Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Asmodeus turns to her. He touches her face and takes a handful of blonde hair into his fist. He leaves traces of red everywhere he touches.
“Together in life. Bound by death,” the priest intones. Asmodeus leads Sarah to the side. They grip each other’s hands over a silver bowl, and Lucy pours a goblet of bloody water over their joined hands, filling the bowl.
“Courage, little demon,” he tells her, and she jerks her head in a nod. Her blonde hair hangs in clumps, the strands dark red where they’ve soaked up the blood.
“The ritual includes blood, water, and fire,” Jaeger whispers, and I jolt. I’ve almost forgotten he’s here. “We commit ourselves to each other and Fraternitas.”
I bite my lip, remembering his brand.
“Sarah is claimed, and now she is bound to Fraternitas as much as Asmodeus bound her to him.”
Because she’s complicit, I realize. She’s committed murder in front of all of them.
The masked men are fishing the body out of the water now. I can’t watch anymore.
I face Jaeger. “Why did you show me this?” My voice is barely a whisper.
He picks me up and carries me up the stairs. It’s a relief to leave, but as he carries me down a dark tunnel, I lose it.
I wriggle, wrenching myself out of his arms. My arms are tied together, but my feet are free. He lets me down, and I stumble on the cold stone. The balls fall from my sex, bouncing and rolling across the floor, but I barely notice.
I half run, half limp away from Jaeger and everything he’s brought me to. But it’s dark, and I don’t know the way. And Jaeger never had any trouble hunting me.
I end up in a dimly lit room built of polished stone. There are markings on the wall with names etched in the marble, each labeled with a skull. It’s a mausoleum, a place for the Fraternitas dead.
Jaeger’s shadow fills the doorway before he steps in.
“You wanted me to see this,” I babble. “You brought me here, made me watch. And now I’m complicit, too.”
Jaeger stalks forward, and I tilt my head up to him. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? If they know I know, and I run, they’ll hunt me down.” By them, I mean his brothers, Fraternitas.
“Yes.” He gestures behind him. “That’s what happens to people who know too much. We drag them here. To the Abyss.”
My legs fail me, and I fall, but he catches me before I hit the floor.
The hunter has captured me, but this isn’t a game anymore.
“I can’t do this,” I choke.
“You can. You’re strong enough.” He presses me against the wall and frees a hand to cup between my legs. “I’m going to keep you, bunny.” His feral eyes are all I see. “You know too much, and now you can never leave.”
I shake my head, too frightened to speak.
“I knew it the night in the woods when it was just the two of us. No society, no civilization, no pretense. You showed me the core of you, everything else stripped away. You were fierce.” He’s stroking me, and despite all that’s happened, my arousal flares. I’m soaking his fingers. “You want me. Saying yes to this is saying yes to yourself.” He leans into me, trapping me between his hard body and the wall.
I close my eyes, but I can’t escape his touch.
He wants me in his world. He won’t take no for an answer.
I cup my throat and feel the ribbon around my neck. Tear at it. “What is this, really? What does it mean?”
“It means you belong to me.”
My hips surge against his hand, my body begging for an orgasm.
“Tell me the truth, Elodie. Tell me, and you can cum.” His lips at my ear send goosebumps running down my back. “Tell me about the man you want to kill most of all.”
“What?” The waters are closing over my head. I’m going under.
“Is it your ex?” Jaeger asks.
“No.” I can’t. I can’t do this. But I’m drowning in him, and I don’t even care.
“Tell me.” Jaeger twists his fingers, driving them deep inside me. The pressure in my skull increases, and my limbs start to shake. My mouth opens, and I hear myself say, “He was my professor.”
“Good bunny. You’ll give me his name.”
And I do.
Jaeger grips my throat and rams his fingers home. As my orgasm breaks, he squeezes my neck, cutting off my oxygen. It makes me spiral higher.
And then he’s inside me, hitching me against him as he impales me on his cock. He slams into me, and my world narrows to the blue fire in his eyes. He releases his death grip on my throat, and I’m no longer drowning. I’m flying to a place only he can send me.
Jaeger
It’s a long way back to Empire from the Abyss. We’re almost to the hidden elevator when a shadow falls in my path. Kaiser. He’s been following me, but now that he’s let me see him, I know he wants to talk.