Royal Blood

by Amity Cross

  Tearing my gaze from hers, I leaned down and bit her nipple, my teeth sinking into her skin. I bit into her flesh until I could taste blood as her pale skin broke under the pressure. She cried out in pain from someplace far away, but I was too busy tasting a new pleasure I hadn’t discovered before.

  Sexual satisfaction through pain. Punishment.

  I’d always separated the two, kept work far away from pleasure, but there was something about this woman that broke all the barriers I’d been conditioned to adhere to. She was awakening the monster. Not X, the hitman, he was bad enough. No, she was awakening X, the devil.

  Licking her broken skin, my cock throbbed against her thigh. Fuck, my balls were so tight, I just wanted to pound into her and mark her with more than my teeth. I wanted to tear her skin open so I could see what was underneath.

  “X,” she cried out beneath me, struggling against the ropes that held her in place.

  Ignoring her pleas, I pulled away, surveying my handiwork. I trailed my fingertips over the bite mark, smearing droplets of blood that had sprung to the surface. It was mesmerizing. I was more depraved than I ever realized.

  “X,” she said again. “This isn’t you. This is what they made you into.”

  My gaze snapped up to meet hers. How did she know? How could she know?

  “What did you say?” I barked, rage simmering to the surface.

  Her eyes widened, giving away the fact that she’d said it in desperation. She didn’t know shit, but now she knew more than anyone had ever known outside of Weiss and Greggor. They’d made me this way.

  I pulled away, separating our bodies and she tensed, her gaze glued to mine. What could I do to punish her…what was she doing to me… I was unraveling and being put back together and it wasn’t into a pretty picture.

  Kneeling, I grasped her hips and pulled her pussy up against my groin. Her wrists strained against the ropes and she gasped, the only indicator that it was hurting. She was strong, defiant, and all it did was piss me off even more. I wanted her pain and she would give it to me. I would take it.

  I positioned the head of my cock against her opening and thrust hard, burying myself into her warmth. She was so close to death, so close to me taking her life and handing her picture over to Sykes, but she was still aroused. Her body was still aching for mine and I wondered who was more fucked up. Her, for wanting her killer-to-be to fuck her...or me, the sick asshole who wanted to taste her blood.

  Mercy cried out at the sudden spike of pleasure as my cock drove home, her eyes squeezed shut and lips parted. I reached over her body and trailed my fingers over her mouth, pressing my forefinger into the wet warmth. She clamped down and sucked, digging her teeth into my skin with as much force as she could.

  Pain splintered through my nerve endings and I moaned, flexing into her pussy. Did she mean to hurt me? It didn't anger me in the slightest. The pain only made my balls strain even harder. I grabbed her face with my other hand, forcing her mouth open and covered her body with mine. I plunged my tongue into her mouth, holding her jaw tight as her tongue came to meet mine, entwining…dancing…fucking.

  Her hips rolled against my groin and she squeezed her pussy around my cock, taunting. I knew her game. She was trying to break me using the one thing that I had been struggling with for weeks.

  Mercy fucking Reid knew more than she let on.

  Mercy fucking Reid was well on her way to becoming a master manipulator with her perfect fucking cunt.

  Tearing my lips from hers, I pulled my cock out right to the tip and slammed into her with all the force I could muster. She gasped, pulling violently against the ropes that bound her to the bed, her face contorted in a mixture of every emotion in-between pain and pleasure. Emotions I’d become a master at faking. I didn’t know what they were anymore; they’d been bled from me until I was numb.

  I needed release and escape from this thing she’d planted underneath my skin. I needed to fuck it away.

  I pounded my cock into her again and again, grunting as I felt my orgasm swell in my balls. I fucked her harder than I’d ever remembered fucking anyone. I slid in and out of her greedy little pussy as she writhed underneath me, pulling against her restraints, fighting and taking pleasure all at the same time. She moaned, trying to latch her lips onto my skin, but I held her head to the side, denying her the connection she was desperately trying to get from me.

