Page 47 of The Queen's Serpent

The words leave me in a deafening scream. “YOU! I… belong to you!”

“That’s agood girl,“ he utters, before pushing my face down into the bloody mess of Paulo’s chest, picking up speed and force, and fucking me so hard that it hurts. I can’t breathe as his hold on my neck keeps me pressed up against Paulo’s hard chest.

Fuck, I’m going die,it’s the last coherent thought I process as my body tightens painfully, and the waves of energy float over me, making me clench down on his thick cock as heat explodes through my body. The release is so intense that all I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears, and my skin tingles everywhere. As I struggle to get any air inside of my lungs, it forces my eyes to close and roll to the back of my head.

“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!” I scream into Paulo’s dead chest, my words muffled by the fabric and blood.

He thrusts twice more and cums with a roar inside of me, joining me in our unhinged oblivion. My eyes snap open, and all I can see is the tinge of red as my body comes back to itself, and, with it, an awareness that my face and upper body are covered in Paulo’s cooling blood. My mind and body threaten to revolt as panic sets back in, and I feel myself being pulled apart at the seams.

An unsettling coldness blankets my mind and body, forcing my limbs to feel numb and weighed down. A blackness that crawls up from the earth, wrapping itself around me, piece by fucking piece, and like a snake filled with venom, tightens, strangling what is left of me, one weak section at a time, until it promises that nothing will be left in its wake.

My body crawls forward until he releases me from his hold, and I feel his cock slip from inside of me, and the sensation of his cum oozing out of me. Nausea threatens me once again as my head spins, and I take huge lungfuls of air to stop myself from hyperventilating. I’m covered in death; he’s made me a willing accomplice to this insanity, and I hate that I enjoyed it, that I reveled in it, and that was the most powerful orgasm I’ve ever had at the expense of another living creature.

What does that say about me? Does it certify that I’m just as psychotic as Diego is? Maybe I’m worse because he at least had his reasons, demented as they are, but I didn’t have a reason for enjoying what he was doing to me. I could have, and should have, continued to fight. That’s what any normal, unbroken woman would have done, except I have never been normal. This just fucking proves how very abnormal I am.

“Issy… fuck,” his tone is low and cautious.

I stare over my shoulder at him, even as his deep, panting breaths are the only sound besides mine in the jungle. It’s as if nothing else even dares to inhale, or make a noise, at this moment. The world is utterly still, holding its breath for what is to come.

A trick of my vision makes him look like he’s entirely made of swirls of black and red. As if the darkness and savage bloodlust within him are pouring out for me to see. This is who he is, who he has always been. He will continue to be this way despite my love, despite my willingness to give him all of myself, and eventually, he will destroy what is left of me, corrupting me into this person I don’t want to be.

I don’t want to be a killer or relish in brutality, but if Diego has his way, that’s what I’ll become. The other side of him, the strong and ruthless woman he wants at his side. The fuckingqueen of serpents, because that is what he is, after all, a venomous snakewilling to kill without mercy and consume his prey, and I will be his mirror image.

Despite my feelings for him, and my heart seizing inside my chest with the realization that I’ll never be enough for him and I can’t stay with him, I can’t let him have me because I’ll be destructively empty if he does. He will continue to hurt me whether he realizes it or not. I have to save what is left of me and escape him.

Crushing defeat races through my veins, and my heart begs me to stay, while my mind and my self-preservation urge me to run, to get away from the monster who has taken a portion of my heart and soul, and will eventually take my life.

He must see some semblance of my thoughts across my features. His blazing gaze trails across my skin, leaving metaphorical blisters in its wake. “I won’t apologize for taking what is mine, Issy! You are fucking mine! You’re still not understanding it. No other man will ever have you, and no one will ever get to fill your pussy but me.”

“Except those you decide to share me or punish me with, right, you fucking bastard?” The words calmly leave my lips, despite the inner turmoil within me trying to seep out of all my pores.

“No one will touch you. No onehastouched you, Issy. You are my slut only.“ He reaches down and tucks his red-tinged cock back inside of his pants, and the corner of my lip lifts in disgust, both at his actions, and the reminder of what he just did to me.

“I’ll never forgive you for what you just did, not even if we’re in this fucking jungle for the rest of our miserable lives. What you did to me wasn’t love, Diego, it was hate. You don’t know how to love, and you’re just as fucking broken as I am.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness, Issy. I will continue to do what is best for us. As for loving you, you have no fucking idea what I’ve sacrificed to have you. The enemies I’ve made that coulddestroy my family, my whole fucking world, because I couldn’t give you up.”

His words should sound romantic to my ears. Isn’t that what every woman wants and dreams of? Isn’t that what all those naughty, dark romances claim we want? A man who will give up everything, sacrifice his whole life, and set the world on fire to have you.

Yet, they sound hollow to my ears, refusing to ignite that part of me that would have me once again kneeling at his feet, and bring with them only sorrow and misery. I never asked him to give up anything to be with me, in fact, I told him we were over, and look where it led me.

We are death walking hand in hand,HadesandPersephonedoomed to be together for all eternity. His darkness slowly but surely infecting my light, until I too, will be consumed by it. He will continue to hold me prisoner, and use any method at his disposal to keep me trapped in his world.

Chapter twenty-five

Diego

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.”

Mary Oliver

A rustle in the trees around us has me on high alert, my body immediately preparing to fight off anyone who tries to harm us. No one will fucking take her from me. I will murder every fucking person breathing on this earth if I have to, in order to keep her.You’ll destroy her, and nothing you love will be left standing.

There’s an alarm bell blaring inside my skull, my mind warning me that I’ve crossed a line that there is no turning back from. Insanity has gotten its talons deeply embedded inside of me now. I just killed one of my own men for daring to touch her, so how much farther would I go? Would I kill all of them for her? The truth pours in like a hurricane, disrupting and tearing everything I know about myself apart, until only rubble and shambles remain.

I would end the world for her, set it all up in a fucking blaze, until we were the only two people left. There is no limit to what I will do, no person that I won’t end, if they try to take her from me. The knowledge has me rising to my feet, prepared to take on whoever is coming for us. May God have mercy on their soul, because I won’t.

I spy Issy as she takes an unsteady step forward, and I release a growl in warning that has her freezing in her spot. Her faceand body are covered in red tinges of blood. The front of her dress is wholly plastered to her skin, and outlines every curve in the blood of a man who wanted what is mine. She stands there trembling like a leaf, shock across all of her beautiful features, and terror in her sapphire gaze, as she stares down at Paulo’s corpse.

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