Renegades: Badlands Next Generation

by Natalie Bennett

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Luce didn’t speak to me until after everyone left.

  I was sitting on the couch when he came back in from outside and sat down, but not beside me. He placed himself where he would be able to see my whole face.

  He wasn’t in his bloodied shirt anymore. He wasn’t wearing a shirt at all—not the kind of distraction I needed right then.

  His head tilted slightly to the side and he studied me with an obscured expression.

  “Do you know what I want?”

  No. “Yes.”

  “I don’t have a drawn-out speech or poetic words to sway your decision. Tell me what this is going to be. Are you staying with me? Or do you want me to let you go?”

  This wasn’t how he’d worded the question earlier. I felt like I was missing something. But then, wasn’t that what his sisters had been warning me about? Right then, it didn’t matter. I’d made up my mind.

  “I want to stay… with you,” I tacked on in case that needed to be added.

  “I already knew you’d say that.” He rose and made his way over to where I was sitting, holding out a hand.

  Without letting my thoughts ramble, I placed my hand in his and allowed him to pull me off the sofa. His fingers clasped around mine, locking our palms together.

  “What if I’d said I wanted you to let me go?”

  “I had four acolytes waiting at the end of the road to kidnap you again.”

  My jaw dropped as we reached the top of the stairs. “Then what was the point of offering the ultimatum in the first place?”

  “Sometimes I like to give people the illusion that they’re making their own choices.”

  We entered his bedroom and he kicked the door shut. Still holding my hand, he led me towards the bathroom. I purposely avoided looking at the bed.

  I wasn’t an idiot; I knew what we would be doing relatively soon. It had my stomach doing gymnastics.

  He flipped on the smaller lights and released me so that we could brush our teeth. Watching one another in the mirror, it took effort not to stare at his body. Luce had the kind of looks that could persuade a nun to renounce her faith and then burn the church down.

  “You said you had reasons for wanting to keep me here. Are you going to disclose them?”

  He finished rinsing his toothbrush and turned off his sink. “Isn’t one rather obvious?”

  I mimicked his motions, wiping my mouth with a small towelette. Turning at the waist, I propped a hand on my hip and studied his face.

  “Masculine lust?”

  “What?” he laughed, loudly. “What the fuck is masculine lust?”

  I shrugged. “A chemical in your brain.”

  Without warning, he lifted me up and sat me down on the bathroom counter, spreading my legs and stepping between them. He wrapped one arm around my waist to keep me snugly pressed against him.

  “I don’t let my dick make choices that will majorly impact my life. I’m going to fuck you, hard. I want to know exactly how it feels to be buried so deep inside you that nothing exists but me.”

  “That’s—”

  “But lust doesn’t have shit to do with why.”

  It wasn’t just my face that his words made warm. My entire body felt the promise behind what he was saying. I was so not ready for this conversation.

  I placed my hands on his barren shoulders and swallowed, taking a second to gather my nerves.

  “Then what is this?”

  “This.” He gestured between me and him. “It’s the start of something neither of us were planning or could have ever been remotely prepared for. That’s exactly why it has to happen.”

  “How can you be so sure about this when you don’t know who I am?”

  “I know more than you’d like me to. I know you’re mine. I know I took out a man’s fucking eye over you, and that was just foreplay. How much bigger do you want a declaration of commitment to be? I could bring you a head, but that lacks creativity. My dad did that.”

  Why was I not surprised he was being serious? If he really took Kevin’s eye for me, that was oddly endearing.

  No one ever did anything for me before, aside from the girls. I didn’t want an arsenal of limbs, though. That was gross.

  “Luce, I don’t want or need you to bring me anyone’s body parts. In fact, please don’t.”

  “Well, you’re mine now, so tell me: what do you want?”

  Too much. I wanted things that were unobtainable. Parts of my past to be in my future. My brother and the girls. A.R.C to burn to the goddamned ground.

