Lucien’s large body blocked it out at first, but as I stepped around him, I was able to see that the table was not empty. A white cloth was draped over it, and resting on top…was Payne.
I moved closer, holding a hand over my mouth and nose. He didn’t smell, but…he was most definitely still dead. I must’ve been out for a little while, because someone had sewed his head back onto his body, the stitch marks thick and rough. It was almost too much to look at: the stitches, the red line underneath them, how pale his whole body was.
He was naked, too. All of his clothes were off, but another white sheet draped over his midsection and his legs, covering him up.
Payne looked like a cadaver. A dead body, nothing but a corpse. His eyes had been closed, and his face looked much more peaceful than I remembered it being when Bram had tossed me his severed head.
Somehow, just by looking at him here and now, I knew. Deep in my gut, I knew Payne wasn’t going to spring to life.
Payne was dead, and he was going to stay dead.
Chapter Eight – Lucien
I was glad she was back with us, but what I was not so glad about was the look on her face as she stared down at Payne’s unmoving, mutilated body. It was almost like his head didn’t want to reattach to his body. I had no idea why he wasn’t springing back to life, either. Maybe not as fast as me, but this place…this place never let the dead just be. If you truly died, it ate your soul.
Payne wasn’t truly dead, because his body was still here. If the maws of chaos had swallowed him up, he’d be nowhere to be found, which meant there was still hope for him. Somehow, someway, we would be able to bring him back.
Fucking Bram. I’d tried to temper my anger with him over what he did—not only catching me off-guard and killing me, but also to Payne, to what he almost did to Felice. If I hadn’t burst through that door right then and threw him off her, he was going to stab her. Literally, he was seconds away from stabbing her, and Ian and Dagen couldn’t do anything, because they weren’t strong enough to break down a door.
Me? Even if a door was locked, I could bust through. Even if this place didn’t want me to, I could. I was a Grimmstead. This was how I always was. I was never a child, never a baby or a boy. I’d sprung up just as I was now, becoming the caretaker to all these lost souls. This group…had been the sitting group in the house for a while now. It wasn’t always them; sometimes other souls were released, sometimes other people walked these halls, but now I knew why it had been them for so long.
Her.
It had to be them, because it had to be her.
Without her connection to the others, without her connection to me, Felice had no reason to try to stay under this roof. Willfully staying here was much better than her making herself sick by trying to leave.
I didn’t like seeing Felice so sad, but she was inherently morose as she gazed down at Payne’s motionless, pallid body. His cheeks seemed gaunter than they were before, his lips dried out and thin. He appeared to be withering away instead of rotting.
“Will he come back like you?” she asked, glancing at me with those big, brown eyes.
Eyes like that were the kind of eyes that could make me do anything. I was not a giver, but I would be to her, if she wanted me to. “I don’t know,” I spoke, my stare only on her. Why would I want to look upon Payne when she was in the room?
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?” She whirled on me, her hands clenching into fists. “You’re a Grimmstead. You’re…made from Victor’s blood, or whatever. If anyone should know, it’s you.” It almost sounded as if she was accusing me, blaming me for all of this, when in fact she should blame Bram.
“I don’t know everything,” I told her. “This place might be all I know, but I’m not foolish enough to claim I know how everything works. It is unnatural, unpredictable. It will do things just to mess with your head.”
Like make me believe I was fucking the Not-Felice in that room, when in reality it’d been her. She was warm. I should’ve realized it at the time, but I didn’t. I didn’t, not until Not-Felice told me.
Did Felice know we were together, or was she under the impression it was nothing but a dream as well?
Hmm. Since today was all about putting everything out in the open, maybe I should tell her.
Felice seemed just as upset as she was moments ago, but she asked, “It messes with your head, too?” Her dark brown hair was a bit kinky, and she breathed evenly, her ample chest rising and falling with each breath, pressing harder against the fabric that fit her body like a glove. The top half, anyway.
