Page 85 of Moonlit Temptation

“You’ll thank me, boy. We can’t have you distracted.”

Madelayne wasn’t a distraction. She was my salivation. My molars grounded together.

Don’t speak. Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you unwind. That’s what he wants.

The Leader stepped in close, and I could smell his aftershave as he patted my cheek. Like the good little pet I was supposed to be.

Condescending prick. I struggled not to glare at him.

“Hate me now all you want, Saint, but we have big plans for you. I have big plans for you.” He was impossibly close, hand still on my cheek, when he reached down and pulled my cigarette from where it was clenched between my fingers.

I barely felt his fingers graze mine before he slipped it between his lips.

He didn’t back away as he took a drag, blowing the smoke in my face as he said, “You’ll forgive me in the end.”

“You sound so sure of that.”

I didn’t back away and neither did he as he dropped his voice into a sinister whisper that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Oh, I am, because I’m letting your pretty little sex toy live. As long as you don’t touch her, she gets to keep breathing.”

I wished it was an idle threat made by a weaker man, but I had been around the Leader far too long to know that nothing about him was idle. Least of all his threats.

They were as good as promises, and the man never went back on a promise.

“You won’t have to worry about her any longer, sir.” There was a reason the Leader liked me so much. I knew how to play his game. Knew how to suppress the rage he always stirred, when to keep my mouth shut and my hands to myself.

I knew how to subdue everything if it meant getting what I wanted.

And I wanted everything the Leader was protecting.

“You make me proud, son.”

I nodded, my neck feeling like stone.

Everything in my body felt stiff. Rods held me together instead of bones. All I saw was Mady’s face.

Her sweet, beautiful, doe-eyed face crushed with my callous words and frigid treatment. All for him.

“Thank you, sir.” The words tasted no better than candle ash.

“See you in a few weeks.”

Again, I forced myself to nod through the stiffness. The Leader gave me one last look before leaving through the back door, taking my cigarette with him.

After he was gone, I felt my body collapse into itself. Exhaustion sank into my bones, waiting for a surrender.

I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this tired before three in the morning, but I was just ready for this day to end. Part of me wanted to just stretch out on my sectional, but it was littered with party remains and I didn’t have the desire or the energy to clean it tonight.

So with trepidation I forced myself up the stairs, not caring that I was afraid to find what greeted me when I got to my bedroom.

I half expected Madelayne to have torn it apart. I would’ve welcomed it.

Instead, my room was practically untouched. Exactly how I left it, save for the heaviness that surrounded me. As if our conversation still lingered, all the vile words and broken promises now decorating the space.

It felt haunted, and my throat started to close up. Suffocating me with all the lingering pain.

I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t?—

I turned to leave when something on my dresser caught my attention. Or rather, the lack of something.

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