“So pretty,” I confessed, my mind swept far away from what I knew was right, and completely uncaring. Reaching out, I ran my hand down her cheek, my fingers reaching for her hair that felt like water shifting over my skin. “So soft.”
The curious blurring of my arm dragged my attention away from the angel, and I watched as I waved my hand about in front of my face. Did I have one hand, or seven? My eyes moved to the cuff of my jacket, and it was then I noticed the stiff, rough texture against my skin. I hated it. And I was hot—too hot. My flesh was burning with heat as I unzipped the offensive fabric and tossed it aside, then proceeded to pull off the long-sleeved shirt I wore underneath.
Looking down at my now naked arms, I watched the tattoos on my skin as they moved over my flesh. That probably should have scared me, but it didn’t. I felt alive, pulsating with energy. A tugging at the belt of my cargos drew my blurred gaze downward, and I watched as lithe hands removed my belt, then began to slowly unbutton and unzip me. A firm hand wrapped around my dick, then I noticed the sound of foil tearing before something cold covered my cock.
“You feel good, Ink?”
That voice, so far away but still too close. It didn’t sound anything like Gracie’s voice.
Fuck! I missed her. Gracie.
My mind snapped back to reality for a moment, and I tried unsuccessfully to push this stranger away who was touching me in ways I didn’t want to be touched. Not by her. It was Gracie’s touch I longed for, Gracie’s hair I loved. My movements were slow and clumsy though, my body no longer my own to command.
“You’ve taken such good care of me, Ink, you’ve looked after me since I was a little girl. You deserve a prize.”
I paused in trying to fight off the touch. “Gracie?” The voice wasn’t quite right.
“Yes, Ink, Gracie,” she purred.
Lifting my head, I was for a moment confused by the dark-haired beauty who was pumping my dick with enthusiasm. She was stunning and naked. She wasn’t Gracie, but she looked so good, so soft, and my mind was losing the battle to stay present.
Slipping away would be so much easier.
Her tits were perfectly round, and I wanted nothing more than to touch them. Unable to stop myself, I leaned forward and took a supple nipple into my mouth. She tasted so fucking wrong and so fucking right at the same time. Suddenly, hands pressed down on my shoulders, and that touch alone caused my skin to tingle with heat as I sunk heavily to the bench beneath me. I was on sensory overload, the feathered touch across my chest magnified and filled with prickling warmth and the promise of pleasure.
“Watch me, Ink.”
I hadn’t even realized my eyes were closed and it took plenty of force to lift my heavy lids. Once again I was shocked by the unfamiliar beauty before me. She wasn’t Gracie, but the longer this went on, the less it mattered. With my eyes glued to the woman, I watched as she straddled my lap. The need for her was fierce, but it wasn’t a need for her it was a need for something else, someone else.
Whatever was happening to me felt so fucking good, but it was so fucking wrong.
When I pushed the woman on my lap aside, her hand wrapped around my dick again, and I was lost once more. Full, warm lips pressed against my chest, my neck, my jaw, pulling and sucking at my skin. My cock was enveloped in warm wet heat which made my mind explode with stars. It was too much and yet at the same time, not enough.
“So fucking good,” I slurred, my voice not coming out how it was supposed to.
The woman gracefully rose and fell on my dick, riding me hard, the glow of her body moving around us, warming me from the inside out. My hands followed the glow around her tits where I stopped to play with the yielding flesh for a time.
“Say my name, Ink,” a husky voice murmured.
Her name? What was her name?
“Say my name.”
“Gracie.” The name felt right, but the vision before me was all wrong. I wanted to reject her and the magical touch she was torturing me with, but my body was no longer mine to control and my mind was swept away. Her skin felt so cool against my burning flesh, and I leaned forward and licked her collarbone, needing to take that coolness inside my body.
“That’s it. Feel me around you, feel me possessing you.”
When I pulled my tongue away and glanced into her beautiful face, it began to morph. Those dark eyes deepened and became more exotic, her cheeks concaved and made the bones in her face sharper, her lips red with what looked like blood. Her forked tongue snaked out, and I flinched.
