Page 93 of Deadmen's Queen

My skin crawled and I felt sick to my stomach.

“Please...” I whispered, the fight draining out of me. He leaned down over me, his warm breath ghosting over my cheek.

“You're going to learn,” he murmured into my ear. “You're going to learn to love this.”

I turned my face away, and pain seared through every inch of my body as I gritted my teeth together.

“Scream for me,” he whispered, his voice almost an echo in the room.

I clenched my jaw tighter. I would not give him that satisfaction. He reached down, picking up the knife again, and I gasped as he dragged the blade down my arm, drawing blood.

“You know, back in the tenth century in China, there was a form of torture called lingchi.” He made another slice, and I winced.

“It’s also known as death by a thousand cuts.” He cut again and again, moving down my body each time, the blade slicing over my breast and I cried out.

“How many cuts will it take you to die, Paige?”

He traced his fingers over my opened wounds, smearing the blood over my body like grotesque artwork. His laugh echoed through the room as he watched me squirm, drinking in my pain and terror with sickening satisfaction.

Each time his blade pierced my skin, I tasted bile rise at the back of my throat. But I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing me beg for mercy again. The pain was unbearable, but I couldn't let him win.

“Why are you doing this?” I managed to choke out. Not that I expected an answer that would make any sense or justification for his sadistic pleasure.

“Because it makes me so fucking hard,” he said. He was fucking me slowly, each thrust hammering into me as he sliced my skin. His hands were careful and precise, each slash expertly executed to inflict maximum pain without hitting any vital organs.

Hours passed, or maybe it was minutes. Time lost all meaning in the shadowed room as the agonising rhythm continued. My mind retreated to a dark corner, far away from the torment.

He fucked me slowly, taking himself to the edge, then pulling back, making it last longer. Each cut, each stream of blood got him hard, and he would plunge back into me with a guttural groan. He revelled in the power he held over me, the fear that flickered in my eyes, the helplessness of my situation.

I was a plaything, an object to satisfy his perverse lust. His moans filled the room, growing louder with each thrust until he finally came inside me. Exhausted, spent, he collapsed on top of me, pressing me into the mattress. His sweat mixed with the blood coating my body.

I lay there underneath him, bloody and broken as I felt him slowly withdraw from me. The room was silent save for our heavy breathing. The sticky mixture of blood and semen lined my thighs. My body felt raw and violated. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and I swallowed hard against the nausea that rose in my throat. The sensation was too much - the searing pain, the humiliation - another tear slid down my cheek. He looked down at me, the skull face grinning in mockery.

“Shhh…” he cooed mockingly, tracing a line down my tear-stained face with a blood-soaked finger. “This is only the beginning. We have all the time in the world, Paige.”

I closed my eyes.

“You're mine now,” he whispered, his voice echoing in my head as I drifted in and out of consciousness. “I won’t be gone long.”

I heard the door slam shut and then there was silence. I focused on the steady drip of blood dripping from my wounds onto the plastic on the floor beneath the bed. Each drop was a reminder of the hell I had endured. The room spun and my stomach churned. Darkness threatened to consume me as pain radiated through every inch of my body.

I fought against it, fear gripping me. If I succumbed to unconsciousness now, would I ever wake up? The thought terrified me more than anything else that had occurred so far.

A low whimper slipped past my lips and hot tears trickled down the sides of my face. Every little movement sent fresh waves of pain crashing over me.

The struggle to survive was suddenly all too overwhelming. Tristan was gone. His loss felt like someone had ripped my heart from my chest, and pain overwhelmed me. Nate and Bast would get home and find Tris dead and me gone. They’d lost their friend, their brother and it was my fault. I’d brought this psycho right to their door. This was all my fault.

Nate’s image slipped into my head, the memory of him sitting in his fathers room, his arms wrapped around his knees, afraid and vulnerable. I thought about what he’d gone through at the hands of his father, how I’d tried to make him see that it wasn’t his fault, and somewhere deep inside, a spark flickered. A spark fuelled by anger and a deep-seated need for revenge against the monster who had reduced me to nothing more than a helpless victim.

No, I wouldn't let him win. Bast and Nate would come for me. Somehow, they’d find me, they wouldn’t give up on me. I knew it deep in my soul. They were coming. I just had to stay alive long enough to watch them tear this psycho apart.

The hatred surged through my veins like acid, burning away the despair and replacing it with a fierce determination to survive. The psycho had underestimated me; he assumed I was weak, but I wasn’t weak. I was the Queen of the fucking Underworld, and if I was going down, I was taking this fucker with me.

“It's not over,” I whispered. “I won’t let you destroy me. Tristan would never forgive me if I let you win.”

Chapter Thirty Four

PAIGE

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