  I knew her game. She wasn’t going to win.

  I came suddenly, my pleasure pouring into her and I kept pounding. She cried out, my name on her lips in a primal wail as she came on my cock. Fuck, her scent, her sounds, the way she screamed my name…the name they gave me… Something snapped. Something broke inside me with a violent snap that splintered through my mind and body.

  The last of my cum left my cock and I stilled, sweat beading over my skin, chest heaving. Mercy’s eyes cracked open, her exhausted expression speaking to something deep inside me, something I’d forgotten. Her gaze found mine and held...and for a sickening moment, I forgot who I was.

  Jerking back, I pulled out of her and climbed off the bed, desperate to get away.

  “X,” she sighed.

  I fisted my hands into my hair, part of me wanting to go back to her, the other wanting to open the closet and take out the most depraved tool of my trade and use it on the woman who was destroying me.

  I stumbled back, colliding with the doorframe as Mercy stared up at me, her eyes wild with the afterglow of hard fucking and something close to fear.

  “Come back to me,” she murmured.

  Pain, love, loss, rage...emotions so strong they threatened to overwhelm everything I ever knew. I smacked my fists against my head, pacing back and forth, the sickly scent of Mercy's perfume sticking to my skin. How could I shut it off? It was too much...too much...

  Roaring as pain sliced through my heart, I punched the wall, another sensation searing through my flesh and bones. Blood welled to the surface, oozing through broken skin.

  I didn't want to feel.

  It was tearing me apart, ripping my mind to shreds.

  “Turn it off,” I roared to nobody and everybody.

  “Come back to me,” Mercy said again, this time her voice was louder, more confident.

  Come back to her? I was never hers to begin with. She was a mark.

  Striding across the room, I launched myself onto her with a single intent.

  This was her fault. She broke me. She had to go.

  She had to fucking die.

  Twenty

  Mercy

  X's hand shot up and grasped my jaw, forcing my gaze to fix on his. He looked manic¸ like he was riding life right on the edge. Was I afraid of him? Not nearly as much as I should be.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked, voicing my thoughts. “Don't lie to me, Mercy. I can see your true feelings in your eyes.”

  Trying to wrench my face away, I said, “I'm beginning to be.”

  “Good girl.”

  X was having a breakdown. His control was totally shot to hell. One wrong move and I’d be deader than dead.

  “Are you ready to die?” he whispered into my ear. “I have to deliver your head to Sykes.” He squeezed harder, stars beginning to prickle my vision. “I can kill you now, show you mercy, or I can saw your head clean off while you scream. How would you like it?”

  I drew in ragged breaths through my constricted throat. “I’d much rather leave it to later.”

  His head cocked to the side, his grip around my neck slackening. Sucking in a deep breath, I flexed against his body. I’d taken him off guard. Maybe he thought I’d cry and beg to be freed.

  “I have to kill someone first,” I went on.

  “Then whom will I deliver your head to?”

  “You can show me how,” I said, ignoring his question. “We can do it together. I know you want to.”

  He narrowed his eyes and for the first time, I could see something there. His mask had slipped off and the things he was conditioned t
o forget were coming to the surface. That was it, wasn’t it? They’d made him into an unfeeling monster for their own gain. They’d forced him to be their on-call killer. I couldn’t think of any other explanation for all the things that had happened since he found out my secret.

  The more that I thought about it, other things began to stand out, other clues that gave away his fate. His secretiveness, the times where he’d smiled and it had never reached his eyes, the times where he’d fucked me from behind…he didn’t want a connection. His camaraderie with Weiss was another mystery… Weiss must be his handler, which meant he was more to Royal Blood than a mere numbers man. Weiss was deeper in the game than I ever realized.

  X’s pupils began to dilate as some unknown notion flashed through his mind. Was he picturing us together, completing hits, completing orders given to us from the higher ups?

