by Addison Cain
A cry caught in her throat, one that turned to a whimper of degradation.
A hand came to her bowed head and stroked her hair. “And that, kara sevde, is why I do not allow you to remember. That is why every night for you starts new and clean.”
Who would want to have such dark things always lurking in their mind? The stranger had given her blood that had not made her sick, he had given her pleasure in the tub, and then he had given her the memory of a terrible past. Falling to his feet, she put her lips to his shoes and begged he take the nightmares away again.
Voice like iron, Darius warned his treasure, “I shall take all he did from your mind, but remember this fractured moment tonight should you question your life in my care, buck my requests, or shy from my attention. There is no suffering in this room but the torment you bring upon yourself. I would give you the bliss of permanent innocence. I would fill you with pleasure. Thank me for it.”
Sobbing, she vigorously held to his leg. “Thank you.”
And then the rancid memories that had broken her heart were gone. Confused why she was even upset, the tears stopped.
Cupping her face, he wiped wet trails from her cheeks. “Your life with me, in this place, can be sunshine or it can be darkness. Every night, the choice is yours.”
Chapter 9
Over several hours, Darius taught her the meaning of rapture.
And the price…
His attention had been so wondrous that she’d almost forgotten how degrading it was to be used. Yet no matter how he kissed and touched, under her joy she knew all he did was for his own entertainment. He wanted to see her beg like a whore, knew what nerves to manipulate to earn a slattern’s response.
Twisted by the expertise of a practiced lecher, she’d cried out, unsure of the exact moment his body had pushed her past sanity. For only a mad woman would have thanked him for fucking her so raw she’d bled.
She’d even tangled her hands in his hair when he’d pulled her cunt to his mouth so he might feast on their shared fluids.
When his come and her blood were smeared over his chin, red eyes burned and his long teeth shone in the candlelight. “Turn over. Bow your head to the covers.”
She’d obeyed without question.
“Tell me you love me.” Glistening cockhead notched between her cleft, he’d raked his nails over her hips.
More of her blood spilled from the gashes, just as the foul words fell from a drunken tongue. “I love you.”
“Call me your God!” He spread her cheeks, sluicing forward through all the mess that dripped from her cunt.
It felt as if there was a knock on the door of her skull, a mental caution to refuse such blasphemy. There was only one God. The God. The creator of the world who’d promised to deliver her from evil.
Evil shunted in, straight into a hole that was unslick, unstretched, and unprepared. Bawling, flailing while tears fell, she screamed, “You are my God!”
The creature tearing her ass apart roared. It was not the sound of a man in pleasure, but a demon set free from the abyss. Unwilling to turn her head, she imagined great wings had spread behind her tormentor to beat the air as he pulled her down that blood-stained cock.
The damage was extensive, for the devil had been unshackled.
He claimed his due from her flesh.
A single, worthless soul.
One that God had rejected long ago. One that was treasured by a monster who relished perverting love into pain.
Empty of hope, full of cock.
That was how she died inside. Any proselyte knew there would be no forgiveness in the eyes of the Lord for this.
The flesh agreed, twisting up around the pulsating intrusion. Her cunt fluttered, opening up like a little mouth seeking a sweet kiss. The nub at the top of her sex throbbed as if an overripe berry near bursting.
Despite how he ravaged her hips, it was her touch that found that pulped flesh and dove in to fill the empty hole. He bellowed a sickening laugh to see little fingers play.
When she came, it was while riding a scream of pain.
He sprayed white globs of stinging grossness so far inside her, it would linger like a stain she could never push out.
What had she done?
On fire, pinned under the weight of a monster lazy with slaked lust, her tears fell hot and free.
At last that organ was shrinking, slowly worming its way out of her ass. But the mark he’d made on her, the blasphemy he’d drawn from foolish lips would never seep out, no matter how many holes she tore in her flesh.
“I am lost…”
Filth crusted nails raked her chin, forcing her to twist her neck at an impossible angle so that one large blue eye might find his devious smile. “I so ador—”
The floor dropped out from under them, and with an earsplitting crash, dust and debris snowed down upon her room. It was as if the earth itself shook, as if it worked its jaws, intent on devouring the vampire whore and the beast panting on her back.
“HE WOULDN’T DARE!” Darius pulled away, careless of the damage he caused, or the detritus that followed the path of his dick from her anus. Once on his feet, the ground wrenched again, almost upsetting the devil’s balance. “You.” Turning his fury on the bleeding woman soiling the coverlet. “Stay there! This insurrection will be crushed at once.”
Through tears, Pearl saw the air bend, distort, and Darius, the devil she’d named as her God, vanished.
It would be easy to say that the rocking of the earth which sent her candelabras toppling over was a sign of her salvation. It would be easy to claim divinity smiled upon her.
It didn’t.
In fact, no one came to smile, threaten, bleed her, or denounce.
