“What did you put in the wine, Neil?”
“ANSWER ME!” He slapped her hard, her head snapping to the side, another white-hot pain blossoming on her cheek. Heather kept her face turned away, tears springing to her eyes as the shock of her situation sank in.
He’s insane. He’d drugged her.
He must have been stalking her, because he knew too much.
This had all been planned.
Fuck. She wasn’t the hunter, she was the hunted.
Neil grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him as he grabbed her breast and twisted viciously until she arched off the bed with a cry. He shouted down at her again, “Tell me! Is your cousin Amanda Nicole Pritchett?!”
“I DON’T KNOW!” She screamed back at him, twisting as much as she could, but there was no escape. He released her breast and growled above her. The funny, sweet Neil she had met was gone. Maybe he had never existed. Because whoever was on top of her was not the guy she’d chosen at speed-dating. “Who the fuck are you?!”
“Me? Who the fuck am I?” He grabbed her chin again, holding her head in place so he could stare into her eyes. “I’m Neil Walker. I didn’t lie about that.”
Liar. Liar. Liar.
She was trapped underneath a liar, and her body was a warzone of hormones and chemicals. Half of them begging her to fight, to flee, and the other half wanted her to spread her legs to ease the heat pulsing at her core.
Neil grinned down at her, his dimples appearing, but he wasn’t even remotely cute anymore as he started talking, “And you, Heather, you’re the second cousin of Amanda Pritchett, who is the daughter of Cassandra Pritchett, who is cousin to Patrice Pritchett. And Patrice is your mother.” Neil leaned over her and she hated the way her body still responded to him, the way her skin lit up with tingling pleasure as he brushed his fingers up her side. “You’re really telling me you don’t know if you’re related to that cunt Amanda?”
“I have forty-two fucking cousins, asshole! No, I don’t know some random second cousin!” Heather jerked at the cuffs, fighting the urge to drop in to full on panic. She’d be useless if she panicked. She had to get out of this, she had to get up, to get free, so she swallowed her pride and pleaded with him. “Please, Neil, uncuff me.”
“No.” His hands landed on either side of her head, and he stared down at her like she was an insect that he was deciding what to do with. She felt the urge to cry as another unwelcome burst of lust ran through her, but she squeezed her thighs together and pushed it down.
“What the fuck did you put in the wine, Neil? Tell me.” Her voice came out stronger than she thought was possible, and she was proud of herself. Then he leaned back on her hips, digging in his backpack and pulling out a half-full vial of an amber colored liquid.
“I put this in your wine, Heather.” He held it above her face, and she opened her mouth to speak but he covered it, muffling her as she tried to yell at him. It was a potion, it had to be. The motherfucker had drugged her with the worst kind of magic. Lust magic, the kind that could turn you into a mindless animal no matter what you wanted. That was why she was so aroused she couldn’t think straight, it’s why her thighs were soaked, and it’s why every horrible touch from the bastard was edging her closer to a fucking orgasm.
“You fucking drugged me? WHY?” She twisted away from his hand and shouted, but he backhanded her hard. His knuckles likely leaving bruises along her cheek.
“Because I wanted you to beg for what I’m going to do to you, little whore. I’m going to ruin you, I’m going to use you because that’s what your family does. You fucking use people.” He leaned back and tugged something else out of the bag.
A ball gag.
“No!” She clenched her jaw shut and turned her face away, hiding against her arm, but he grabbed onto her face, making her cheeks ache with the pressure.
“Open, Pritchett whore.” His fingers pried her jaw apart and she whimpered as he forced the rubber gag behind her teeth, his fingers fastening it tight behind her head. When he released her she whined, and he just smiled. “Now, I’m going to tell you a story, and I don’t want you interrupting.”
He traced a finger around one nipple, and she closed her eyes to avoid the burning blue in his. This can’t be happening.