  “You and me,” I murmured as his grip slackened from around my neck. “We can do it together. Imagine…”

  He was unstable, teetering on the edge of snapping and there was no way of telling which way he’d fall. I had to convince him to untie me. Then I could think about trying to win him over to my cause.

  I should’ve been trying to think of a way to escape and disappear, but my need for X was overwhelming. I’d fallen for him long before I knew what he was. I wasn’t twisted like he was, but I was twisted in other ways. We could be twisted together. He kept coming back to me, he showed me things that he had tried to keep hidden. He was a victim in this just as much as I was. He’d admitted they’d done something to him.

  “That sounds good, doesn’t it?” I asked, prodding him. “We both want the same thing, X. We can take our lives back. You and me. Together.”

  I was manipulating a broken man, but I was telling the complete and utter truth. I wanted revenge and who better to help me with that, than X?

  He stared down at me, stroking his fingers along my tender neck, caressing the bruises he put onto my skin.

  “Untie me,” I whispered.

  “Why would I do that?” he replied, wetting his lips.

  “If you untie me, I can fuck you with my mouth.” Dirty trick, Mercy.

  “Why would I let your pretty lips near my cock? So you can bite?”

  I let my head sink back against the pillows, jutting my breasts toward him. “Because sucking your cock makes me feel alive.”

  “If I untie you, you’ll run. I can’t have you running, Mercy. How would that look?”

  “I won’t run,” I murmured. “I can’t.”

  He stared at me, his expression unchanging.

  “I don’t want to.” Because I didn’t.

  His gaze left mine and came to rest on my lips and I could see it plainly on his face. He wanted it. Take it, take it, take it… Let me give it to you.

  He shifted his weight from over my body and his feet hit the floor. Turning away, I watched his back as he walked over to the closet. In the half-light, I could see the pattern of scars across his back and side, highlighted through his tattoo. Sick sons of bitches. What had they done to his body to break him?

  X opened the closet and for a brief moment I swore I caught sight of something that I wish I could instantly take back. Leather, metal and something that looked like a medieval torture device. X slammed the closet door shut and my gaze flickered down to his hand. Never mind the fact that he was still naked, his impressive body on show, my heart thumped with fear just the same.

  He was dangerous before, but now he was something else entirely. He could go either way into madness and whatever he held in his hand could either spell my freedom or death. It was that simple.

  “X,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “What-”

  His thumb pressed on the object in his hand and a blade flicked from the end. Six inches of steel coming right for me.

  Whatever words I was going to use to plead for my life, died in my throat and the same fear that had threatened to overwhelm me the night I’d tried to kill Sykes surged again, but this time it was different. This time there was no escape route. There was no plan if things went south.

  X grabbed my wrist and I tried to jerk away, but there was nowhere to go. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the metal to cut into the fragile skin of my forearm, but nothing came. There was a sawing sound and the tension slackened from the rope. He’d cut me free. I sucked in lungfuls of air, my entire body prickling with relief. He leaned over and cut my other arm free, his expression completely closed off.

  As he padded around the bed and stood at the end, cutting the rope that bound my ankles, I wondered if this was all a part of his game. Lull his victim into a false sense of security, then when I least expected it…

  His gaze met mine and there was a dull thud as his grip slackened on the knife and it fell to the floor.

  I couldn’t let fear rule me anymore. X was my ticket to Sykes, but it was more than that. He was my ticket to a better life, a completely screwed up life, but a better one. We were meant to do this together.

  Pulling myself into a seated position, my muscles screamed at me, the pain from X’s touch almost bringing me to tears. If this was what he needed to come back, to heal, then I would do it again and again. I stared up at him and leaned forward, crawling across the bed. I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to suck him, I intended to deliver and drive this bargain home. I had to show him what he didn’t believe. That something else lived inside him other than the darkness he held onto.

  Sliding my legs over the edge of the bed, I sat before him, his cock beginning to harden under my gaze. Tentatively, I reached up and trailed my fingertips along the length of him. When my thumb circled his tip, spreading his pre-come, he let out a sharp hiss, making my gaze snap up to his. He was staring down at me, watching my every move like a hawk stalking a mouse it was about to devour. Waiting for it to make a mistake so he could strike.

