Page 41 of Ruthless Desire

She shudders, eyelids fluttering shut as if to block out the sinister promise of my words. I chuckle, releasing her to stalk towards my captives, allowing the unhinged glee to bleed fully into my expression.

"Since my love is too soft-hearted to decide, I guess I'll have to improvise. Alonzo, pass me those pliers. Let's see how loud a mutt can yelp when you start pulling teeth."

The next minutes pass in a red blur of muffled screaming and wet, crunching sounds. I lose myself to the familiar dance of violence, a crimson-spattered valse where I am both composer and conductor.

By the time I step back to admire my grisly handiwork, the Russian is more gore than man, his shattered jaw hanging askew as he gurgles on his own blood. I feel Natalie's stare like a brand between my shoulders, disgust and reluctant fascination singes me to the marrow.

Turning to face her, I spread my arms wide, viscera dripping from my fingers to stain the plush carpets below. Her horrified gaze rakes over me, drinking in every lurid detail of the beautiful carnage I've wrought.

"This is who I am, Natalie," I rasp, letting her see the unholy rapture thrumming through my veins, the sickness that blackens my soul. "This is the beast whose bed you warm, the monster who will one day sire your children. Tell me, Moya Koroleva... do you still think you can deny me?"

I extend a blood-drenched hand, a perverse invitation to the infernal waltz that will define our entwined eternities. Natalie hesitates for a breathless moment, revulsion and that ever-present, insidious heat warring behind her blown-black eyes.

Then, with a muted sob that sounds like the sweetest surrender, she places her trembling fingers in mine, the blood squelching obscenely between our skin.

I grin, feral and victorious, tugging her to me until our lips hover a hairsbreadth apart.

"That's my good girl," I croon, nipping the words into her quivering mouth. "My obedient little pawn, so ripe for ruination. Now come, moy dragotsennyy..."

I lead her down the hall, back towards the velvet shadows of my bedroom, my blood singing with the thrill of a battle hard-won. There will be more wars to come, more of her walls for me to demolish brick by stubborn brick.

But tonight, with the moon staining crimson and my enemies' anguish still ringing in my ears, I will remind Natalie of her place, the throne of thorns and obsidian that awaits only her.

And when she's panting my name, nails scoring furrows into my sweat-slicked back as I drill my dominion into her very bones, I'll swallow each broken moan, glutting myself on the honeyed depravity of her shattered cries.

For I am her king, her cruel god.

And in the end, she'll always kneel.

Chapter 15 Natalie

The ancient floorboards creak beneath my bare feet as I creep down the shadowed hallway, my heart a caged bird throwing itself against my ribs. Every instinct screams at me to turn back, to flee the inky darkness swallowing me whole.

But I don't.

Can't. Some reckless impulse spurs me forward, a moth drawn to a flame that will surely devour me whole.

Dante's office looms before me, the mahogany door an imposing sentinel guarding the monster's den. No, not a monster. A man.

A cruel, twisted, beautiful man who's burrowed beneath my skin like a splinter I can't shed.

I shouldn't be here. Shouldn't cross this threshold into his shadowy inner sanctum. But even as the thought flits through my mind, my rebellious hand is already turning the brass knob, my lungs ceasing their strained rhythm as I ease the door open with agonizing slowness.

The hinges sigh their protest, the sound deafening in the tomb-like stillness. For a moment, I'm frozen, certain Dante will materialize from the gloom, all wicked smiles and knowing eyes, ready to mete out retribution for my trespass.

But the seconds tick by, and no avenging angel descends upon me. Slowly, I exhale, slipping into the room like a thief in the night.

Darkness blankets every surface, the only illumination the thin slash of silver moonlight knifing in through parted curtains. Ghostly shadows stretch across a massive desk, over towering oak shelves crammed with books on subjects too esoteric for me to parse.

This is Dante's lair, the epicenter of his sprawling criminal enterprise. I can feel his essence saturate every atom, dark and intoxicating and laced with the bitter tang of blood. It should repulse me, should send me fleeing back to the scant safety of my gilded cage. Instead, it pulls me deeper, an invisible cord tugging me to the great oak desk dominating the space.

My fingertips trail over the gleaming wood, skate across the buttery leather blotter. Unbidden, an image rises in my mind - Dante seated here, a dark emperor upon his throne, all cruel beauty and lethal grace. I imagine him working, making his obscure calculations, his brutal machinations, long fingers dancing over documents steeped in shadow and sin.

A queer shudder ripples through me, fear and revulsion and something far more dangerous swirling in my belly. Disgust - at him or myself, I no longer know - rising like bile. I should leave. Now, before this poisonous fascination drags me under, drowns me in inky blackness so absolute, there's no hope of resurfacing.

But even as I grasp for the fraying edges of reason, my gaze catches on the bottom drawer. It sits slightly ajar, an onyx slice against the surrounding wood, beckoning me with siren song. What secrets does it hold?

What remnants of Dante's twisted psyche, his darkest truths, lie tucked within?

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