This wasn’t my Gracie.
Gracie was pure and innocent, this was something else entirely.
“What are you?” My words were garbled and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get them to come out right. The woman in my lap laughed, her head thrown back as an awful grating sound came from those luscious lips.
“My name is Jezebeth, Ink. I’m one evil bitch, but I’m also really, fucking good.”
I shook my head, my eyes closed trying to toss away the image of the demonic woman bouncing before me, trying desperately to find the woman in my mind who was my savior, my heart.
“I’m ruining you, Ink,” a husky voice whispered in my ear. “I’m ruining you for her,” she went on.
I wanted to care about what she was saying. I wanted to stop what she was doing. Somewhere deep in my mind I was screaming, and yet my mouth continued to taste her, my hands kept moving over her body, and my dick remained buried in her wet heat. Even though my mind was ensnared in a haze of fog and disconnect, I knew she was ruining me.
She was ruining us.
And I’d fucking kill her for it.
CHAPTER 13 – Grace
The tension radiating off Fury made me feel twitchy. Blood flowed freely from a deep gash in his skull, and I was worried he might have a concussion. He didn’t try and wipe away the blood dripping down his face as he lumbered along beside me, three of Jebediah’s men at our backs, the heavy weight of their guns trained on us made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
When the soldiers had turned up at my cabin door to tell me Jebediah wished to see me, Fury had lost his shit. He’d gone ballistic and turned what little furniture I had to splintered wood. Two of Jebediah’s men were still back at my cabin, lying dead in the snow at the bottom of my steps. Fury’s reign of terror was brought to an end by a steel pole to the back of the head. It had knocked him out, if only for a moment, and when he came to, there was a gun shoved in my face and he was told to behave. Reluctantly, he’d fallen into line but refused to leave my side as I navigated the path leading from my cabin to Jebediah’s.
I was terrified something had gone wrong with the drop of NIM.
Had something happened to Ink? Is that why I was being summoned?
If that were the case, I now belonged to the psychotic white ghost. I’d rather be dead. If Ink was gone and I was to become Jebediah’s plaything, I’d take the gun from one of his men and shoot myself. It was a weakness to think that way, but I’d rather die than be bound to that man.
“He’s fine,” Fury murmured from beside me. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Ink… he’s fine. He’s too stubborn to let anythin’ happen to you or him. This is Jebediah breakin’ his word, which don’t surprise me in the fuckin’ least.”
Huffing out a frustrated breath of air I watched the fog before me. The winter air had a frigid snap to it, but the snow didn’t fall. Instead, the ground was slushy ice and the wind bitterly arctic. The heat radiating from Fury was actually comforting, and I stepped a little closer to soak up some of that warmth. He was furious, his temper barely in check. A vein on his temple throbbed, the tension in his body so tight I swear he’d crack if I so much as touched him.
“Maybe he just wants to chat.” Fury’s brow rose in disbelief. “Maybe he wants a haircut,” I continued, trying to find some kind of light in this darkness. Fury snorted but remained silent and sullen.
The path leading up the steps to Jebediah’s cabin
was foreboding under the night sky which was filled with a full moon. That bright light made the world around me so pretty, but the fact I was walking into a lion’s den made the occasion far less appealing.
“Just her,” a soldier said, stepping away from the wide-open front door.
I didn’t think it was possible, but Fury became even more rigid, his massive meaty hands fisted at either side of his taut body.
“It’s okay, Fury. If Jebediah wants his NIM to continue to go out with Ink’s protection, he’ll keep his hands to himself.”
My words were filled with far more bravado than I actually felt. Walking through that door would inevitably not end with anything good. The feeling of apprehension was churning away in my stomach like a dark, oily sludge and it only intensified. Fury didn’t move, but as I walked forward, I felt his worry as if it were my own. Fury was called fury for a reason, and I couldn’t have him getting himself hurt any worse for me.