Hours she lay under a ceiling that dusted her room in a fog of ancient dirt. In that time her body mended.
Darius did not return.
One by one the candles began to flicker and wane. All the soft golden light of her cell faded, snuffed out to scent the air with a wisp of smoke. It was not until the last three had almost met their end that Pearl found the will to rise from the bed. New tapers were lit, and had she been wiser, she would have rationed her meager supply.
Rocking herself in the shadowy room, surrounded by fine paintings, by jewels, by sumptuous furnishings and a tub grown cold, she saw the cell for what it was.
A tomb.
Her tomb.
Days passed, Pearl sleeping anywhere but the soiled bed.
Starving, down to her last candle, she read through the book she’d found on the desk and knew the gnawing in her gut was more than hunger.
This was a bad place.
A bad place where she had been tempted and spoken terrible words.
When she opened the filigreed box on the desk, when she found the notes, she didn’t weep. After all, didn’t the church teach that there was no such thing as victims of the devil? She had come to him of her own accord.
She had killed Chadwick Parker. She had served as the demon’s slut.
She had renounced her God under the ecstasies only the prince of darkness might offer.
And every word on those torn notes was true.
She was in Hell.
Damned, Pearl snuffed out the last candle before it might burn away. Pitch black filled her vision. Shuffling through the furniture, she found the stinking bed, and pulled the covers crusted in all things unholy over her body. There she lay, forgotten, abandoned, and without hope.
Just as she deserved.
Starvation drained her flesh over weeks. Shriveled, desiccated, she lay like an age worn corpse unable to blink. Yet, where the body failed the mind persevered.
She couldn’t scream into that endless night. Eventually, even her chest no longer rose to draw breath. But awareness and desolation never faded.
Hell was a dedicated custodian. It refused to release her stolen soul.
Years, decades, passed trapped on that bed staring up into unyielding dark.
Alone.
/> Forgotten.
Forsaken.
Another corpse in the catacombs.
The End
About Addison Cain
USA Today Bestselling author, Addison Cain, is best known for her dark romances, the Omegaverse Alpha’s Claim and Alpha’s Control Series, and the twisted alien worlds of the Irdesi Empire. Her antiheroes are not always redeemable, her lead females fierce, and nothing is ever as it seems.
Deep and sometimes heart wrenching, her books are not for the faint of heart. But they are just right for those who enjoy unapologetic bad boys, aggressive alphas, and a hint of violence in a kiss.
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Books by Addison Cain
Don’t miss these exciting titles by Addison Cain!
The Alpha’s Claim Series:
Born to be Bound: Book One
Born To Be Broken: Book Two
Reborn: Book Three
The Alpha’s Control Series:
Absolute Power: Prelude
Stolen: Book One
The Irdesi Empire Series:
Sigil: Book One
Sovereign: Book Two
Que: Book Three (coming soon)
Anthologies:
Black Light: Valentine Roulette - Unraveled
Alien Alphas: Strangeways
IV
What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath
Yolanda Olson
Copyright
Text copyright © 2018 Yolanda Olson
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
What Lies Beneath
The Alaskan air is cold and uninviting, but I have to get some work tonight if I want money to eat tomorrow. There was a time where walking the streets wasn’t a necessity; hell, there was a time where all I had to do was look at a man a certain way to make his dick hard. But because of the bullshit I’ve spent a year or two ramming up my veins I’ve lost my appeal.
I hate that I look no better than the junkie whore that’ll give a blow job for five dollars, and I hate that sometimes that’s the only price I can fetch for a full-on fuck. Hopefully tonight I can get at least fifty dollars. As my worn-down heels crunch along the cool pavement, I can feel my luck already changing.
There’s a man watching me from his car.
He has been for the past hour, and it’s why I’ve stayed on this particular block. I feel like a fucking fool walking back and forth, parading myself in front of the lone car on the street, but if he weren’t interested, he would have left by now.
Maybe he doesn’t mind that I’m not as pretty as I used to be. Maybe he doesn’t care that I don’t look like Honey Bee on the next block. Maybe he just wants to use me for the night, and I’m quite alright with that — as long as he’s got more than five dollars.
I decide to stop walking in the middle of the block and hike my skirt up enough to show off my thigh tattoo. My knee-high boots always make my legs look longer when my skirt is higher up, but I really wear them to cover the tears in my fishnet stockings. I proceed to rummage around in my small clutch for a cigarette, not that I have any, but perhaps he’s just waiting for an opportunity in which I’m not being so blatant about selling my cunt and then he’ll finally approach me. If he doesn’t, I’ll just leave this block and go chat with Honey. She likes me, so there’s always a good chance that if she hooks a John tonight, she’ll let me tag along and I’ll earn some money. We’ve done that before, the two of us. She sets a price for her and charges an extra hundred bucks to ‘bring along a friend.’ She gives me the hundred, tells me that I’m far too pretty to be on the street, and that I’ll go back to my “junkie ways if I don’t find a hobby soon.”