“Open your eyes and listen to me, bitch, or I’m going to hurt you.” He pinched her nipple, digging his nails into her flesh as he twisted, and she widened her eyes on a cry. “You’re going to look at me, you’re going to listen to me. You’re going to understand what your fucking family has done, and then you can speak when I need you to. Nod if you understand.” His words were hot pulses of breath against her face, and she nodded slowly, trying to hold onto her rage, to burn out the magic with it.
“Good. Smart move, Heather.” Neil eased his grip and she shivered as unwelcome ghostly tendrils of pleasure climbed over her skin. “Eight years ago your second cousin, that bitch Amanda Pritchett, met my roommate Kyle at a campus party. He came home that night and couldn’t shut up about her. He was in love, he said. He couldn’t stop talking about her. They went out again the next night, he stayed with her, and he showed up the next morning talking about the best sex of his life.” His grip tightened painfully on her waist and she whimpered. “Two days later he had a fucking heart attack on the basketball court and fucking died. He was twenty years old!”
Neil’s hand slid up to her throat and tightened until her air supply cut off. She panicked, her fists clenching, her legs kicking uselessly as the pounding of her heart took up residence behind her eyes. Neil started to shout, rage replacing the eerie calm with which he’d started his story. “I tried to help him, tried to save him, but the second I touched him I knew it wasn’t natural! I KNEW IT! I could feel the magic on him.” His grip tightened as she tried to buck him off, desperately seeking air. “He was my best friend, I loved him like a brother, and more than that he was innocent, he had done nothing to earn that kind of death from your bitch family!”
Heather arched her back, desperately trying to breathe, her arms tugging sharply at the cuffs. His fingers were bruising her throat, and she couldn’t even beg him because she couldn’t make noise even if there weren’t a gag between her teeth. Just before she was sure she’d pass out, he finally released her with a growl and she gasped for air, sobs breaking in between coughs as she stole breaths around the gag.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This was why he’d come after her, why he’d hunted down a Pritchett, why he hadn’t even flinched when she’d said she was a witch — he’d already known.
How many times had she told her family that it was playing with fire to be seen with the men they chose for the rite? How many times had she said they were all playing terrible odds and it was just a matter of time before they had the Salem witch trials part two, Cambridge edition?
She started to shout at him, a garbled mess of vowel sounds through the gag and he growled and reached into her mouth to pull it free. “What?” he hissed.
“You—” She swallowed against her bruised throat, her voice cracking. She understood why he hated her, hated her family, hell, she hated her family. But, while everything he’d shouted made a twisted kind of sense, there was still something she didn’t understand, something she had to understand. “You felt magic? What do you mean? How can you even be sure—”
“I’m a warlock, Heather. If any of your witch bitch family had touched me they would have recognized it instantly. Magic recognizes magic.” He pushed her hair away from her face and she winced. “It was a risk to go to the shop today, but I couldn’t miss the chance to look them all in the eyes. To see the evil, sadistic whores who could sacrifice men, good men like Kyle, without blinking an eye. But you can’t feel me at all, can you? Not a drop of magic in you yet because I’m still fucking breathing.”
Heather laughed bitterly as he traced a finger down her cheek. She wrapped her rage around her like a blanket, coating herself in it to try and push back the magic. “And how d
id you become a warlock? You’re telling me you didn’t do anything to—”
His hand snapped into her hair, jerking her head back painfully as he hissed down at her, “I was born like this, Heather. My family has always had magic. We don’t have to sacrifice an innocent to some ancient deity to get power.” He laughed low, his free hand running down her side. “You stupid fucking slut… magic is supposed to be natural, but your pathetic wannabe family kills for it. Murders for it. The Pritchetts are pretenders. Weak imitations of real witches. My sisters and I could rip your one-trick-pony family to pieces. And I thought about letting them, just for a minute. Just tear your family to pieces one by one until there wasn’t a drop of your tainted blood left alive.” He leaned down like he was going to kiss her and she turned her face away. “But I have a better solution.” Neil tightened his hold on her hair until she was forced to look at him again.