At the door, I glanced back over my shoulder and gave him sure nod with a smile. “I got this, Fury.” I hoped he would hear the belief in the words I didn’t at all trust.
He didn’t relax and still didn’t move, but he did offer me a single nod. Turning my attention back to the cabin before me, I stepped through the doorway and into the wide-open living area. To my right was an enormous fireplace, currently crackling away and snapping with the sound of fresh kindle. On my left was an enormous oval table in a heavy wood, with ten chairs surrounding it. From what Ink had once told me, this was where the Liberty officials would meet to help keep our community running like a perfectly oiled machine. There was a partial wall separating the large room on the opposite side of the living area, a kitchen with another sitting area beyond it. The entire space was much larger than anything I’d ever seen, even the home from my childhood. It felt opulent with exposed dark timber beams under the high ceiling, elegant furniture and elaborate rugs under my feet. Glancing down at my dirty wet boots, it almost felt sacrilegious to take another step into such finery while wearing such filth.
“Little bird,” Jebediah purred from a wide staircase which led down from a loft. “You are such a vision.”
He was once again dressed in a white suit, and he looked ridiculous, like a snowy cloud floating down the stairs. The sound of the door clicking closed behind me sounded so final and threatening. I was officially trapped with only a four-inch blade tucked into my boot to protect myself with. Holding my arms out wide at my sides, I waited for the customary searching, or rather ‘feeling up,’ from one of his guards. When no hands stroked my body, I almost sagged with relief.
“I’m sure you’re not dim-witted enough to bring a weapon into my home,” Jebediah said with a deranged smile as he approached me.
One of his soldiers handed him a fancy glass decanter filled with an amber liquid. Another man came forward and gave Jebediah two glasses.
“Come, come, come, sit… have a drink with me.” Turning his back, he pranced with an exaggerated flurry across the room to sit in one of the two giant, cozy sofas sitting before the fireplace. They faced each other with a large square coffee table separating them.
Forcing my feet to move was like pressing through thick mud. I didn’t want to be in his home let alone sitting and drinking with him, but I knew I had no choice in the matter. Jebediah would push and taunt until he broke me down, or at the very least would have one of his men force me. With the heavy thuds of my dirty boots, I trudged across the polished timber floors and over the pretty rugs, no longer caring of the dirt I might be leaving in my wake.
Sitting on the sofa opposite Jebediah, I ignored how soft the leather was, and how nice it might be to have one of my own. Instead, I forced my angry glare to meet that of the metal faced freak before me. Jebediah had already poured one glass of liquid and handed it to me before pouring his own, leaving the gleaming decanter on the table between us. Sniffing the pungent odor, I recognized the scent of alcohol—scotch maybe. I’d spent a summer helping Hal in the distillery when I was fifteen. He trusted me not to indulge in the spirits he spent so much time fussing over. It was possible Jebediah had spiked my drink, the underlying nuances of a drug could easily be hidden beneath the alcohol. Jebediah tsked me before reaching out and roughly taking the glass from me. He took a long drink then shoved the half-full glass back into my hands. Raising a brow, I gave him a challenging look.
“Do you honestly think I’m going to drink from anything your lips have been on?”
Jebediah doubled over with laughter. When he finally settled, his colorless gaze found mine. “If Ink does not return by midday tomorrow, my lips will touch a lot more than just your glass, little bird.”
The visible shudder was hard to disguise, and I knew Jebediah saw it, the pleasure at my discomfort alight in his eyes. With one leg crossed over the other, he rested back and ran a hand through his pure white, spiked hair.
“I like your hair, little bird,” he said matter-of-factly.
My hair was out. I hadn’t had a chance to do anything more than run a brush through it when Jebediah’s men turned up on my doorstep. It hung over my shoulders with a soft wave, well past my breasts, almost reaching my waist. Stretching out one arm along the back of the sofa, he regarded me with a curious gaze.
“Does it not bother you to know that Ink was attracted to you as a child?”