  I wanted Bella to be free of whatever was haunting her, and Cam to be healed from the trauma he’d have to bear as a permanent reminder every day of his life. I know I’d just met these people, but my heart had already started pulling them in.

  The man standing right in front of me especially.

  I wanted him and whatever this connection was, but for the first time in a long while, the unknown was terrifying. I wasn’t looking to have my heart torn apart by Satan.

  “You’re going to be okay with me,” Luce said quietly. “I can’t promise you much right now, but I will keep you safe and as happy as I can until the day comes. I’ve got more to offer.”

  I traced a finger up and down the back of his neck, peering into his onyx eyes. He had so much soul for a soulless man. It felt unexplainably familiar to me. How was it possible that we were just now finding one another?

  I pulled his mouth to me, pressing his warm lips to mine. Though I’m sure it went against every fiber of his nature, he allowed me to probe and explore his mouth, kissing me back as gently as ever.

  When we pulled apart. I took a shaky breath, sucking in another when he shifted forward, pressing an undeniably large bulge against my pussy. Unable to contain ourselves or the growing tension between us, he took over.

  His hands grabbed hold of my face and pulled me back in for a fiery and passionate kiss. He sucked on my tongue, dropping one hand to the button of my shorts.

  I ran my palms all over his body, dragging them down his stomach to feel each crevasse and ridge that framed his abs.

  “Not here,” he stated, his voice sounding as normal as usual if not for a slightly grittier undertone. He wrapped my legs around him and carried me to his bed, placing me directly in the center.

  My shorts and underwear were gone within seconds, my top and bra joining them somewhere on the floor.

  As I laid there naked, watching him undress the rest of the way, something dipped in my lower stomach. His body was downright sinful.

  When my eyes passed over a dark patch of curls and reached his cock, my brows shot up. It was long… thick… and pierced? There were two metal bars attached near the head. Didn’t that hurt?

  He climbed onto the bed and spread my legs. For a moment, neither of us did anything but stare at one another, and without any words needing to be spoken aloud, his hands began to venture over every inch of my skin, his lips chasing after them.

  My breathing grew shallow.

  Every nerve in my body and brain became electrified. The ache he elicited between my thighs was almost unbearable. Being aroused like this was new to me. It had always been something forcibly done. I was ready for whatever he wanted to do to me.

  He poised himself above my body, one muscular arm keeping his weight off mine. His free hand went to my pussy, teasing between the folds. “You’re fucking drippin.”

  He gripped my thigh and positioned it over his hip, dragging me closer to him. “I’m going to take everything from you, baby. But I won’t steal this.”

  He was asking for permission?

  “Take it,” I breathed. I could have screamed the words at him. I’d have delivered it with a bow if need be. This was the one thing the A.R.C valued the most.

  I wanted it gone.

  Fuck all their sacred vows.

  He made a sound and then positioned my other leg. He began to push inside me, bringing his mouth to mine the second I whimpered. />
  There was more than mild discomfort, the pressure ten times worse than pain. I could feel every inch of his cock as it pushed against my pussy’s natural resistance, the metal bars adding another factor to the sensation.

  He reached between, where our bodies were joined, and used his hand to guide himself, pushing into me until he could go no further.

  “Fuck, Star.”

  I bit down on my lower lip, fighting the urge to push him away. My hands went to his muscled back, nails digging into the flesh.

  A stinging sensation coupled with the sheer size of his cock, stretching the part of me that had never been explored by anyone but him.

  “You good?” he asked.

  The noticeable strain in his voice almost made me laugh.

  “Move,” I urged, needing him to do something other than hold still.

  Warm breath fanned my neck as he laughed. He withdrew, pushing back in. I breathed through it, settling into the tempo he created. My eyes pricked from the mix of pain and a budding pleasure.

  When he abruptly stopped, I looked up at him, confused.

  “I’m not fucking you hard enough, and you’re not going to come. Both of these things need to change.”

