I hadn’t heard them come back upstairs when I was in the bathroom, so the only place left to look was the backyard.
When I reached the patio, I spotted lights farther down the lawn.
“What...?”
Someone grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms to my side.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” Vandal? His voice sounded off—like it got when he was deep into his sadism. I thought of it as his Jamison voice, although I’d never admit it to him.
“Let me go!” I demanded, flailing, trying to kick something, fighting him hard since he was holding me hard. The band of his arms hurt, so I assumed he wasn’t interested in taking it easy today. Clawing my fingers, I scratched at him, but only caught fabric.
“We haven’t even started having fun yet.”
“Let me go, you sick bastard!”
His breathing was harsh and fast, and I didn’t think it was all due to my struggling. At least, not due to him exerting himself.
“Why fight something you could enjoy, Veronique? You’re not even giving me the benefit of the doubt.”
“No!” My heel connected with his shin, but not squarely.
Without any apparent difficulty he carried me across the lawn and brought me to the decorative limestone blocks that were off to the side of the lawn. I’d never paid much attention to them past thinking it was funny every time Vandal mowed the lawn and bitched about what a pain in the ass they were. He set me down on the largest one, lit by several fat votive candles set on the nearby rocks and on the grass, and even on the main rock, itself.
When he loosened his grip, I did my best to scramble away, but he pressed me down with his body.
“Maybe I should have drugged you first.”
“Fuck you.” I bit his shoulder, and he swore, then he narrowly avoided me clawing his face when he let go.
Slowly, he managed to get me tied down one limb at a time, the rock already set up with ropes and leather cuffs that barely reached far enough. He must have measured to get things so perfect, but I wasn’t sure how he could have without me there to measure with. What had he even attached them to?
It wasn’t until I stopped fighting that I heard music playing softly in the background. Kink Monsters. Of course. The gesture would have been—romantic?—if the context wasn’t so fucking creepy.
When I was secured, he fussed with my hair, spreading it across the stone. He straightened my dress too.
“Fuck,” Zero whispered.
“Right?” Vandal took his phone out of his pocket and documented his dastardly work with a few pictures.
“Wouldn’t photo evidence be a bad memento for a serial killer to keep?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“These are for me, not Jamison.” His smile was sexy and more than a little unhinged.
“I’m starting to feel like I was lured out here under false pretenses. This was supposed to be research, not kink.”
“I could gag you.”
Zero grinned. “That would be hot.”
“Good thing I came prepared.”
“Fuck you. Let me go!”
He pried my mouth open and pressed a wad of cloth into it, swearing when I bit him, and then he tied the mess in place with a cloth strip knotted by my ear. He coaxed my hand open and put something cold, round, and metallic in it.
“If you need to safeword, drop the bell and I’ll stop.”
I glared at him and he half smiled, the way another man would if I’d said something flirty. Twisted son of a bitch.
I’d expected the gag to bother me, maybe even to make me claustrophobic, but the indignity of it was turning me on just like the bag over my head had.
A knife came out from somewhere—a hunting knife with a big metal guard separating the blade from the handle. He turned it easily in one hand, as though he played with knives all the time. It wasn’t a comforting notion.
I mean, how hard would it be for him to bury people out here? It wasn’t the first time I’d had the thought.
The fear that had been lurking behind my ribs grew, taking over my body as I lay there as bound and helpless as a sacrificial lamb.
“Here’s a better trophy for Jamison.” He used the knife to cut a lock of my hair free and showed it to me, then tied it with a ribbon he took from his pocket. “Now, hold still or you’re going to get cut sooner than I plan on cutting you.”
Zero, who was on the other side of the altar, ran a hand over my thigh. It was hard to tell if it was to comfort me, or because he was turned on.
“So perfect.” Vandal murmured. Slowly, he brought the knife up close to my face. Was he being careful or savoring the moment? He caressed my cheek with the blade, the metal cold compared to the sultry evening.
I froze, whimpering low. The little safeword bell had an edge that was sharp against my palm. I was determined not to let go yet, but I was also afraid I’d drop it or maybe let go of it too late. The fear crackling through me was like reading the best of Vandal’s scenes, making my insides clench with dread, not knowing what would happen when I turned the page—but this came with real danger. Even if he didn’t mean to hurt me for real, he could still do it by accident.
The knife drifted lower, pricking my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut until he was past that fragile part of me. When he reached my chest, I sobbed against the gag, trying to suck in breath through my nose and feeling like I wasn’t getting enough air. My ears were buzzing. The quietly sinister music was threaded through with the sound of water lapping the shore in the almost breezeless darkness, and the aroused breathing of two scary men who liked to hurt me for fun. The moon was a cold, impassive sliver, and heat from candle flames licked the bare sections of my skin.
“What is this power you have over me, girl?” He kissed my throat. Had he made me bleed there?
He slid the knife into the bodice of my dress, and I felt the fabric part like tissue. The dress was a light fabric, but the edge of the blade had to be so very sharp. I had imagined there’d be some sawing involved, but it was easy, sensual. It would probably part my skin just as easily—cut through the layers, leave me open and bleeding until my blood all ran out.
“This little fucking body—the things I dream about doing to it.”
The droning of recorded voices was like a chant in the darkness, working its way into my head.
I was the sacrifice. He was the high priest.
I was blood. He was death.
Two hearts beating, soon only one.
“Please,” I begged, but it was only piteous moaning behind the gag. I didn’t want to die, and definitely not like this, no matter how beautiful his glittering black eyes were in the candlelight. The flicker behind them was hot and would burn me worse than any flame.
Maybe most writers made things up, but with Vandal I wasn’t so sure. Maybe Jamison lurked there, not far below the surface, ready to take over if Vandal got too weak to stop him.
Zero leaned closer and licked a tear from the corner of my eye, as though my fear was an aphrodisiac. The bastard was no better than Vandal—maybe worse in some ways. They fed off each other’s dangerous ideas in one continuous, ugly loop.
Vandal took his time slicing apart my dress, parting the fabric with his knife and tracing a path around one breast and then the other. I imagined him stabbing me in the heart or maybe just slicing into my nipple. I was trembling, crying, my sobs thick and muffled behind my gag.