Page 5 of The Devils of Raven's Gate

I coat his entire cock with his own blood as tears spill from his eyes. The sigil burns bright, glowing red against his creamy alabaster skin.

Valentin comes through the door and rests his hands on Atlas’s shoulders. He places a soft kiss on his cheek. “Mors vincit omnia.” Death always wins.

Atlas throws his head back against the chair and releases a deep guttural moan. His silky white cum leaks out onto my fingers. I smear it into the blood and over his freshly carved sigil. “For the raven,” I breathe.

“For the raven,” they both whisper back.

It should be the only time I don’t long for my firecracker. When we are deep in ritual. But in fact, this is when I hunger for her more. I ache for it. To mark her with my power.

“You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you?” Valentin grumbles.

I watch the blood run down the drain as I wash my hands, admiring the way it swirls against the porcelain, changing from dark red to pink. “No,” I lie. I slowly glance up at myself in the mirror, wondering how much longer I can go without her. I run a hand through my black hair, tousling it between my scarred fingers. So many marks… I will soon run out of skin.

Atlas stands behind me, our eyes connecting in the mirror. “Tell us again.”

I’d recounted the brief exchange to my two best friends a dozen times since Halloween. “I was bored and there was a party in Wickford Hollow. So I went.”

Valentin hissed. “I still can’t believe you went there by yourself. What if one of the Blackwells had been there?”

“Relax,” I snapped. “I’m more than fucking capable of handling them on my own. Besides, there aren’t any Blackwells in Wickford Hollow. I wore my ski mask. No one knew who the fuck I was.”

Atlas fingers his freshly carved scar, dabbing at the blood that stains the skin around it. “And the firecracker?”

I sigh. Every time I tell them about her they both get hard as fuck. And they haven’t even seen her like I have. “I stalked her through the house, watching the way her throat bobbed every time she took a drink. The way her sweat trickled down in between her tits. I watched as those bastards herded her into the bathroom…” I grip the edge of the counter, my heart racing from the memory. Atlas and Valentin each place a hand on my shoulder.

“Go on,” Atlas murmurs.

“She was half-naked and covered in their cum.” I inhale a deep breath as I remember the moment I looked into her jeweled eyes—honey-gold like she had two pieces of citrine in her sockets. “She wouldn’t tell me her name. I didn’t give her mine. I zipped up her bustier and it took every ounce of strength I had not to drag her back here with me that night…” I still wake up in a cold sweat and for a split-second think I see her dark brown hair splayed on the pillow next to me.

Valentin nods, his brown eyes seething with lust and darkness. “Tell us again how you killed them.”

I white-knuckle the counter as a tiny drop of sweat trickles down the back of my neck. She was mine even before I saw her. And no one touches what’s mine. Fuck, I enjoyed gutting them from neck to scrotum. “Enough. I’m done talking about this. Our little firecracker is better off far away from us…” Wherever that may be.

Atlas groans. “We need fresh meat to play with. I want to fuck something innocent tonight.”

“They’ll be plenty of pussy at the party later. Besides, I already think I found a shiny new toy to torture.” Valentin’s lips curl into a devious smirk. That’s about the closest thing to a smile that will ever grace his flawless face. Even when he laughs, it’s cruel and wicked, and it never reflects in his eyes.

I raise an eyebrow as I finish dressing. “Freshman?”

He nods. “She’s got a feisty fucking mouth on her too.”

Atlas’s eyes light up. “Mmm, I love it when they bite back.”

But they rarely do. All the pretty girls open their legs for us the minute we walk into a room. We take what we want and feed the rest of the school our scraps. It has been getting tiresome and boring, but it amplifies our power. It solidifies our place at Tenebrose—at the top of the fucking food chain. We are Nocturnus—an ancient and secret order that has been passed down through generations. Everyone fears us and desires us at the same time. But it isn’t enough. I crave more. All three of us do.

Maureen

“Keep up, Blackwell,” Libra calls back to me.

This bitch.

I’m usually the bossy friend, not the other way around. And now here I am traipsing through the night, following a girl I’ve just met, in black stiletto heels and a short red dress that belongs to her. I can barely breathe in the form-fitting fabric and my feet are already aching. She had taken one look at the clothes I’d brought and announced she was taking me shopping next weekend. Ironic since I’m here at Tenebrose to study costume design.

I do have other clothes. Flashier pieces that I purposefully didn’t bring. I don’t want that kind of attention anymore. Fuck, I don’t even want to go to this party. Well, technically I do want to go. But I decided before I moved here to not be that girl again. My stomach knots just thinking about all those drunken nights. Too many to count and mostly a blur. Besides, after what happened at the last party I went to…

My stomach lurches as the image of his contorted face flashes in my mind. My chest heaves. I look down at my hands and for a moment, I can still see the knife in my palm, the blood between my fingers. “Fuck.” Just breathe, Maur.

“O.M.G,” she spells out. “Pick up the pace. I wanna get there before those heathens drink all the expensive shit.”

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