  I winced as he pulled out. He slid down my body and laid flat on his stomach.

  He hooked my legs over his shoulders and put his entire mouth on my pussy. This was entirely new to me. When he dipped his tongue inside me, I half-whimpered, half-moaned, grabbing for his sheets as he repeated the motion.

  His hands slid beneath my ass and he lifted me up so that my pussy was practically smothering him. His obsidian eyes flashed to mine and he gave me a dark grin. “I can taste all that sinful innocence on my goddamn tongue.”

  He closed his lips over my clit and began to suck. One finger slid inside my pussy, followed by another. The sensation was mildly uncomfortable, but it quickly faded.

  Budding pleasure took root in my lower stomach, the sensation growing tighter and tighter.

  Luce’s eyes burned into mine as he used his tongue to roll my clit. He curled his fingers upward and rocked them in and out of me, a sloshing sound swept away by my moans. I could feel myself climbing towards a peak, clenching around his fingers.

  “That’s it, baby. Just like that.”

  The growing band snapped, sending a rush of pleasure coursing through my veins as I sucked in a breath. I rooted my fingers in Luce’s hair, grinding my pussy against his face.

  He kept lapping at me, using his fingers to quickly bring me back to another peak, but this time he stopped before I could fall. He kissed back up my body, staring down at me.

  “You are beautiful,” he murmured, teasing my slit with the glistening, red-tinged head of his cock.

  I squirmed, moaning his name when he flexed his hips and slid back inside me, recreating the burn and stretching sensation. He didn’t hold back this time. He braced one muscled arm beside my head and gripped my thigh with the other as he pounded me into his mattress.

  I sucked in ragged breaths, glancing down to watch his cock, covered by arousal and blood, plunge in and out of my pussy. The sight and sensation of him inside me, the flex of his muscles, and the calculating look on such a sinisterly gorgeous face had my pussy spasming around him.

  “Shit,” he cursed as I clenched around his cock.

  I half-screamed, half-sobbed and grabbed his muscular ass, pulling him deeper inside me.

  He grabbed my hands and pinned them above my head. I couldn’t move beneath his weight or the force of his thrust.

  His eyes blazed into mine, the look in them sending a shiver racing down my spine. It was like he was seeing right inside me, weaving through a maze and leaving his mark. Pain and pleasure spiraled through my core, the sound of sweaty skin smacking against skin echoing in the background of my gasps and moans.

  “You’re mine,” he ground out, pushing deeper inside me.

  “Yours,” I agreed. “Yours.”

  My head was a mess, but that word seemed clearer than ever when I knew there was no going back from this.

  He could have me for a million different reasons.

  Right now, the one I cared most about was that this had been my decision. Even if he said I’d never had a choice, he let me choose this.

  He thrust one last time, hitting a spot I didn’t know existed. I tore my arms free from his grasp and clung to him, feeling his cock empty inside me.

  A kiss came to my forehead before he rolled off, the action unexpectedly sweet. He hooked an arm around my body and dragged me to his side, neither of us speaking. That was okay with me. I didn’t need words with him. Silence could say enough. I shut my eyes and concentrated on regaining control of my breathing.

  I didn’t know what would happen between us now. Whatever this was, we’d just taken it one step further. It went beyond allowing him inside me.

  This was the catalyst for what would be the end of one part of my life and the beginning of the next.

  I should have known that falling in love would be inevitable. Our story wouldn’t be one of love, though. It was a tale of possession and carnal passion weaved with a scarlet string of fate that refused to break. It was the forming of a bond between three fucked-up souls.

  And if I’d known what was coming, I still wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  The road to hell was paved with blood and sorrow.

  But at the end of that road was an empire, the devil, and my salvation.

  TWO

  They saw me as a light in the dark, not realizing that the darkness they feared was me all along.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I left her sleeping in my bed.

