Page 50 of Lethal Saint

A guttural sound burst from me and I came hard, heat and pleasure blasting me to pieces. She destroyed me, heart, body,and soul. When my wife cried out and followed me off the edge, she burrowed into my soul and carved a home there. There’d be no getting her out. I was hers. She claimed me. Hers. Always.

It was the longest and most intense release of my life.

“Yours,” I swore, shuddering, clinging to her.

CHAPTER 18

VASILISA

Yesterday was a mess of emotions. A heightened clash of every feeling imaginable: surprise, relief, awe, happiness, dismay, jealousy, devastation, and then so much pleasure it broke me apart. I’d never felt anything like last night, never known Icouldfeel something so intense, so all-consuming, as my need for my husband.

Afterward, he cleaned me up, his touches gentle, and made sure I wasn’t hurt, wasn’t trapped inside my own mind either. But I didn’t feel any of the fear or disgust I had in the ballroom. I only felt relief and a bone-deep calm. That calm was so powerful it massaged the aches and stress from all my muscles, reaching into my bones until they stopped grating, until I stopped holding myself with the rigidity and readiness that had become second nature.

I fell asleep in his arms, warm and cared for and cocooned in protective strength. I expected to sleep easily, for my dreams to spare me. I should have known better.

Panic clawed at my throat when I woke abruptly, digging in vicious knives. I gasped for air, the arm over my waist the only thing keeping me from jumping out of bed and into the corner of the room. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t suck down air, he was choking me, Finch had his arms around me and—it was my own hands clawing at my throat.

I dropped them with a shudder, inhaling a ragged breath, fear rising like a river in a storm, water submerging my head and dragging me under. I needed to move, needed to run so far he’d never find me.

Needles pricked my body, stabbing into my skin in every place he’d touched me. I knew, deep down, it wasn’t real, it never happened, but panic had hooked me too deeply to fight my automatic reflex.

A door closed somewhere in the flat, and goosebumps covered my whole body. Gasping, falling apart, I crawled out from under the arm and dressed messily, clumsily, my whole body trembling. He was here; I couldhearhim. My fiancée had come for me. He was going to hurt me, make me bleed, make me scream like he promised.

My legs were jelly as I slipped out of the bedroom, covering my mouth with my hand when I heard movement in a room down the hall. He was trying to be quiet, but my senses were so heightened there was no mistaking the noise. I needed to run, to push myself to the limit of my speed, but I knew he’d hear. He’d grab me and shove me to the floor and force his cock inside me.

You have more than one hole, and I have plans to fuck that virgin ass until you bleed.

A soft whimper slipped through my fingers. I padded quickly down the hall, my legs bare. I’d hardly noticed what clothes I threw on; it didn’t matter that the shirt was huge and I’d buttoned it up wonkily.

Memories tried to break through my panic, but the haze was too strong. I knew this hall, knew the kitchen and living room at the end, but that didn’t matter—until my gaze snagged on a plastic yellow flower sitting on the kitchen island, and the keys attached to it.

I didn’t think, didn’t let the memories take shape. I snatched the keys and bolted for the door, tremors moving through my arms and down to my hands, making the keys rattle.

Oh god, he was going to hear. A soft thud came from down the hall and I couldn’t trap my whimper. He was coming for me.

It took three attempts to get the key in the door, and I didn’t breathe the whole time. It didn’t open. Oh god, it didn’t open. It was—the keypad.There was a keypad beside the door. My skin buzzed, awareness of how close I was to danger pricking me like a thousand little cuts, but I jabbed a finger at the red icon that said the door was locked, praying, praying—it turned green.

I grabbed the door, a sob escaping when it opened, and then I was racing down the hall, stabbing the metal button on the lift panel, and stumbling inside. The cold floor shocked my bare feet, my gasp loud in the fraught silence. My chattering teeth were just as loud.

I didn’t know what level the exit was on; I’d come in from the basement car park with—with—who?

My lungs demanded air with a sharp stab of discomfort. I sucked in a drowning breath and jabbed the ground floor button. My eyes blurred with relieved tears when the silver doors closed and the lift began to descend. I choked down air, my vision swimming. I was safe, he couldn’t catch me, he’d never hurt me again.

But I could still feel his hands all over my body, a different sort of cruelty to my dad’s, stroking and pinching and pulling where Dad’s only smacked, flesh into flesh.

I avoided my reflection in the doors, hating the scared-eyed woman in the too-big shirt, the collar falling off her shoulder and exposing a pale stretch of skin from neck to chest, a dark red splotch just visible.

I swallowed, staring at that mark, my breathing faster, sharper, shorter. Something was wrong.Everythingwas wrong, my fiancée was going to hurt me, going to fuck me to death, but something waswrongwith that and—

“No!” I cried when the lift jerked to a halt between the third and second floors. My voice echoed, stark and raw. “No, no, no.”

I shook my head over and over when the liftreversed,climbing up instead of sinking to the ground floor.

“He’s going to kill me,” I gasped, my hands shaking hard around the keys. “He’s going to kill me.Please.”

I didn’t know who I was begging. A god who’d never once taken mercy on me?

Gods wouldn’t help a broken, imperfect girl like me. I gripped the keys so hard they sank teeth into my palm, pain sharp enough that I knew I’d broken skin.

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