I nodded, tearing my gaze away from her and moving around the table, towards the window. From here, you could see out over the fence that lined the property. You could see the real world, the small town just beyond its borders. The houses, the yards, the streets. It wasn’t that high up, but it was high enough for me to see everything I was missing, living my whole life here.
But then, of course, I ran into the problem that, without Grimmstead, I wouldn’t be here at all. If Grimmstead ever fell, I would, too. I knew it in my gut.
“Since the first day I opened my eyes,” I replied.
It was a minute before Felice followed me to the window, asking gently, “How?”
This was it. The time to come clean. The time to tell her that her face was never new to me, even as she took her first step into my office, soaking wet. All this time I’d kept her to myself, her image and likeness in that room, never breathing a word of her to anyone else. Ian, Dagen, Koda and Payne didn’t know I’d seen her before, and they definitely didn’t know in what capacity it was.
“By showing me you,” I said, turning my head just enough to meet her eyes. She stood two feet from me, leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the window, her attention solely on me and not the impressive view.
She…did not appear too shocked, which in turn puzzled me.
“Me?” she echoed, her lips parting slightly.
“For me, it’s always been you,” I told her, hating that I sounded so weak, but I supposed that was the point. Felice had always been my weakness, even before I knew her name. Even before I’d met her. She was my weakness, my deepest desire. She was everything.
“That room,” she said, bringing up the room I kept everyone from, “is that where you see me?”
My brows drew together as I said, “Yes. How did you know?”
Felice turned her head down, and through the dim light, I detected a faint blush on her cheeks. “Victor told me the same thing. He…he took me into that room.” She bit her bottom lip, hesitant to say more.
She might not want to continue, but I needed to know. I needed to know if Victor had gotten his claws into her. Victor couldn’t be trusted. Not while he was alive, and not his soul, now that the house had swallowed him up.
“And what did you see when you were in there?” I questioned, feeling the blood start to pump faster in my veins.
“I saw my ex-boyfriend,” she answered, stunning me. Just when anger swirled within me, Felice added, “And the fire that killed him. It started out as him, but then…then it was just the fire.”
Fire. Felice longed for fire?
She rubbed a hand along her other arm. “I don’t know what you think of me, but I’m not a good person, Lucien. I…have secrets, too.”
I took a step toward her; I couldn’t help it. I wanted to sweep her up in my arms and confess everything to her, feel those lips on me again, her body quivering with each thrust of my hips. “Tell me your secrets, Felice, and I’ll tell you mine.”
Her amber eyes snapped up, and indeed, the blush on her cheeks deepened. “I don’t think you’ll like my secrets, Lucien.”
“Try me.”
She breathed in a long breath, filling her lungs as much as she could before blurting out: “I set the fire that killed my ex. And his parents. I killed them. I watched as the fire burned the house down, knowing they were in
side.” She paused, not looking remorseful in the slightest. “And the worst part is I don’t feel guilty.”
Felice…was a killer? That was the last thing I’d expected her to say. I was so stunned by her admission, I could do nothing but stare.
“It wasn’t the first fire I’d set, but it was the first that caused so much damage.” Felice closed her eyes. “I also set my dean’s office on fire, which was why I was kicked out of school. Stupid cameras.”
I knew I probably wasn’t reacting to her confession like a real person would, but I was past the point of trying to act normal. “Why do you like setting fires so much, Felice?” God, it felt amazing just to say her name, let alone bask in her presence.
“Because I like fire” was her simple answer, though I knew there had to be more to it than that. One did not set fires simply because one liked them.
“And why is that?”
Felice was quiet for a few moments, turning her head to view Payne’s still body on the table, about five feet from where we stood. “It’s beautiful, powerful, destructive. Victor said I crave it so much because I’m like the fire. It’s a good release.”