  I grasped his cock in my hand and began stroking him to full erection, remembering the night at my apartment when he’d forced himself into my mouth. I hadn’t minded one bit and it was degrading in a way, to be force-fed something that I wasn’t really into, but the moment X’s cock had slid across my tongue? I knew that there was only going to be one cock I was ever letting near my mouth again.

  Staring up at X, I guided his length into my mouth, lavishing attention to his crown with my tongue. I tasted myself on his skin and I took him deeper, gagging as his tip hit the back of my throat. Sucking as I pulled back over his length, I licked his crown, glancing up to see his expression. He was staring down at me, his lips parted. He’d watched me as I fucked him with my mouth before, but this time was different. He didn’t force me to take him, he just let his hands hang at his sides as I did all the work. He gave me control.

  That was the only thing I needed from him to let me know that he wasn’t going to kill me. He was going to spare my life…for now.

  I fisted a hand around the base of his cock and the other grasped his balls, massaging. He thickened even more in my mouth as I sucked, showing him what he did to me. When his breathing picked up and his chest heaved, he rolled his hips forward, stroking himself against my tongue. He was with me; I had him right where I wanted him to be. With me.

  I deep throated him again and held, squeezing his balls in my hand and he moaned loudly, fisting his hands into my hair. When I pulled back, I dragged my teeth along his skin, milking his cock as hard as I could.

  X came to life, pumping as I sucked him to orgasm. I took every single drop as he exploded into my mouth, I took it all and swallowed, soothing his hot skin with my tongue.

  When he was done, he collapsed next to me on the bed, his gaze fixed on mine. He was exhausted. Utterly beaten. What the fuck had they done to him?

  “I won’t run,” I whispered, lying next to him.

  His eyelids drooped. “I’m lost.”

  “I know,” I replied, reaching out with a shaking hand. “I’m going to find you.”

  My wrists were rubbed r
aw and I ached all over, but it was worth it. X was coming back to me.

  He sighed. “They were meant to let me go…”

  “And they will.”

  I thought we lived with the same darkness, but it turned out I wasn't like X at all. X had been broken, his humanity taken. I gave mine away.

  It was time to take it back for both of us.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen, or when X would snap again, but I was determined to get my revenge. It wasn’t just mine I wanted anymore. They’d broken X and now Royal Blood had to pay as well. My hit list was growing and I finally had the guts to go through with it, because now? Now, I had something to look forward to.

  But first I had to fight for X’s soul. I had to bring him back.

  That bright shining future I wanted so badly? It was nothing but darkness without X.

  Twenty-One

  X

  We can take our lives back.

  Mercy had opened something inside me that I’d thought was lost. She was also Alison Crawford, the woman I was meant to kill, but she was Mercy Reid to me.

  She was a new kind of monster.

  She’d fallen asleep, the toll of the pain and pleasure I’d inflicted upon her body overcoming her desire to stay awake. I no longer had the desire to kill her. At least, not right at that moment. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I had to do something. Greggor and Sykes were expecting results and Weiss…he was smart enough to see right through me if I couldn’t hold myself together. I couldn’t snap again like I had last night.

  I’d stood in the shower, washing her from my skin, washing her scent and touch down the drain, washing myself until I was as raw as I felt on the inside, but she was still there. She’d stained me from the inside out.

  Standing over her, I eased her bruised body into one of my T-shirts, my gaze lingering on the black marks around her neck. Beautiful pain… Tearing myself away, I bound her hands to the bedpost, this time tying her hands together, instead of apart. She said she didn’t want to run, that she couldn’t…but I didn’t believe her. I still saw fear in her eyes as she spoke her promise to me. Was it fear of death, revenge, pain…fear of me? I didn’t know, but until it was gone, I would restrain her for her own good.