  I’d be back before she woke up. If I could have watched her sleep all night, I would have. It was hard not to stare at her. Star wasn’t just gorgeous. Something primal inside me had woken up. He and I met about the same time I took Kevin’s eye out. I’d had to welcome his ass to the fucking party of me and my new personalities.

  Slipping out into the hall, I made my way downstairs to where Cam and Ice would be. The compound was quiet, but I knew acolytes were patrolling the outside of the building.

  I keyed in the code for the playroom and went inside. Cam hadn’t had an issue with pulling his scarecrow down so I could hang Kevin up. There were still pieces of her flesh rotted to the meat hook when I placed it through Kevin’s back.

  Ice was positioned by the makeshift investigation board he’d pieced together with Maliki. I had decided to put it in here to prevent Star from coming across this information prematurely. Some of it she didn’t need to know at all.

  “Have fun?” Ice asked, shooting me a smug grin.

  I flipped him off. They knew I was going to fuck her, but what was originally part of a grand scheme to enrage the factions after her had been replaced by my carnal need to possess her. Knowing that I was her first and last… that was deeply satisfying.

  “You’re going to start a riot over this,” Cam joked.

  “That’s the plan.”

  “This is going awfully far for just a plan,” Ice remarked.

  “We already discussed this. Star isn’t a loose end. She’s mine. Plan or no plan, she was mine.”

  I circled around Butcher and went to get a smelling salt so I could wake Kevin up.

  He was in worse shape than I’d ever seen him.

  There’d been so many holes drilled and cauterized that his legs were two rotting puss sticks. Why the fuck couldn’t he just die? He was more resilient than an armored cockroach.

  I held the smelling salt beneath Kevin’s nose and waited for him to rouse. His head lifted with a groan. I nudged his body so the meat hook would swing, and the pain that caused did a fine job of waking him the rest of the way. He cried out, turning his head left to right, looking fucking ridiculous.

  One side of his face was crusted with blood, his empty eye socket a round, gaping hole.

  “We need to have a chat.”

  “Fuck you. Demonic pieces
of shit,” he rasped.

  “Ouch,” Ice laughed.

  “Insults aren’t necessary, Kev,” I reprimanded, giving him another swing.

  I detected the telltale sign of skin splitting apart. He yowled this time, his arms flailing to get himself down.

  “That’s bewitching,” Cam said, watching as the back of Kevin’s uniform became even more saturated with blood, turning the entire thing a deep maroon color.

  “Every time you struggle, you make this worse. Tell me where I can find Amo, and I’ll get you down. Don’t bullshit me either. We all know he isn’t dead.”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway.” He coughed, heaving and trying to catch his breath.

  “I’m not going to kill anyone, not tonight. Are you guys planning to kill someone?”

  “I’m not aware of any murderous mischief,” Ice replied.

  “I’d have killed him already,” Cam shrugged, continuing to polish the blade in his hand.

  “See? Now, I’m feeling good tonight, so I’ll count down from five and give you a chance to tell me what it is I want to know. Five…three…on—”

  “Stags,” he damn near yelled. “Amo is a Stag.”

  “Damn, that fits your theory perfectly,” Ice said, moving closer to our board.

  “Addy was actually the one who brought it to my attention. That’s why they left so fast. They had a lead.”

  “How did that come about?” Cam wondered out loud.

  “You already knew?” Kevin accused.

  “The fuck do you think?”

  I grabbed hold of his shirt and jerked, pulling him off the hook.

  The spliced end tore through his back, leaving ribbons of flesh and fabric behind. He screamed, continuing to do so as I carelessly dropped him to the ground.

  “I’m going to need you to shut the fuck up.” I lifted my boot and pressed it down over his mouth, squishing his cheek. “You done?” I asked after a minute.

  He nodded as best he could, and I removed my shoe.

  “They’ll rip you apart boy, just wait.”

  “Do you know how pointless it is to talk shit when you’re about to die? Do you somehow feel better now that you got that off your chest?” I turned to Cam, who already had what I needed in hand.