Victor had definitely gotten into her head, which pushed me to say, “You seem to have spent a lot of time with Victor while you were…incapacitated.” Was that a hint of jealousy in my voice? I couldn’t tell.
I wasn’t so much jealous that she’d gotten chummy with someone else—if she was connected to everyone here, things were bound to happen—but more like who it was with. Victor. Victor would only use her. He would never care about her, not like I did. I had to make her realize this.
“I did, and also the others,” she added, “but they were children.”
Children? I couldn’t remember the last time a child had walked these halls. Victor must’ve been using them to get on her good side, to make her pliable. And, unfortunately, it appeared as though it worked.
“You can’t trust Victor,” I told her, frowning.
She tilted her head up at me, boldly asking, “Why?”
“Because he’s an evil man who will do whatever he has to to get what he wants. And whatever he wants, I’m sure you’re the key to him getting it.”
Felice seemed to think on this. “I think…I think we’re all evil here, in our own ways. Even you.”
I took issue with that, and yet, deep down, I knew it was true. “If he ever reappears to you, tell me. I’ll handle him.” I hadn’t seen him roam these halls since he disappeared, since this place took him, but I knew better than to assume that meant he was fully gone. The others might change, but he never did. Victor Grimmstead never came back.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she declared. “Not about this.”
My chest rumbled with a growl. Oh, how I fucking wanted to. “Do you know how long I’ve watched you in that room? Do you know how many times I took you against the floor, and the wall, and the chair? I am here, while Victor got swallowed by his madness and his obsession with power. You might think you know him, but you don’t.”
Felice’s cheeks blushed yet again, this time from the words I’d spoken purposefully, and I didn’t dare stop there.
“One night, I went to the room. The door was closed, just like any other time. I sat in the chair, wanting you,” I told her, lowering my voice to a bare, husky whisper. “And I got you. But you know what was different about that night? You were warm. The likeness of you never was.”
It took her far too long to say, “What are you saying? We really…”
“Yes. Does that change things?” I almost wanted her to deny every word I said, only so I could show her how truthful I was in this moment. So I could pin her against the wall and make her body crave mine again. It wouldn’t be too hard, even with Payne’s motionless body lying in the center of the room.
But she said something I never expected her to. If I was trying to egg her on, I was pretty sure she was doing the same as she said, “I don’t know. Does the fact that I was with Payne right before he died change things, too?”
She said the truth without saying it outright: she’d been with Payne, as in, she’d slept with him, too.
If she thought I’d be jealous or angry at that, she was wrong. The only one I took issue with was Victor. Nothing Felice could say would ever change how I felt about her. I was so sure of it I felt it in my bones. She was mine; she just didn’t know it yet.
She might also belong to the other men under this roof, but I didn’t care. If I, a man who was not a man, had any hope of salvation, it was her.
I took another step closer to her, setting a hand on her stomach and pushing her back against the stone wall near the window. “No,” I spoke lowly, angling my head down to hers. “It changes nothing.”
Felice made no moves to push me off her. Not that she could. I was strong, and I would not let her push me away. She was mine; she knew it already. Giving in to me now was merely her destiny.
“How do you know this is real?” she asked, breathless as my hand moved to her side.
“That’s the thing,” I whispered, our mouths inches apart, our breaths intermingling. “In Grimmstead, you never know.” My other hand gripped her hip, feeling her warmth seeping through the fabric and flooding my system, overloading it.
Her eyes fluttered shut. “What if I’m not the key to whatever this is?”
For me, at least, she was. And to Dagen, if she made the noise in his head stop. The others would soon follow suit, although Bram damn well nearly killed her, which was something I couldn’t ever allow to happen again. He would remain down there until I was certain Koda was the dominant one again.
“You are,” I murmured, saying nothing else as my mouth found hers, greedily devouring whatever other reply she might’ve had. With my back bent, it was hard to dig my hips against hers, make her feel the budding hardness growing in my pants, but I managed.
