Page 60 of Taken By Touch and Torment

“I’ve been watching you—the way the whole palace respects you, is utterly charmed by you… you’re a force, Brennan,” I said. I closed the loop on my subconscious poking and prodding and pulled it tight. “You’re a true leader.”

Brennan’s eyes flashed, his grip on my throat tightening as he pressed his hard cock against my stomach.

“I haven’t been able to be myself since I arrived here,” I said, letting raw emotion shroud my features. I slowly dragged my gaze from the floor back up to his eyes. “But with you, I feel like I can be the woman I was before I was Durian’s. And what I’ve truly been wanting to tell you, all this time, is that I see you, Brennan. I see how hard you work and how wickedly intelligent you are. I’ve always been drawn to powerful men. And I can see you’re the most powerful kind there is.”

I quickly covered my mouth, as if I was frightened by what I’d admitted aloud. “I’m sorry…” I trailed off.

Brennan forced his lips on mine, his wobbling tower of cards falling to the ground all at once.

These men were the ones who were too fucking easy.

I swallowed down my shame and disgust as I kissed him back, unable to stop the tear that slid down my cheek. Behind my eyelids, all I saw was Rune, all I felt was the love he’d shoved toward me while I sat captive in his enemy’s lap.

After what seemed like seven agonizing years, Brennan pulled away, his brows drawn together with emotion and his body swimming with lust.

“You’re crying,” he whispered with a frown.

“I’m scared of what Durian will do to me if he finds out about us.”

Brennan looked pleased with my use of the word us. Who knew born psychopaths could be secret romantics? The cognitive dissonance here was strong.

“I’ll protect you, Scarlett,” he vowed. “You deserve to be treated like a woman, not a pet.”

I felt it, that growing seed of resentment, that burst of red that looked an awful lot like lust. Jealousy and desire, two sides of the same temperamental, explosive coin.

I’d created a rift. No—not created. Succubi could only nurture desires that people already harbored. I’d taken a sliver, and I’d transformed it into a crack. With enough care and direction, one day it might crumble into an unbridgeable valley.

“Doesn’t the Book of Lillian say that we humans deserve to be pets?” I asked.

Brennan gripped my waist, frowning. “I—you’re better than the rest, Scarlett. You’re different. Lillian only makes it clear the born were meant to rule, and the humans born to serve. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your service. I could make you happy. I could treat you like a princess.”

He still defended Durian’s fabricated holy book. But with my magick, I could see even his loyalty to Durian’s religion had wiggle room if Brennan was given enough motivation to stray. Such as the growing idea that perhaps he was destined to rule instead. And if he believed that, he’d have to expose Durian as a liar and a fraud.

Brennan was nearly a puddle at my feet at this point. More pathetic than Kole. Of course, he justified his obsession with me by putting down other humans, continuing to justify trafficking and servitude.

These powerful men didn’t really have a spine when it came down to it. When you illuminated their deepest insecurities and resentments, they crumbled like sand in the wind.

Not Rune. Rune was the only king I’d never made fall. The only man capable of seeing me for exactly who I was.

And he still loved me.

Brennan’s attention was back to my neck, sidetracked for too long. “As I said, this will be easy to cover up. I know we don’t have much time before you need to be back,” he said bitterly, still staring at my throat.

So much for treating me like a human being.

“Do you want to feel what it’s like to be fed from when you truly desire it?” he asked me, eyes hooded and growing more crazed by the minute.

I knew how that felt. I remembered when Rune claimed me like it was yesterday. More tears formed.

“Yes,” I lied. “Feed from me.”

I went somewhere empty and numb.

I wasn’t sure where Brennan touched. I didn’t want to know.

I looked forward. I looked to freedom. I sighed contentedly, letting the vampire venom carry me back to Rune’s bedroom, when I’d worn a collar and loved every minute of it.

Because it had meant I belonged to someone, forever.

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