She may be right, but I haven’t touched that shit in almost six months and I still can’t think of anything better to do with my time. I wonder if I’ll ever get myself off the streets before I wind up just another dead whore in a dark alleyway. Some days, even that doesn’t sound so bad.
The sound of a car door opening then closing makes me smile. I guess he’s one of the shy ones that needs me to be distracted before he has the balls to approach me. That’s just fine with me. The shy ones are usually nicer, and I can usually set a higher price because this isn’t something they do very often. They just get lonely and need someone to talk to for the most part—that or a quick handjob and they’re on their way.
I keep my eyes inside of my almost empty clutch and wait to glance up until he stops right in front of me. I smile at him as seductively as I can in this biting cold weather, and I am honestly surprised when my fingers brush against a lone, half smoked cigarette at the bottom of my bag.
“Got a light?” I ask him, placing the stub between my teeth and giving him the once over.
He’s not bad looking. Big black-framed glasses rest on a kind face, and he’s got that James Dean bad boy thing going on with his hair. He’s dressed warmly and much more appropriately than I am for the night. As I reach forward to run a hand down the interior of his black bomber jacket, he smiles slightly.
“Sorry. I don’t smoke,” he murmurs, running a hand back through his hair.
“I guess I don’t either then,” I say as I flick the stub into the street. I close my clutch quickly and pull my skirt back down. Now that I have his attention I don’t need to show him anymore than he’s willing to pay for.
His eyes wander down to my hand and he chuckles softly. “What’s your name?”
“Burgundy,” I reply.
“Because of your lipstick, right? No. I want your real name,” he responds, his tone changing slightly.
“I don’t tell my real name,” I reply, rolling my eyes.
“Then I guess I’ll move down the block,” he states with a nod, turning on his heel to head back to his car.
I bite my lip for a second as I watch Mr. Fancy Jacket stuff his hands into his pockets and walk away. If he can afford a coat like that, then he definitely has more than five dollars to burn.
“Wait!” I call out, quickly following him into the street.
He turns and raises an eyebrow. He’s reached his car by now, and he leans patiently against the hood while waiting for me to catch up to him.
“Why?” I ask curiously.
“I just like to know who I’m dealing with,” he replies with a simple shrug. One of his hands reappears to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, before he again places it in his pocket.
I sigh and stick my clutch under my arm. I don’t like telling anyone my real name because that makes business too personal. Even Honey Bee doesn’t know it. I don’t know hers either, now that I think about it, but that’s because we both know where to draw the line on shit like this.
“What’s yours?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Lowell,” he replies with a bright smile spreading across his face. It figures—a nerdy name for a somewhat hot, nerdy guy.
“Cessi,” I concede quietly.
“Was that really so hard?” he asks as his smile transforms into a wide, sexy grin.
I shrug and glance into his car. It’s clean and neat, much like his appearance, and I bet it’s warmer in there than it is out here.
“What are you looking for tonight?” I ask, turning my attention back to his big, brown, soul catching eyes.
“Lowell,” he finishes.
“What?” I ask in confusion.
“’What are you looking for tonight, Lowell.’ It’s quite alright with me if you call me by my name and for now, I’ll call you ‘Burgundy’, until you feel it’s alright for me to address you otherwise,” he says warmly.
“Okay,” I reply indifferently. At this point, I could give two shits if he has money. He seems to be playing games and that’s making me rethink this entire thing.
“I want to know if you’re willing to stay with me tonight,” he finally says, his persona slipping back into the shy man that first approached me.
“Always,” I reply with a big grin. “Just tell me what you’re into and we can get this show on the road, Lowell.”
He laughs and walks around the front of his car, to the passenger side, and opens the door. I raise an eyebrow at him and he motions for me to get inside. It seems that Lowell is quite the gentleman too. That’s not something I’m used to either. I’ve been beat up, fucked and tossed out of cars with no money, and robbed more than I’ve been paid. It appears that my luck may actually be changing, for tonight at least.
“Thank you,” I say to him as I follow his trek around the front of his car and slip into the passenger seat. He nods and closes the door firmly behind me before he makes his way back toward the driver side and gets in.
I wait patiently while he fishes around in his pocket for the keys, slides them into the ignition, and turns the car on.
“It shouldn’t take too long to warm back up. I’ve had it on the entire time I was—,” he cuts himself off and laughs nervously.
Watching me, I finish in silence for him. Since he’s being nice to me, I don’t want to embarrass him or scare him off.
“Here. Put your hands in front of the vents. You’ll warm up faster that way,” he says as he nervously reaches for my wrists and holds them close to the lukewarm air that’s blowing softly into the car.