Felice moaned into the kiss, her hands traveling up my chest and wrapping around my neck. She would never deny me. She wanted this as badly as I did, even if this wasn’t the best place to do it. Her lips were soft and smooth against mine, her tongue ravenous as she pushed it into my mouth and ran it across mine.
Everything about her drove me crazy. Felice made me feel something I never felt before.
Real. She made me feel real, not just a caricature of the person I was created to be.
My hands left her sides, my midsection not leaning as hard against her, mostly because I needed to feel the relief that would only come once I was inside her. Her lips still on mine, I worked to undo my belt and my pants, pulling myself out. After yanking up her dress, I moved her panties to the side and ran a finger along her, causing her to tremble and tear her mouth off mine, panting. Lust sat in her gaze, hungry and sensual. She would not argue with what I was about to do.
I had to bend my knees a bit to position myself at her entrance, and once I felt her slickness, her body accepted mine. I pushed into her inch by thick inch, filling her up to the point where she had to slam her eyes shut and moan.
Oh, I could listen to those moans all day and all night.
“You feel amazing,” I whispered, grabbing her legs and lifting her off the ground. She wrapped her legs around my midsection, her arms linked behind my neck. This way, at least, my knees wouldn’t have to bend as much; I could focus on what mattered most: pumping myself in and out of her.
Once she let out a sound of agreement, my hips started to rock, and I fucked her against the wall. It wasn’t too hard to ignore the fabric bunched around us, not hard at all to lose myself in her and how tight she felt wrapped around my cock. She was glorious, beyond compare. She was everything I needed, and I knew I wasn’t fire, but I hoped I could eventually be what she desired most, too.
With each thrust of my hips, her back hit the wall. I might be hurting her, but Felice made no comment about it, didn’t ask me to stop. I had her utterly and completely, and I was high on the feeling. She was my drug, and now that everything was out
in the open, there was no point in trying to swallow those feelings down.
She must’ve clenched her inner core, for I felt her tighten around my cock, causing me to drive into her harder, needing to feel that tight pussy milk my cock over and over. I was a slave to her, to the carnal feeling inside. She was the only one who ever affected me, and I needed her to realize that Victor was the bad guy here. The villain. The one she should rebel against.
Me? I was the one who she should submit to. I would make sure her submission was a pleasant one.
“Do you like it rough?” I cooed into her ear, feeling her nod against me. That was as much of a go-ahead as I would get, I knew.
I started going at her harder, rougher, more fiercely than I had been before. Her pussy took me in easily each time, both of us sweating and gasping for air as the pleasure threatened to swallow us. Felice’s arms tightened around my neck, and her body began to tense up. She threw her head back, hitting it on the stone as she let out a loud cry, but I didn’t stop.
I kept going, my own senses heightening as I watched her orgasm. I could literally be with her all night and never tire, and yet, because I knew this was real, because it was truly Felice and she was so unbelievably warm, I couldn’t stave off the feeling in my balls. My cock throbbed with the need for release, and it happened shortly after.
My hips pushed my length as far into her as I could go, my back muscles spasming as pleasure exploded within me. Cum shot from my cock, filling her up. This place never allowed for any new life to spring from its inhabitants, so I wasn’t worried about getting her pregnant.
I held onto her longer than I had to, stayed buried inside her. I didn’t want to pull out, because I knew once I did, the moment would be over, and I didn’t want to sound clingy if I asked her if this was our new normal. If we were…something. Something more than nothing. It was probably too much to hope for, because in Grimmstead, you could never truly be happy.
Happiness was fleeting, only an illusion.
Felice breathed hard, my hands still gripping her legs and holding them around my waist. She leaned her head back, her eyes nothing but slits as she looked at me. “You’re…” A loud exhale left her lungs, and she could say nothing else. Her mouth was puffy and her chin a bit red from our kiss, but she wasn’t going to complain. I wouldn’t let her.
Grimmstead Academy: Submission Page 8