flu,” she chatters out, her gray eyes wild. “I threw up and he m-made me clean it up. Then, he pulled me into h-his lap like he m-might hold me. But I should have known. He w-wanted me to fuck him. Sick and weak and feverish. I was helpless…”
Her words send me into a nightmare.
One of Anta.
She stands before me statuesque and beautiful. The gold dress she wears has a slit in it all the way up to her upper thigh. Beneath the silky material is her cunt. A cunt she’s used against me time and time again.
“If you want food for your men, you’ll do as I ask, soldier.”
I’m stinking of infection and piss and shit and body odor.
And she eyes me up like I might be worth having a taste.
I hope I infect her.
“Sit him on the chair,” she orders to her men.
The two men roughly drag me to a seat near her bed. I’m too weak to fight them. We’ve not been fed in days. All of us, barely holding on. She watches with rapt attention as they bind my ankles to the chair and then my wrists to the arm rests. I’m naked and dirty. I’m prone to her.
“Off you go,” she tells the men.
When the door closes behind her, she picks up a gold and ruby encrusted-handled knife. She runs her
fingernail along the sharp blade—a blade I’m quite familiar with.
“What shall we cut today?”
I want to beg and plead for her to not cut me today, but I’m too fucking stubborn. I glare at her and when she nears, I try to spit at her. But my mouth is too dry.
Her laughter is musical in quality but evil as shit.
“You’re being extra naughty today, soldier. Perhaps I should punish you.” She stands between my spread legs in front of the chair and pokes the tip of the knife into the side of my neck. A rivulet of blood races down the front of my chest.
Just kill me.
Her eyes flare with delight when she sees my defeated expression. “I told you already that you can have food. Your men are waiting for you. All you have to do is sit there like a good boy.”
I close my eyes when she walks away, thankful for the reprieve. The water runs in the bathroom and then she returns. When something warm splashes on my crotch, my eyes pop open. On her knees in front of me, she uses a wet cloth to cleanse my cock and balls. I struggle against the restraints because I hate her touch.
My dick hardens and then I hate myself.
A soft groan escapes me when she strokes my dick to attention. I don’t understand how I can be nearly dying and my cock yields to her demands. Furious rage burns inside me. How dare she make me feel this way!
“Ahhh,” she purrs as she stands, tossing away the rag. I want to look away, but I can’t. She unzips her dress and the gold material falls away to reveal her perfect body. Like a fucking goddess. My cock thumps in appreciation as I rake my gaze down the curves of her body. Full tits and wide hips. I hate that she makes my body work against me.
She doesn’t remove the gold strappy heels and her dark hair hangs in silky waves in front of her shoulders. It’s like she’s an expensive stripper. But this stripper likes to fuck. Fuck her victims, that is.
I struggle against the restraints, but I’m helpless. She straddles my lap and then her tight cunt is sliding down over me. A choked sob escapes me. I hate how my body thrums with pleasure as she glides over me.
“So big,” she purrs, her fingers sliding into my overgrown hair. “It almost hurts.”
The idea of her in pain has my dick throbbing with pleasure. Her lips quirk up in a devious smile as she begins rocking her hips. My eyes close and for a second I pretend she’s my old girlfriend Lauren. I find that my own body is trying to buck up, seeking out her flesh eagerly. I’m starving and in pain, yet I want to fuck. Like some goddamned animal.