Page 33 of The Queen's Serpent

Up ahead, I hear branches stirring and dart in that direction, but emptiness greets me when I part the thick, green leaves.Fuck, where is she?As much as I love the chase and want to run her down, my cock is weeping and hard in the confinement of my pants, the desire to bury it inside of her making it difficult to concentrate on the chase. My body fills with unhinged primal desire, and the need to dominate.

“Where are you,Princesa?“ I call out with humor, knowing full well she is not stupid enough to bother to answer me.

I keep moving forward, straining my ears to hear any sound that will help me determine where she is, and focusing my eyes to search for any hint of her. This jungle is wild and untamed past the limits of the compound. I’m not the only predator that she has to fear. That knowledge has another shot of adrenaline racing through my tense limbs. I need to find her and keep her safe from everything but me.

I push forward, and up ahead, something red flutters from a branch. I reach out and pull it from the broken limb, holding it in my fingers up to my face, only to realize it’s a piece of her bloody dress.Jackpot. She came this way and can’t be far now. Issy has no fundamental survival instincts or experience. She has never had to fight for her life. I’m counting on that making her sloppy and careless, and helping me to track my delicious prey.

Just as I’m turning around to pursue her further into the jungle foliage, something whacks me on the back of my head so hard that it has me falling forward to my knees, and seeingdouble. Before I can even shake off the double vision, something jumps on my back, limbs wrapping around my neck and pushing me further into the ground. My ears fill with the sounds of vicious snarls, even as a pair of strong, blood-streaked legs wrap around my waist from the back, and try to hold me down, squeezing me like a boa constrictor and taking what little breath I’m siphoning in.

What. The. Fuck.

A hand digs deeply and painfully into my hair, yanking on the strands, and pushes my face into the dirt. I try to use my strength to lift both of us back up, but the little psycho headbutts me hard on the back of my head, before sinking her teeth into the nape of my neck.

FUCK!The pain of her bite adds another level to this already out-of-control situation, and pushes me to a state of almost complete madness.Primal madness, where all I want is to fuck her hard until she’s no longer breathing.Control; try to get some control before you obliterate her. We don’t want to hurt her.

“You’re going to pay for that, Issy. Every fucking mark you leave on me, I will make sure to double on your body,” I grunt the words with a mouthful of dirt, my restraint hanging on by a tiny, insignificant thread.

“Promises, promises,” she hisses in my ear and snaps her teeth, biting down on the cartilage of my ear like a rabid animal.FUCK, she’s really enjoying herself now!

I get my knees out from under me and lift myself back up to my feet, struggling with the banshee who has wrapped herself around me, and is trying to maim me. Her ankles cross tightly around my waist even as her forearm digs into my throat, causing me to choke on the little air I have. Her teeth latch onto the side of my neck and bite down hard, eliciting a scream from my lips that sounds like an animal dying, and has all the birdsin the nearby trees taking to the air for safety. I try to yank on her body, but like a feral monkey on my back, she refuses to relinquish her hold.

“Let… go… and I won’t… fuck you… into a… coma.”

I have zero intentions of complying with my own words, regardless of whether she releases me or not. She’ll be lucky if she’s still fucking breathing when I’m done with her.

Instead of listening to my fucking words and releasing me from her tight hold, the little unhinged psycho slams one of her fists into the side of my head, forcing me to stumble while trying to hold the both of us upright.Fucking cunt, she’s going to pay for that.

“Stop telling me what to do, you kidnapping psychopath!” She screams, her breath hot on the side of my face.

I stumble back another step, almost tripping over the thick roots of a tree, and slam her into the trunk, the impact jarring both of us, and groans echo in the humid air. Her constraining hold releases as the air is knocked out of her. I turn my larger, heaving frame until I can get an arm up between our bodies, and I can grasp one of her soft breasts tightly. I squeeze hard until a murderous scream flees her lips.There she is, my sexy little slut.

Pressure builds within me, rising uncontrollably until I fear for both of our safety and sanity. The need to hurt her, to force her down to her knees, so that she can stare up at me with those large, midnight sky eyes overriding all my senses. I want her to worship at my altar, to prostrate herself before me, and reassure me that I am her God.

“Fuck, stop, Diego!” Tears slide down her blood-streaked face, as her nails dig into the back of my hand, trying desperately to release my hold.

I lean my shoulder into her chest, pushing her further into the tree and holding her up with my much larger body. Her feet don’t even touch the ground as she dangles, suspended by mybody and my will. “Never.I will never stop, Issy. You can fight me and try to run,but, baby, I will never let you go.”

Chapter nineteen

Issy

“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only.I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.”

Margaret Atwood

My breath catches in my throat as he continues to tighten his hold on my poor, abused breast.Fucking savage!My tearful eyes meet his, and I see nothing but madness in their deep, olive-toned depths, with gold specks shining in the filtered sunlight.

This is the true him, the monster that lurks leashed inside a cage that he tries to contain. The one he knows will destroy the world around him, if he doesn’t control it with an iron restraint. The monster I can’t tear my eyes away from, even though warning bells are ringing inside of my head.Run. Run as fast as you can from the danger,my mind warns, yet I stay rooted to the same spot.

My monster, my savage, my heart’s fucking desire.

As much as it terrifies me that my actions have unleashed him, and that he’s going to hurt me, because there is no doubt in my mind that he will now, it also brings with it an intense feeling of exhilaration. I want to chastise myself for pushing him beyond the point of no return, but the condescending, fearful bitch who lives inside of me is currently hiding.Hiding from the sadistic monster before us.

My throat constricts painfully with the scream that I’m trying desperately to swallow. I don’t want to give him any more of myweakness, even though he has me cornered. I refuse to allow him any further free reign over me. I want to show him that I can, and will, take him on. That the weak, broken doll he loves to use as a whore, will fight him every, single, fucking chance she gets.I will, won’t I?

My eyes trail over his rugged, angry features. His lips are pulled back in a bloodthirsty scowl, baring his perfect, straight, white teeth, even as it pulls on the flesh of his scar that some would say is an imperfection, a deformity to a stunning canvas.

To me, it just enhances his handsome face and shows me and the world his strength. That nothing and no one can ever take Diego Cabano down. He’s looked death in the face countless times, and refused to cower or break. Not even theGrim Reapercan take his soul, if he even has one.

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