“You don’t have to hurt me,” she whispered, but he acted like she hadn’t even spoken.
“Do you have any idea how long it took me to find you, Heather? How long I’ve had that shop, your aunt’s art gallery, that marketing company in Chicago — all of them bugged? I’ve been tracking your family for years, trying to find a Pritchett bitch who hadn’t already killed a man to claim her power.” He smiled, but it was dark, his dimples barely showing as he tilted her chin up. “Then I heard them all talking about you. Heather Pritchett. About how you were stubborn, about how you hadn’t claimed your power yet, about how you refused to.”
“Yes!” She grabbed onto that fact like a life raft, stumbling over her words in her desperation. “I’ve never— I never did the rite. I refused it, I’ve fought them for—”
“Shut the fuck up, Heather! There’s no use trying to deny it now. Your cousin Theresa shouted it to the whole store when you decided to go to that speed-dating event. When you decided to complete the rite. You can’t lie to me.” He was furious, his mouth close to hers once more. “And I felt you draw the rune on my fucking skin, so don’t you dare say I wasn’t next.”
Heather jerked hard on the cuffs, only rewarding herself with wounded wrists. She was crying as she tried not to fall apart, but it didn’t help. She was cursed, she had to be. How many of her family members had gone through the rite with no issue at all? How many had seamlessly found a guy, gone out, done the rite, and walked off into the sunset like it was nothing?
And could Heather have the same thing? No. Of course not.
“Please, Neil, I know you hate my family, I get it. I understand more than you know, but please...” Her words trailed off as he ran his hands over her skin, leaving trails of lightning in his wake that coiled like a small ball of electricity low in her belly. There was no denying the pounding at her clit, the damn potion doing its work underneath her skin.
Fight it. Fight it. Fight it.
“You have no idea how much I hate you and your entire family. The things I want to do to you… Oh, how much I want to hear you scream, make you suffer, before I use you to destroy the rest of them.” His dark words made her whimper, and she looked around in panic. Looking for anything that would help her, and then she saw the unlit candle on her dresser.
“The candles!”
“What about them?” He lifted his baby blue eyes up to the one she stared at.
“The candles. I—” She swallowed and spoke fast. “I didn’t light them. I couldn’t have done the rite. I couldn’t have. It wouldn’t have worked. The rite doesn’t work without them lit.”
Neil looked at the seven candles scattered around, handmade by her Aunt Carol for the purpose of ending his life, and then he snapped his fingers and all seven lit at once. The blue fire in his eyes when he looked back at her, and the acrid smell of magic in the air, made her whimper. He really did have magic. He hadn’t lied. “There. All fixed. There’s no escape, Heather. You and I are going to do the rite, the whole thing, just with a few changes.”
“Please…” she pleaded, but the lingering lust was eating away at the fight left inside her.
With a dark laugh he reached back into the bag and pulled out a black knife. “Open your mouth.”
Heather bit her lip as he brought the knife up to her cheek, tapping the blade against her skin, the sharp edge making her hyper aware. Then he lifted up the last of the potion and she panicked, not wanting to take another drop of that vile substance in. “No,” she spoke through clenched teeth.
“Trust me, Heather.” His voice was a growl as he leaned close, pressing the cold metal a little harder into her cheek. “The things I’m going to do to you… this potion is a gift. Open.”
Bound, trapped, and helpless — he was probably right.
“Open, or I cut your pretty face.” There was no mercy in him, no lenience, just hate.
The moment her lips parted he poured the liquid into her mouth. The herbal taste of it was the same as the weird flavor she had caught in the wine. What had she done? Desperate, she tried to spit it out but he quickly covered her nose and mouth with his hand. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight, Heather tried to shake her head to break his hold as she held the liquid on her tongue.
If she swallowed it, she was lost. She knew it.
