Page 24 of Taken By Touch and Torment

It was a lie, I was sure. Rune didn’t care what happened to me.

But it was what Durian wanted to hear, and I fed off his delight. I soaked it all up, even if I still didn’t know how to use all this power stored inside of me. It was nearly bursting, begging to be transformed into influence.

At the thought of Rune, I winced, remembering all the times he’d hurt me this past week—in even worse ways than Durian.

Rune isn’t here, I told myself again. Dreams. They’re all just… strange dreams.

Oh gods, was I going insane?

I focused back on Durian. My stomach twisted up when I realized the desire to share me was no longer a tiny drop in his subconscious waters—it had grown into its own current, a viable impulse to act upon.

You don’t want that, I whispered to Durian’s mind, borrowing from my wells of stored magick.

The force inside of me was volatile, built from the strength of powerful vampires. The more desperate I became, the more my influence over Durian’s mind spun out of my control.

“Remove the current slave from the table,” Durian said flippantly, flicking his wrist.

I panicked, and Durian sensed it, his cock swelling beneath me.

One of the men slid the girl off the table and into his lap. She was barely conscious and limp, more doll than human.

After a day of religious sermons in the streets, rallying the born to fight a war, all these men wanted to do was torture mortals—mostly human women.

Was that truly the will of the gods? The will of the Dark Goddess? It couldn’t have been. Because I was half born, half Lillian’s daughter, and I still had a soul. I was born immortal, and I still wanted the same things humans did—connection, serenity, beauty, and love.

I was immortal. It was a reality I hadn’t given nearly enough thought to. I hadn’t had the opportunity. It wasn’t like I’d live long enough for my immortality to matter. Though I would stop aging in my prime—if I hadn’t already—my human body was still vulnerable. My only assets were my succubus powers and ability to heal more efficiently than a human.

At a soft click, I looked down at Durian gripping a leather leash attached to my collar’s O-ring. My heart sunk.

I was not what Rune believed I was. I was not like them—these vile sociopaths.

“Up on the table. Now,” Durian commanded. “And don’t you dare spill a single drop of our drinks or knock anything over.”

That wasn’t an easy feat when the table was a minefield of chalices, platters of food, and multi-tiered serving dishes.

And the distraction of crawling around the obstacles to get to the cleared center of the table meant I couldn’t focus on stopping what was about to happen.

Durian was about to throw me to the wolves.

My leash dragged behind me, clinking as it skated across the table.

At a prickle of heightened desire down my neck, I paused. I turned to see that the leash had somehow looped around a tall pitcher. I frowned. One of them must’ve used magick. They wanted me to fail.

When I delicately pulled the leash free, the whole table glared, looking to Durian. He stared at me, perplexed.

I played dumb, even as my heart slammed against my ribs. I turned back around, crawling to the safe zone and letting out a quiet sigh of relief. Then my leash pulled taut, and I made a strangled gasp as I clawed at my collar and moved into a kneeling position.

“Brennan,” Durian said, holding tight to the handle of my leash.

No. Not him.

“Remove her clothes.”

I froze. I still hadn’t had to bare myself to these men—not like the other slaves. Durian was changing the game. He knew he had so much more room to break me.

What about my purity? I whispered to his mind. This isn’t what you want.

I was yanking and yanking on those threads of desire, but my influence was too cloudy, too muddled with my own distress.

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