Still, my fingers circled my clit frantically, driving my pleasure higher to combat what would undoubtedly make me very sore come morning. "Fuck," I whispered as my vision blurred, the shadows of the room fading into bright white light that overtook my senses.
My ears rang with the force of my orgasm, only faintly aware of the driving thrusts of his cock still moving inside me and the brutal roar of his release as he pulled me down onto his cock and came.
When he released my throat, I fell forward. My body went limp and languid, and I cherished the moments where there was no consequence. Where there wasn't the threat of nightmares looming on the other side of sleep, and I could just curl into the bed he placed me in peacefully.
He left for a moment, returning quickly and curling himself around my body. "Sleep, Little One."
Sleep evaded me, knowing I needed to leave shortly enough, but I allowed myself to enjoy the way his breathing evened out as he found his own rest.
It was only after he'd fallen asleep that panic seized my lungs and sent me hurrying from the bed as quietly as I could. My heart wanted to let him in, to accept him as someone I could care for when I could never.
But that wasn't what made panic seize my lungs.
He'd somehow known to guide my left hand between my legs.
16
Thalia
“Thalia!” Malva’s hissed in a whisper, drawing me out of my distracted musings. The eleven-year-old rolled her eyes at me as I startled and pressed a hand to my chest. “Are you living in a dream today?”
“I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly, a blush tinting my cheeks. “I don’t know where my head is today.” The night before had played in my brain on repeat since I’d managed to tuck myself safely back inside my bedroom in the early morning hours with no one the wiser that I’d ever been missing.
I alternated between heat-inducing thoughts that made me crave my stranger’s touch once more, and the terror that something had gone horribly wrong. Had he somehow known I was left-handed?
It wasn’t possible for him to have seen something and drawn that conclusion in our night together. To use my right hand when people were there to witness the action was deeply ingrained in me.
The only time I used my left was to draw, and even then I began with my right and shifted because I just couldn’t sketch properly with my right.
I shoved the thoughts aside, knowing if there were to be some consequence for my rebellion, it would come with or without me fretting over it.
With the wedding only a month away, I intended to enjoy the limited time I was allowed with my sister before it became even harder to see her. In truth, if it hadn’t been for Malva’s safety hanging over my head, I would have run long ago.
Freed myself from the chains of my life and what this marriage promised to be for me. It wouldn’t have mattered if I needed to take out my father’s men to gain that freedom, but I couldn’t risk Malva.
I couldn’t take her with me, not without risking her being harmed or worse in the crossfire. Leaving her behind just was not an option, because I knew what happened when my father lost an outlet for his abuse.
My mother’s death had shifted the entirety of his focus to me for the time before my stepmother came and embraced his darkness.
“Did you have a bad dream again?” she asked, concern twisting her features. It wasn’t uncommon for my screams to wake the house, and for an urgent banging at my door to startle me awake. The sleep aids they made me take to prevent that usually kept the nightmares at bay.
“I just couldn’t sleep is all,” I said evasively. She pursed her lips, but nodded before prattling on about her day at school. I smiled through the bitterness that our lives in the same household were so vastly different. She was the treasured daughter, the one who knew no harm and could do no wrong.
Whereas I’d been born defective and punished for it every day of my life.
After my mother’s death, I hadn’t even been allowed to leave for school, having private tutors brought to educate me without the corruption of outside influences. “And what did Percy do after Cassandra threw the stone at you?” I asked, humoring the crush she seemed to have on the boy she saw infrequently at the gatherings of the families. If my father ever learned of her feelings for him, even as fleeting and innocent as they were, considering they were both children, there was no telling what he would do.
“He threw it back at her and told her to stop being a nasty hag,” Malva said, bright laughter tinting her sweet voice.
She was older than I’d been when my innocence was stripped away, and the mistake I’d made the night before only made me more resolved to make sure she kept that for as long as possible.
Malva could never know what a pool of blood looked like or the sounds of a blade cutting through flesh.
I’d die before I let anything stain her in the way I’d been ruined. Because in a life of misery?
She was the only thing I loved.
If you plan to continue with this series, there’s an epilogue…but I suggest you stop here if you don’t like cliffhangers and don’t plan to continue.
Thanks for reading!
Epilogue
Calix
One month later..
Christian climbed into the backseat of the SUV beside me, the cane clutched tightly in his grip. He handed it over the moment the door closed and Lex pulled away from the driveway. Christian accepted the towel I handed him, wiping his blood-stained hands on it and glaring at the red caked underneath his fingernails. "Any survivors?" I asked, not bothering to take my eyes off the weapon in my hands.
By the time I finished with Origen, he'd be lucky if I hadn’t shoved it so far up his ass it came out his mouth.
"Everyone who was in the house is taken care of," he said. There wasn't a hint of remorse for killing the men he'd been forced to work alongside in his time watching over Thalia, but he also didn't dare disobey my orders in the slightest.
I'd known Thalia suffered at her father's hands, but I'd never known the extent he'd gone to correct her "unsatisfactory" behavior. The whiteness of her scars made me believe that she'd had them long before I planted Christian.
That was the only reason he still breathed, because I couldn't expect him to protect her from something that had happened before his arrival. That responsibility fell on my shoulders alone.
Having him retrieve the cane had been a risk. If anyone in the Karras Estate had managed to contact someone, my plans would go out the window quickly. But I couldn't explain the need for the cane, beyond the need to get Thalia the revenge she so desperately deserved.
And that cane would be a part of it.
"The church?" Lex asked from the front.
"Yes. Is everyone ready and waiting?" I asked, holding his gaze in the rearview mirror.
"All are in position," Rafael said, turning to look back at me. "You ready for this? For her to know who you are?"
"The next time she comes on my cock, it will be my name on her lips. What do you think?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Rafael chuckled, that deep, twisted laugh that made men quiver in fear.