“Come on, Heather. My family has been making this potion for centuries, and it’s better than any drug on the planet. You’ll come over, and over, and over. You’ll be my happy little desperate whore. You won’t even care about the rite or the pain I’m about to put you through.” He smiled slowly, his grip unrelenting as she started to get dizzy. If she didn’t do it willingly, she was going to pass out and swallow it anyway. Her lungs were already aching. “Heather… do it. Swallow and I’ll let you breathe.”
A muffled whine stirred in her chest, barely more than a murmur. His other hand was at her neck, massaging, urging. Spots appeared in front of her eyes, the buzzing intensifying in her ears. Just when she thought she would finally pass out her body decided for her and in an instinctive effort to clear her airway — she swallowed. Neil waited another second as she swallowed again, and then he let go. She gasped for air as heat exploded in her stomach. The taste of herbs coated her tongue, and he kissed her hard, his tongue sweeping into her mouth until she jerked her head away.
“It’s more fun if I have a bit of it too.” He traced his fingers between her breasts. “Alright, we definitely need the gag for the next part, be a good girl and open up.”
“Fuck you,” she growled and he slapped her hard, simultaneously landing his hand around her throat.
“You can either open up for me to gag you, or I can hurt you until you do it.” Neil stared down at her and she knew he wasn’t lying, so she opened wide and he lifted the gag and replaced it behind her teeth, checking to make sure it was tight. “Good. Almost ready.”
She shook her head as he got off her, trying to plead with him not to do whatever he had planned, but the storm of magic rushing through her bloodstream was impossible to ignore. It was pure lust, bypassing all her fear and panic and sending trembling shivers over her skin that made even the warm air from the heater too much. As he stepped away Heather tried to curl up, to hide her nakedness at least a little, but she suddenly found that it was incredibly difficult to move, like a heavy blanket had draped over her.
“Spread your legs.” Neil commanded from the end of the bed and his eyes started glowing, magic crackling through the air. Heather ignored him and tried to shut her legs but it was impossible to move them any closer together. “You can spread them yourself, or I can do it for you. Last chance, Heather.”
She tried to bend her knees against the heaviness, but her legs snapped back to the bed as if someone had grabbed them. The white cloth he had laid out came to life and wound itself around her ankles, spreading her legs wide before tying itself off to the corners of the bed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Magic bondage? Really?
She was wet, soaking her panties as she rolled her hips, and she hated herself for it.
“Isn’t this a pretty sight?
A little Pritchett cunt all laid out for me.” He paced at the foot of her bed, the candles casting his beautiful, evil face into shadows. Dark and light. Light and dark. “So, are you a good fuck, Heather? Is that how your fucking family gets all these men to sell their fucking souls?”
Heather whimpered, jerking at the bonds, but it was only making her more wet. There were flashes of Rick tying her up flickering behind her eyes, times when it was good and pure and all about her pleasure, and it was mixing in with the fucked up situation she’d found herself in because she’d caved to her aunts’ demands. Tears burned at the edges of her eyes.
“I’m going to enjoy this. I’ve figured out how to invert the rite, Heather. Instead of giving you magic, it’s going to strip the magic from every Pritchett witch. And it’s going to hurt. A lot.” He grinned as he said it and she whined against the gag. “It will return all that power back to nature where it belongs. Your family was never meant to have magic, and this will restore balance, and when it hurts you, when it fucks up your family’s lives, if it kills some of them — I’ll call that the beginning of a karmic solution for all the lives they’ve taken.”
Heather shook her head sharply. The rite still wouldn’t work. She had to summon Herja, and there was no way she’d do that. No way would she summon Herja into this epic fuck up. Adding an immortal psychopath wasn’t going to make this any better. With Heather’s luck Herja would probably kill them both and then go on a rampage because someone denied her the sacrifice the way she liked it.
“What do you have in here?” He moved to her bedside table and she clenched her eyes shut as he pulled out the top drawer, shut it, and then opened the bottom drawer. Heat flooded up her chest as he chuckled. “Just what I thought. A slut through and through.”
Deviant Attraction: A Dark and Dirty Boxset Page 27