My shoulders straightened with indignation, but I didn’t answer him. He was trying to dig under my skin and find something which would set me off. He could dig all he liked, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
“Are you not worried he might find other little girls attractive?”
I kept my face impassive and my body still.
Jebediah grinned. “You are a hard egg to crack.” Strumming his fingers on the back of the sofa, he was silent for only a moment before he began again. “Did you know Ink fucked Viv on that chair you’re currently sitting on?”
My fingers tightened on my glass, but otherwise, I didn’t respond. Ink had told me he hadn’t slept with Viviane and I believed him.
“He bent her over right there,” he continued, pointing to the end of the sofa. “Shoved her face into the leather under your sweet ass and he fucked her pussy like an animal.”
“Ink was never with Viviane like that. You’re either making it up to try and make me jealous, or someone has misinformed you.”
Jebediah chuckled. “You got me, little bird. I was trying to ruffle those feathers of yours. I simply assumed since he slept with so many of the women he’d fucked Viv, too.”
“You seem to have an unhealthy obsession with Ink’s sex life, Jebediah. Is it because you can’t get it up? You have to live vicariously through others?”
Jebediah’s eye ticked, the only indication I might have delivered some sort of blow. “Trust me, I can perform just fine, and one day soon you’ll find out first-hand how much of an animal a man can be when he fucks a woman.” Resting back into the sofa he finished his drink. “So, tell me about how you came to be thrown into the Underworld at twelve years of age.”
My hand shook as I raised the glass of scotch to my lips. The liquid was like fire as it slid down my throat and into my chest. My eyes watered with the desire to cough, but I held it back, barely burying the need to choke on the strong alcohol. Alcohol I required right now to simmer the tumultuous emotions this man was poking at. “You mean to tell me you don’t know? I thought you knew everything, Jebediah.”
He used his teeth to play with one of the rings in his lip as he considered me for a moment. “I know plenty, but your story is locked up tight in a deep, dark vault, and I want in, little bird. Give me the whole, sordid story.”
My story was definitely locked down tight. None of the innocents who escaped the Underworld knew how I came to be locked in with them, only Ink and Viviane were privy. The story was my own personal shame. I hated my father, he was a violent bastard who didn’t deserve my love, but he sure as hell didn’t deserve me killing him.
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“What did you do?” Jebediah wondered out loud while I remained stone-faced and silent. “Hmmm, let me guess. You were probably a wild little bird. Did you experiment with drugs?” When I remained impassive, he giggled like a child. “I know, I know… you stole expensive lingerie.” Taking another sip of the scotch, I continued to ignore him. “Hmmm… maybe you killed your daddy.” His words slipped off his tongue like poison, each one chipping away at my composure and sanity.
“And we have a winner,” he yelled. “Daddy issues, I completely understand. It must twist your panties that Ink treats you like a child. I bet you’ve wanted to stick a knife under his ribs many times.”
“I find your company offensive. I would like to be excused if you don’t mind.” I’d had enough, the safety of my cabin was beckoning me. Fury was waiting right outside the front door, and I had no intention of allowing Jebediah to continue with his ridiculous games.
“I do mind,” Jebediah snapped.
Silence fell over us, the comfort from the blazing fire was a stark contradiction to the cold man before me.
“You know, right about now, I expect Ink to be balls deep in Jeze.”
My back stiffened, and of course, Jebediah noticed my reaction.
“He’s a man with a healthy sexual appetite. From what I hear, he’s gone without it for quite some time. Jeze will be willing, and I know she’s been dying for a taste. When Jeze sets her sights on something or someone, she takes it.”
“I’ll kill her.” The words, never truer, spilled from my lips without a conscious thought.
Jebediah smiled, but this time his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I believe you would,” he murmured.
Ink would never sleep with Jeze, it wasn’t a thought even worthy of my time.
Placing my empty glass on the coffee table, I leaned my elbows on my knees. “What are we doing here?” I asked, not interested in being coy.
“Enjoying a drink?” Jebediah raised his empty glass.
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