Page 13 of Taken By Touch and Torment

“Pitifully frail. I forget my own strength sometimes,” Durian sighed. “Knowing that, it would be prudent for you to follow instructions without hesitation, no? How hard could it possibly be to fulfill your one purpose in this life, pet? All you have to do, for the rest of your short existence, is obey.”

He spoke to me like I was stupid and worthless, as stinging as any slap. I pushed up and silently walked to the altar.

That third silver lining was still alive and well. He might’ve been about to torture me, but it was at least for sport and not because he’d discovered I was a succubus.

Rosalind had kept my identity to herself. Why was another matter entirely. And not my most immediate concern.

I shook with terror as my back hit the hard, cool stone. And when I went to wiggle my legs, I realized my body was being held down by invisible magick.

Panic surged. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I feared I might hyperventilate before Durian had gotten so much as a taste.

But then he was beside me, his fingers trailing from my neck down the center of my body to my navel. When he smiled, it wasn’t robotic. It was as though he were smiling genuinely for the first time.

“Lillian, I pray you find this offering pleasing. I pray I consume this blood—the purest, sweetest I’ve ever scented—in a way that honors you. It was a grave injustice this being of light was in the bastard Rune’s grasp. Let me reclaim her for Lillian now. Show her how it feels to be consumed by a true vampire descended from the Dark Goddess. She who reigns above all other lesser deities.”

At the mention of Rune, a tear slid down my cheek—a gesture that no doubt had Durian’s cock hardening in his pants. I wondered if Rune would care that this was happening to me. If he had known the truth—that I wasn’t an enemy plant, and I was taken against my will—would that have changed how he felt about me?

It was all still a lie. He’d only ever been drawn to me because of what I was. Not who. Just like all the rest of them. I was a fool for running to him, for hoping and yearning and pining after him like a lovesick girl. In kidnapping me, Liza had likely saved me from getting my heart demolished all over again.

Durian bore his fangs. He lifted a dagger with an ornate black crystal hilt. When I shut my eyes tight, he growled.

“Look at me, pet. Or you will not enjoy how I force your eyes open.”

I didn’t even want to imagine what that meant. As I drowned in fear and pain, staring up at the glint of a sharp blade, I realized I now had new voices in my mind.

I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but Isabella’s voice that had once been so loud and cruel in my ear had faded.

It was Snow’s I heard now. Her mother, Penn’s, too. The voices of all my friends in Aristelle. And Rune’s, before he’d broken me.

They argued with me, telling me I still meant something—that I still mattered to them. That I was still worthy of love and care. That I was perfect just how I was.

The tears flowed freely now.

The knife cut into my stomach as I was held still by magick. All I could do was scream as Durian carved into me. What was he digging for?

Perhaps it was that tiny spark that came and went, refusing to die completely. Or maybe it was the parts of me that still belonged to Rune, or the ones that still belonged to me.

The blood flowed from my torso, hot and slick, running off to the sides of the altar to be collected in grooves that led to a chalice at my feet. The whole thing was fucking disgusting.

I’d never burned with such hatred.

That was, until Durian held up a mirror, so I could gaze at what he’d carved into my stomach.

Durian.

He watched my face as I bled and cried. Then he moved the mirror and forced me to stare into my own frightened eyes, the disgust that had twisted up my features.

“Poor pet. Do you think so little of me that you thought I wouldn’t notice your defiance? Your refusal to break completely? The ties you won’t sever that still connect you to the abomination in Lillian’s once great Nyx?”

My eyes were piercingly blue when I cried. I thought of my mother’s painting of the sea in the upstairs bathroom of our cottage. I wondered if Jaxon had made it to Valentin’s shore, if he’d seen those strokes of clear blue we’d always dreamed of. I hoped he had.

I wanted my mother, now, even if she wasn’t my mother. Even if she hadn’t been capable of giving me the same love I’d seen Penn give Snow. I wanted her love all the same, just as I’d always yearned for Isabella’s.

I wanted Rune’s too, as silly as that was.

It was all forever out of my grasp. Maybe that said something about who I was, at my core. A primordial wound that wept and wept, the same story repeated over and over until one of these monsters finally put me out of my misery.

The mirror was cast aside, and Durian’s tongue grazed my navel. He sharply inhaled. His desire flooded me, and its corresponding strength only made me more angry, more violently sick.

---