I needed to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw the blood—so much blood. I felt the tearing of Mateo’s flesh reverberating up my arm. The crack of his bone as the knife cut into it as I stabbed him. I felt sick and empty. Lost. Afloat in my own nightmare.
“It’s okay, Belle,” Beast murmured, and kissed the back of my head, his arms wrapping tighter around me. “I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you now.”
I wanted to fall apart in his arms. I wanted to cry and scream and lash out. I wanted to come apart—to splinter into a thousand pieces so that I could attempt to put myself back together again, but every time I tried to let go, all I felt was numb.
The killing seemed to have soothed him somehow, and I took satisfaction in that at least. The beast that normally raged inside of him, tearing at the walls to get out, seemed to be sated and calm. The blood and death had mollified it, yet I wondered how quickly it would return.
*
Belle had barely said two words since I’d brought her home and left her to shower, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that, or even if I needed to. I wanted to crawl inside her head so I could hear what was going on in there, so that maybe I could help her, because she seemed broken.
She finally fell asleep on my bed, wrapped in my arms, a whimper leaving her lips every now and then, like she was reliving the horror of what she’d done over and over, and I hated myself even deeper every time she did.
This was my fault.
I had created this.
I didn’t really believe in heaven and hell, and if I did, I’d made my peace a long time ago that I was going to hell, but if hell was real then Belle didn’t deserve to go there. She deserved to go to heaven. She was pure and wholesome and all things good. Or at least she was until I broke her with my dark world. Until I mutilated the good inside her and turned her soul black.
This was my fault.
Her sadness, her grief, her tears. All mine.
I could have stopped this from happening. I could have said no to Shooter and took her away from all of this, and I knew I should have. No matter what she said, I wouldn’t have hated her for making me leave my family behind. But I was greedy—I wanted them and her. I wanted the girl and the family, and so I had allowed her to kill for me—for us. To butcher another person for my own gain, and now she was broken, because of me.
I climbed out of bed, tucking my blanket around her so she wouldn’t get cold; her body had dried but her hair was still wet from the shower. I headed to the bathroom and stripped out of my damp clothes and turned the shower back on. I’d washed at the sink in the kitchen so she could take the shower, but now I needed to clean myself properly. It was the first rule of murder: cover your tracks. Burn the clothes, wash your body, and that’s what I’d done. Not that Mateo and Carlos’s bodies would ever be found, but regardless, I always followed the same routine no matter what.
The water sprayed across my back and I leaned against the wall, letting the hard spray work out the knots in my neck. Staring down at my feet, I saw the water turn pink as it reached places I had missed to wash away the rest of the blood, and I knew I’d been right to get in here. I scrubbed my body as hard as I could stand without damaging my skin. My skin was so sensitive to things that even water stung it at times, but right now I relished that pain. It made me stop recalling the things in my head that were making me grow hard.
Belle…covered in blood.
Belle…with the knives in her hands.
Belle…cutting him open…the dagger piercing his skin and slicing him down the middle.
Belle…eyes wide, blood and gore dripping from her hair and fingertips as Mateo cried out, begging her to stop, pleading with her.
And Belle, or some version of her…smiling in satisfaction as she ordered him to apologize to me and he complied.
My hand found its way to my dick without me even thinking about it, and I found myself grunting as I slid my hand along my hard length, the images of her killing and torturing him turning me on like nothing ever had before.
Fuck, I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t stop it even if I tried.
This was who I was.
And maybe, now, it was part of who she was.
It was dark and deviant and so wrong, but the animal inside me loved seeing her like that. Loved seeing her anger as he mocked the marks on my skin that he’d put there. Loved that she took vengeance for me, slicing his skin and driving the knife deep into his body.
Something had come alight inside of her that hadn’t been there before, and I knew we were bonded in more ways than could ever be really spoken of.
I didn’t want it to be like that, but it was, and I couldn’t help that my heart and head rejoiced in it. The memory of her wielding that knife, delivering that final blow, blood gushing from him and spraying back over her, covering her face and tits and… I came in long, hard spurts against the shower wall, grunting with each one. I bathed myself in her misery as I climaxed, hating myself for it but loving it regardless. It was sick, but I loved her all the more for stepping into my world and tasting the darkness that surrounded me. Even if it meant heaven and hell existed and she would have to spend all of eternity in hell with me. Especially that.
Mateo and Carlos were dead and gone. I should have been able to rest. To finally heal my heart and mind and not just my body. Echo had been avenged, and I had gotten my revenge for what they had done to me, and yet I still felt restless. The monster inside me was sated by their deaths, but something still wasn’t right and I didn’t know what.
The sound of Belle crying out had me switching off the shower and climbing out quickly. I grabbed a towel as I ran to the bedroom, and she sat upright quickly when I came in, her eyes wild.
“You’re okay,” I said, reminding her.
“I dreamt that he wasn’t dead. That Shooter made me do it again,” she whispered. “And again, and again.”
I wrapped the towel around my waist and stalked toward her. “You will never have to do that again.”
Belle…covered in blood…wide eyes staring back at me.
“I…I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I need you to know that.”
Belle…knives in her hands.
“He deserved it,” she said, hesitantly. Her gaze strayed to my chest—to the scars and burns and destroyed tattoos—and her mouth fixed into a straight line. She had life back in her eyes again, and I breathed a sigh of relief that she was coming back to me and maybe I hadn’t completely broken her.
Belle…blood dripping from her hair.
“What they did to you,” she said with a shake of her head, her forehead creasing with frustration. “It was evil.”
Belle…cutting him wide open…the blood spraying back onto her…gasping.
Belle slowly pushed the covers away from her body and crawled toward me. She was still naked, her hair still damp from the shower. Her eyes were fixed on the hardness that was steadily growing beneath my towel, and when she reached me, she pulled my towel open, letting it fall around my feet.
Belle…stabbing and killing…death at her fingertips.
I gritted my teeth together, my jaw set in a hard line. “Belle,” I said, cautiously.
She sat on her knees and took my dick in her hand before bowing her head to it and taking it into her mouth. I groaned as she took me to the back of her throat and my hands automatically went to the back of her head to steady her rhythm as she sucked her way up and down my length, letting me fuck her mouth.