Page 172 of Taken By Touch and Torment

He didn’t even look at me when his hand slipped between my thighs, his fingers parting my lips. He was only looking at Rune.

He didn’t see where my own hands went. My left hand wrapped around his forearm, and my right moved to my outer thigh.

Brennan assaulted me at the same moment I impaled him.

I lodged my dagger into his side, an area home to organs that tended to fare poorly when met with magickal poison.

Brennan dropped to his knees in shock. I took the opportunity to shove the second dagger in his chest, intentionally missing his heart. The panic in his eyes was so satisfying that I made a throaty groan.

I shoved him, letting him fall back and slam his head against the stone. Blood poured steadily from his skull and his wounds.

He couldn’t fight me as I dug into his pants pockets, pulling out two sets of keys.

“Scarlett?” Brennan managed to mumble, searching my face.

I didn’t answer him. I didn’t even meet his heartbroken eyes.

“Leave the dagger in his chest where it is and take the one in his stomach back, just in case,” Rune drawled from behind me, his voice slurred with poison.

I followed his helpful advice, letting Rune keep watch over Brennan’s paralyzed form as I approached him.

Rune was grinning, even as blood continued to leak down his neck and chest, his power straining.

I started with the gruesome shackle around his neck. My hands shook as I tried various keys in the lock, glancing back at Brennan periodically.

“Baby, I’m watching him,” Rune said gently. “Take a breath. You’re okay.”

A tear fell down my cheek at the warmth in his voice. I finally found the right key, dropping the incorrect set to the floor before wrestling with the heavy metal. It made my stomach turn over to carefully dislodge the spikes from Rune’s neck.

And like he was made of steel himself, Rune made not a single noise as I lifted the heavy collar and tossed it to the ground. Blood poured from his neck in steady streams, and Rune merely sucked in shallow gulps, his eyes glassing over.

“Don’t worry,” he bit out, “about me. Just remove the cuffs, so I’m free of the blood onyx.”

“Won’t you still be weak?” I whispered, panic rising in my guts—cutting through the delirious head high of a successful seduction.

“I will need to feed,” Rune said. “To regain my strength.”

The wrist cuffs fell to the ground next, leaving Rune free even as he remained slumped against the wall. His vampire healing could kick in now that he was no longer impaled by the blood onyx.

“Oh, duh,” I murmured. My head was filled with adrenaline and euphoric compounds from my succubus magick, leaving my senses sharp even as my mind floated.

I straddled Rune, and he managed to chuckle. “Don’t think you can have your way with me just because I’m restrained,” he growled. When I grinned, he sighed. “Give me your wrist, sweet girl.”

“Ask nicely,” I said.

Rune’s smile broadened, his eyes darkening. “You’re going to pay for that.”

“Promise?”

I gave him my wrist, and Rune wasted no time sinking his fangs into my flesh. My eyes rolled back.

Durian cackled. I glanced back at him, the way his eyes darted from me to Rune to a motionless Brennan on the floor. Brennan’s hands twitched wildly as he grunted unintelligible nonsense.

Durian’s demonic, hateful eyes locked on mine. I winked.

“She’s a fucking succubus.”

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